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"Salvador Dalí",
"Symbolism",
"What type of symbolism did Dali use?",
"The elephant is also a recurring image in Dali's works.",
"What did the elephant mean?",
"\"The elephant is a distortion in space\", one analysis explains, \"its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure.",
"Did Dali use any other forms of symbolism?",
"The egg is another common Daliesque image.",
"What did the egg represent?",
"He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love;",
"How did Dali come up with these symbolism ideas?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_6b3cf6c103be4cff822da0ceaebbd6b1_0
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how did Dali use this symbolism?
| 6 |
How did Salvador Dalí use the elephant and egg symbols?
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Salvador Dalí
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Dali employed extensive symbolism in his work. For instance, the hallmark "melting watches" that first appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. The idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to Dali when he was staring at a runny piece of Camembert cheese on a hot August day. The elephant is also a recurring image in Dali's works. It appeared in his 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants, inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, are portrayed "with long, multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire" along with obelisks on their backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic overtones, create a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant is a distortion in space", one analysis explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure." "I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly." --Salvador Dali, in Dawn Ades, Dali and Surrealism. The egg is another common Daliesque image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love; it appears in The Great Masturbator and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. The Metamorphosis of Narcissus also symbolized death and petrification. There are also giant sculptures of eggs in various locations at Dali's house in Port Lligat as well as at the Dali Theatre and Museum in Figueres. Various other animals appear throughout his work as well: ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire; the snail is connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear. Both Dali and his father enjoyed eating sea urchins, freshly caught in the sea near Cadaques. The radial symmetry of the sea urchin fascinated Dali, and he adapted its form to many art works. Other foods also appear throughout his work. CANNOTANSWER
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Dali employed extensive symbolism in his work.
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Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.
Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931, and is one of the most famous Surrealist paintings. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his "nuclear mysticism" style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments.
Dalí's artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork. His public support for the Francoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial. His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.
There are two major museums devoted to Salvador Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Biography
Early life
Salvador Dalí was born on 11 May 1904, at 8:45 am, on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí's older brother, who had also been named Salvador (born 12 October 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier, on 1 August 1903. His father, Salvador Rafael Aniceto Dalí Cusí (1872–1950) was a middle-class lawyer and notary, an anti-clerical atheist and Catalan federalist, whose strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa Domènech Ferrés (1874–1921), who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors. In the summer of 1912, the family moved to the top floor of Carrer Monturiol 24 (presently 10). Dalí later attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descendants of the Moors.
Dalí was haunted by the idea of his dead brother throughout his life, mythologizing him in his writings and art. Dalí said of him, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections." He "was probably the first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute". Images of his brother would reappear in his later works, including Portrait of My Dead Brother (1963).
Dalí also had a sister, Anna Maria, who was three years younger. In 1949, she published a book about her brother, Dalí as Seen by His Sister.
His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Emili Sagi-Barba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort town of Cadaqués, the trio played football together.
Dalí attended the Municipal Drawing School at Figueres in 1916 and also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres in 1918, a site he would return to decades later. In early 1921 the Pichot family introduced Dalí to Futurism and Dalí's uncle Anselm Domènech, who owned a bookshop in Barcelona, supplied him with books and magazines on Cubism and contemporary art.
On 6 February 1921, Dalí's mother died of uterine cancer. Dalí was 16 years old and later said his mother's death "was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul." After his wife's death, Dalí's father married her sister. Dalí did not resent this marriage, because he had great love and respect for his aunt.
Madrid, Barcelona and Paris
In 1922, Dalí moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts). A lean tall, Dalí already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy. He had long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee-breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century.
At the Residencia, he became close friends with Pepín Bello, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, and others associated with the Madrid avant-garde group Ultra. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí said he rejected the poet's sexual advances. Dalí's friendship with Lorca was to remain one of his most emotionally intense relationships until the poet's death at the hands of Nationalist forces in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Also in 1922, he began what would become a lifelong relationship with the Prado Museum, which he felt was, 'incontestably the best museum of old paintings in the world.' Each Sunday morning, Dalí went to the Prado to study the works of the great masters. 'This was the start of a monk-like period for me, devoted entirely to solitary work: visits to the Prado, where, pencil in hand, I analyzed all of the great masterpieces, studio work, models, research.'
Dalí's paintings in which he experimented with Cubism earned him the most attention from his fellow students since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time. Cabaret Scene (1922) is a typical example of such work. Through his association with members of the Ultra group, Dalí became more acquainted with avant-garde movements, including Dada and Futurism. One of his earliest works to show a strong Futurist and Cubist influence was the watercolor Night-Walking Dreams (1922). At this time, Dalí also read Freud and Lautréamont who were to have a profound influence on his work.
In May 1925 Dalí exhibited eleven works in a group exhibition held by the newly formed Sociedad Ibérica de Artistas in Madrid. Seven of the works were in his Cubist mode and four in a more realist style. Several leading critics praised Dalí's work. Dalí held his first solo exhibition at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, from 14 to 27 November 1925. This exhibition, before his exposure to Surrealism, included twenty-two works and was a critical and commercial success.
In April 1926 Dalí made his first trip to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about Dalí from Joan Miró, a fellow Catalan who later introduced him to many Surrealist friends. As he developed his own style over the next few years, Dalí made some works strongly influenced by Picasso and Miró. Dalí was also influenced by the work of Yves Tanguy, and he later allegedly told Tanguy's niece, "I pinched everything from your uncle Yves."
Dalí left the Royal Academy in 1926, shortly before his final exams. His mastery of painting skills at that time was evidenced by his realistic The Basket of Bread, painted in 1926.
Later that year he exhibited again at Galeries Dalmau, from 31 December 1926 to 14 January 1927, with the support of the art critic . The show included twenty-three paintings and seven drawings, with the "Cubist" works displayed in a separate section from the "objective" works. The critical response was generally positive with Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) singled out for particular attention.
From 1927 Dalí's work became increasingly influenced by Surrealism. Two of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927) and Gadget and Hand (1927), were shown at the annual Autumn Salon (Saló de tardor) in Barcelona in October 1927. Dalí described the earlier of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood, as "equidistant between Cubism and Surrealism". The works featured many elements that were to become characteristic of his Surrealist period including dreamlike images, precise draftsmanship, idiosyncratic iconography (such as rotting donkeys and dismembered bodies), and lighting and landscapes strongly evocative of his native Catalonia. The works provoked bemusement among the public and debate among critics about whether Dalí had become a Surrealist.
Influenced by his reading of Freud, Dalí increasingly introduced suggestive sexual imagery and symbolism into his work. He submitted Dialogue on the Beach (Unsatisfied Desires) (1928) to the Barcelona Autumn Salon for 1928 but the work was rejected because "it was not fit to be exhibited in any gallery habitually visited by the numerous public little prepared for certain surprises." The resulting scandal was widely covered in the Barcelona press and prompted a popular Madrid illustrated weekly to publish an interview with Dalí.
Some trends in Dalí's work that would continue throughout his life were already evident in the 1920s. Dalí was influenced by many styles of art, ranging from the most academically classic, to the most cutting-edge avant-garde. His classical influences included Raphael, Bronzino, Francisco de Zurbarán, Vermeer and Velázquez. Exhibitions of his works attracted much attention and a mixture of praise and puzzled debate from critics who noted an apparent inconsistency in his work by the use of both traditional and modern techniques and motifs between works and within individual works.
In the mid-1920s Dalí grew a neatly trimmed mustache. In later decades he cultivated a more flamboyant one in the manner of 17th-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez, and this mustache became a well known Dalí icon.
1929 to World War II
In 1929, Dalí collaborated with Surrealist film director Luis Buñuel on the short film (An Andalusian Dog). His main contribution was to help Buñuel write the script for the film. Dalí later claimed to have also played a significant role in the filming of the project, but this is not substantiated by contemporary accounts. In August 1929, Dalí met his lifelong muse and future wife Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. She was a Russian immigrant ten years his senior, who at that time was married to Surrealist poet Paul Éluard.
In works such as The First Days of Spring, The Great Masturbator and The Lugubrious Game Dalí continued his exploration of the themes of sexual anxiety and unconscious desires. Dalí's first Paris exhibition was at the recently opened Goemans Gallery in November 1929 and featured eleven works. In his preface to the catalog, André Breton described Dalí's new work as "the most hallucinatory that has been produced up to now". The exhibition was a commercial success but the critical response was divided. In the same year, Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris. The Surrealists hailed what Dalí was later to call his paranoiac-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity.
Meanwhile, Dalí's relationship with his father was close to rupture. Don Salvador Dalí y Cusi strongly disapproved of his son's romance with Gala and saw his connection to the Surrealists as a bad influence on his morals. The final straw was when Don Salvador read in a Barcelona newspaper that his son had recently exhibited in Paris a drawing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, with a provocative inscription: "Sometimes, I spit for fun on my mother's portrait". Outraged, Don Salvador demanded that his son recant publicly. Dalí refused, perhaps out of fear of expulsion from the Surrealist group, and was violently thrown out of his paternal home on 28 December 1929. His father told him that he would be disinherited and that he should never set foot in Cadaqués again. The following summer, Dalí and Gala rented a small fisherman's cabin in a nearby bay at Port Lligat. He soon bought the cabin, and over the years enlarged it by buying neighboring ones, gradually building his beloved villa by the sea. Dalí's father would eventually relent and come to accept his son's companion.
In 1931, Dalí painted one of his most famous works, The Persistence of Memory, which developed a surrealistic image of soft, melting pocket watches. The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and other limp watches shown being devoured by ants.
Dalí had two important exhibitions at the Pierre Colle Gallery in Paris in June 1931 and May–June 1932. The earlier exhibition included sixteen paintings of which The Persistence of Memory attracted the most attention. Some of the notable features of the exhibitions were the proliferation of images and references to Dalí's muse Gala and the inclusion of Surrealist Objects such as Hypnagogic Clock and Clock Based on the Decomposition of Bodies. Dalí's last, and largest, the exhibition at the Pierre Colle Gallery was held in June 1933 and included twenty-two paintings, ten drawings, and two objects. One critic noted Dalí's precise draftsmanship and attention to detail, describing him as a "paranoiac of geometrical temperament". Dalí's first New York exhibition was held at Julien Levy's gallery in November–December 1933. The exhibition featured twenty-six works and was a commercial and critical success. The New Yorker critic praised the precision and lack of sentimentality in the works, calling them "frozen nightmares".
Dalí and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were civilly married on 30 January 1934 in Paris. They later remarried in a Church ceremony on 8 August 1958 at Sant Martí Vell. In addition to inspiring many artworks throughout her life, Gala would act as Dalí's business manager, supporting their extravagant lifestyle while adeptly steering clear of insolvency. Gala, who herself engaged in extra-marital affairs, seemed to tolerate Dalí's dalliances with younger muses, secure in her own position as his primary relationship. Dalí continued to paint her as they both aged, producing sympathetic and adoring images of her. The "tense, complex and ambiguous relationship" lasting over 50 years would later become the subject of an opera, Jo, Dalí (I, Dalí) by Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel.
Dalí's first visit to the United States in November 1934 attracted widespread press coverage. His second New York exhibition was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in November–December 1934 and was again a commercial and critical success. Dalí delivered three lectures on Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and other venues during which he told his audience for the first time that "[t]he only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad." The heiress Caresse Crosby, the inventor of the brassiere, organized a farewell fancy dress ball for Dalí on 18 January 1935. Dalí wore a glass case on his chest containing a brassiere and Gala dressed as a woman giving birth through her head. A Paris newspaper later claimed that the Dalís had dressed as the Lindbergh baby and his kidnapper, a claim which Dalí denied.
While the majority of the Surrealist group had become increasingly associated with leftist politics, Dalí maintained an ambiguous position on the subject of the proper relationship between politics and art. Leading Surrealist André Breton accused Dalí of defending the "new" and "irrational" in "the Hitler phenomenon", but Dalí quickly rejected this claim, saying, "I am Hitlerian neither in fact nor intention". Dalí insisted that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism. Later in 1934, Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he narrowly avoided being expelled from the Surrealist group. To this, Dalí retorted, "The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist."
In 1936, Dalí took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. His lecture, titled , was delivered while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply into the human mind."
Dalí's first solo London exhibition was held at the Alex, Reid, and Lefevre Gallery the same year. The show included twenty-nine paintings and eighteen drawings. The critical response was generally favorable, although the Daily Telegraph critic wrote: "These pictures from the subconscious reveal so skilled a craftsman that the artist's return to full consciousness may be awaited with interest."
In December 1936 Dalí participated in the Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at MoMA and a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. Both exhibitions attracted large attendances and widespread press coverage. The painting Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936) attracted particular attention. Dalí later described it as, "a vast human body breaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto-strangulation". On 14 December, Dalí, aged 32, was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
From 1933 Dalí was supported by Zodiac, a group of affluent admirers who each contributed to a monthly stipend for the painter in exchange for a painting of their choice. From 1936 Dalí's main patron in London was the wealthy Edward James who would support him financially for two years. One of Dalí's most important paintings from the period of James' patronage was The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937). They also collaborated on two of the most enduring icons of the Surrealist movement: the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa.
Dalí was in London when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. When he later learned that his friend Lorca had been executed by Nationalist forces, Dalí's claimed response was to shout: "Olé!" Dalí was to include frequent references to the poet in his art and writings for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic for the duration of the conflict.
In January 1938, Dalí unveiled Rainy Taxi, a three-dimensional artwork consisting of an automobile and two mannequin occupants being soaked with rain from within the taxi. The piece was first displayed at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, organized by André Breton and Paul Éluard. The Exposition was designed by artist Marcel Duchamp, who also served as host.
In March that year, Dalí met Sigmund Freud thanks to Stefan Zweig. As Dalí sketched Freud's portrait, Freud whispered, "That boy looks like a fanatic." Dalí was delighted upon hearing later about this comment from his hero. The following day Freud wrote to Zweig "...until now I have been inclined to regard the Surrealists, who have apparently adopted me as their patron saint, as complete fools.....That young Spaniard, with his candid fanatical eyes and his undeniable technical mastery, has changed my estimate. It would indeed be very interesting to investigate analytically how he came to create that picture [i.e. Metamorphosis of Narcissus]."
In September 1938, Salvador Dalí was invited by Gabrielle Coco Chanel to her house "La Pausa" in Roquebrune on the French Riviera. There he painted numerous paintings he later exhibited at Julien Levy Gallery in New York. This exhibition in March–April 1939 included twenty-one paintings and eleven drawings. Life reported that no exhibition in New York had been so popular since Whistler's Mother was shown in 1934.
At the 1939 New York World's Fair, Dalí debuted his Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion, located in the Amusements Area of the exposition. It featured bizarre sculptures, statues, mermaids, and live nude models in "costumes" made of fresh seafood, an event photographed by Horst P. Horst, George Platt Lynes, and Murray Korman. Dalí was angered by changes to his designs, railing against mediocrities who thought that "a woman with the tail of a fish is possible; a woman with the head of a fish impossible."
Soon after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, Dalí wrote to Luis Buñuel denouncing socialism and Marxism and praising Catholicism and the Falange. As a result, Buñuel broke off relations with Dalí.
In the May issue of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, André Breton announced Dalí's expulsion from the Surrealist group, claiming that Dalí had espoused race war and that the over-refinement of his paranoiac-critical method was a repudiation of Surrealist automatism. This led many Surrealists to break off relations with Dalí. In 1949 Breton coined the derogatory nickname "Avida Dollars" (avid for dollars), an anagram for "Salvador Dalí". This was a derisive reference to the increasing commercialization of Dalí's work, and the perception that Dalí sought self-aggrandizement through fame and fortune.
World War II
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 saw the Dalís in France. Following the German invasion, they were able to escape because on 20 June 1940 they were issued visas by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, France. They crossed into Portugal and subsequently sailed on the Excambion from Lisbon to New York in August 1940. Dalí and Gala were to live in the United States for eight years, splitting their time between New York and the Monterey Peninsula, California.
Dalí spent the winter of 1940–41 at Hampton Manor, the residence of Caresse Crosby, in Caroline County, Virginia, where he worked on various projects including his autobiography and paintings for his upcoming exhibition.
Dalí announced the death of the Surrealist movement and the return of classicism in his exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in April–May 1941. The exhibition included nineteen paintings (among them Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire and The Face of War) and other works. In his catalog essay and media comments, Dalí proclaimed a return to form, control, structure and the Golden Section. Sales however were disappointing and the majority of critics did not believe there had been a major change in Dalí's work.
The Museum of Modern Art held two major, simultaneous retrospectives of Dali and Joan Miró from November 1941 to February 1942, Dalí being represented by forty-two paintings and sixteen drawings. Dalí's work attracted significant attention of critics and the exhibition later toured eight American cities, enhancing his reputation in America.
In October 1942, Dalí's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí was published simultaneously in New York and London and was reviewed widely by the press. Time magazine's reviewer called it "one of the most irresistible books of the year". George Orwell later wrote a scathing review in the Saturday Book. A passage in the autobiography in which Dalí claimed that Buñuel was solely responsible for the anti-clericalism in the film L'Age d'Or may have indirectly led to Buñuel resigning his position at MoMA in 1943 under pressure from the State Department. Dalí also published a novel Hidden Faces in 1944 with less critical and commercial success.
In the catalog essay for his exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1943 Dalí continued his attack on the Surrealist movement, writing: "Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system. ... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college [collage]". The critical response to the society portraits in the exhibition, however, was generally negative.
In November–December 1945 Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery in New York. The exhibition included eleven oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and illustrations. Works included Basket of Bread, Atomic and Uranian Melancholic Ideal, and My Wife Nude Contemplating her own Body Transformed into Steps, the Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture. The exhibition was notable for works in Dalí's new classicism style and those heralding his "atomic period".
During the war years, Dalí was also engaged in projects in various other fields. He executed designs for a number of ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, and The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944). In 1945 he created the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound. He also produced artwork and designs for products such as perfumes, cosmetics, hosiery and ties.
Post War in United States (1946–48)
In 1946 Dalí worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on an unfinished animated film Destino.
Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery from November 1947 to January 1948. The 14 oil paintings and other works in the exhibition reflected Dalí's increasing interest in atomic physics. Notable works included Dematerialization Near the Nose of Nero (The Separation of the Atom), Intra-Atomic Equilibrium of a Swan's Feather, and a study for Leda Atomica. The proportions of the latter work were worked out in collaboration with a mathematician.
In early 1948 Dalí's 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship was published. The book was a mixture of anecdotes, practical advice on painting, and Dalínian polemics.
Later years in Spain
In 1948 Dalí and Gala moved back into their house in Port Lligat, on the coast near Cadaqués. For the next three decades, they would spend most of their time there, spending winters in Paris and New York. Dalí's decision to live in Spain under Franco and his public support for the regime prompted outrage from many anti-Francoist artists and intellectuals. Pablo Picasso refused to mention Dalí's name or acknowledge his existence for the rest of his life. In 1960, André Breton unsuccessfully fought against the inclusion of Dalí's Sistine Madonna in the Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanter's Domain exhibition organized by Marcel Duchamp in New York. Breton and other Surrealists issued a tract to coincide with the exhibition denouncing Dalí as "the ex-apologist of Hitler... and friend of Franco".
In December 1949 Dalí's sister Anna Maria published her book Salvador Dalí Seen by his Sister. Dalí was angered by passages that he considered derogatory towards his wife Gala and broke off relations with his family. When Dalí's father died in September 1950 Dalí learned that he had been virtually disinherited in his will. A two-year legal dispute followed over paintings and drawings Dalí had left in his family home, during which Dalí was accused of assaulting a public notary.
As Dalí moved further towards embracing Catholicism he introduced more religious iconography and themes in his painting. In 1949 he painted a study for The Madonna of Port Lligat (first version, 1949) and showed it to Pope Pius XII during an audience arranged to discuss Dalí 's marriage to Gala. This work was a precursor to the phase Dalí dubbed "Nuclear Mysticism," a fusion of Einsteinian physics, classicism, and Catholic mysticism. In paintings such as The Madonna of Port Lligat, The Christ of Saint John on the Cross and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, Dalí sought to synthesize Christian iconography with images of material disintegration inspired by nuclear physics. His later Nuclear Mysticism works included La Gare de Perpignan (1965) and The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–70).
Dalí's keen interest in natural science and mathematics was further manifested by the proliferation of images of DNA and rhinoceros horn shapes in works from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. Dalí was also fascinated by the Tesseract (a four-dimensional cube), using it, for example, in Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).
Dalí had been extensively using optical illusions such as double images, anamorphosis, negative space, visual puns and trompe-l'œil since his Surrealist period and this continued in his later work. At some point, Dalí had a glass floor installed in a room near his studio in Port Lligat. He made extensive use of it to study foreshortening, both from above and from below, incorporating dramatic perspectives of figures and objects into his paintings. He also experimented with the bulletist technique pointillism, enlarged half-tone dot grids and stereoscopic images. He was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. In Dalí's later years, young artists such as Andy Warhol proclaimed him an important influence on pop art.
In 1960, Dalí began work on his Theatre-Museum in his home town of Figueres. It was his largest single project and a main focus of his energy through to 1974, when it opened. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s.
In 1955 Dalí met Nanita Kalaschnikoff, who was to become a close friend, muse, and model. At a French nightclub in 1965 Dalí met Amanda Lear, a fashion model then known as Peki Oslo. Lear became his protégée and one of his muses. According to Lear, she and Dalí were united in a "spiritual marriage" on a deserted mountaintop.
Final years and death
In 1968, Dalí bought a castle in Púbol for Gala, and from 1971 she would retreat there for weeks at a time, Dalí having agreed not to visit without her written permission. His fears of abandonment and estrangement from his longtime artistic muse contributed to depression and failing health.
In 1980, at age 76, Dalí's health deteriorated sharply and he was treated for depression, drug addiction, and Parkinson-like symptoms, including a severe tremor in his right arm. There were also allegations that Gala had been supplying Dalí with pharmaceuticals from her own prescriptions.
Gala died on 10 June 1982, at the age of 87. After her death, Dalí moved from Figueres to the castle in Púbol, where she was entombed.
In 1982, King Juan Carlos bestowed on Dalí the title of Marqués de Dalí de Púbol (Marquess of Dalí of Púbol) in the nobility of Spain, Púbol being where Dalí then lived. The title was initially hereditary, but at Dalí's request was changed to life-only in 1983.
In May 1983, what was said to be Dalí's last painting, The Swallow's Tail, was revealed. The work was heavily influenced by the mathematical catastrophe theory of René Thom. However, some critics have questioned how Dalí could have executed a painting with such precision given the severe tremor in his painting arm.
From early 1984 Dalí's depression worsened and he refused food, leading to severe undernourishment. Dalí had previously stated his intention to put himself into a state of suspended animation as he had read that some microorganisms could do. In August 1984 a fire broke out in Dalí's bedroom and he was hospitalized with severe burns. Two judicial inquiries found that the fire was caused by an electrical fault and no findings of negligence were made. After his release from hospital Dalí moved to the Torre Galatea, an annex to the Dalí Theatre-Museum.
There have been allegations that Dalí was forced by his guardians to sign blank canvases that could later be used in forgeries. It is also alleged that he knowingly sold otherwise-blank lithograph paper which he had signed, possibly producing over 50,000 such sheets from 1965 until his death. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late graphic works attributed to Dalí.
In July 1986, Dalí had a pacemaker implanted. On his return to his Theatre-Museum he made a brief public appearance, saying:
In November 1988, Dalí entered hospital with heart failure. On 5 December 1988, he was visited by King Juan Carlos, who confessed that he had always been a serious devotee of Dalí. Dalí gave the king a drawing, Head of Europa, which would turn out to be Dalí's final drawing.
On the morning of 23 January 1989, while his favorite record of Tristan and Isolde played, Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84. He is buried in the crypt below the stage of his Theatre-Museum in Figueres. The location is across the street from the church of Sant Pere, where he had his baptism, first communion, and funeral, and is only from the house where he was born.
The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation currently serves as his official estate. The US copyright representative for the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.
Exhumation
On 26 June 2017 it was announced that a judge in Madrid had ordered the exhumation of Dalí's body in order to obtain samples for a paternity suit. Joan Manuel Sevillano, manager of the Fundación Gala Salvador Dalí (The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation), denounced the exhumation as inappropriate. The exhumation took place on the evening of 20 July, and his DNA was extracted. On 6 September 2017 the Foundation stated that the tests carried out proved conclusively that Dalí and the claimant were not related. On 18 May 2020 a Spanish court dismissed an appeal from the claimant and ordered her to pay the costs of the exhumation.
Symbolism
From the late 1920s, Dalí progressively introduced many bizarre or incongruous images into his work which invite symbolic interpretation. While some of these images suggest a straightforward sexual or Freudian interpretation (Dalí read Freud in the 1920s) others (such as locusts, rotting donkeys, and sea urchins) are idiosyncratic and have been variously interpreted. Some commentators have cautioned that Dalí's own comments on these images are not always reliable.
Food
Food and eating have a central place in Dalí's thoughts and work. He associated food with beauty and sex and was obsessed with the image of the female praying mantis eating her mate after copulation. Bread was a recurring image in Dalí's art, from his early work The Basket of Bread to later public performances such as in 1958 when he gave a lecture in Paris armed with a 12-meter-long baguette. He saw bread as "the elementary basis of continuity" and "sacred subsistence".
The egg is another common Dalínian image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love. It appears in The Great Masturbator, The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and many other works. There are also giant sculptures of eggs in various locations at Dalí's house in Port Lligat as well as at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres.
Both Dalí and his father enjoyed eating sea urchins, freshly caught in the sea near Cadaqués. The radial symmetry of the sea urchin fascinated Dalí, and he adapted its form to many artworks. Other foods also appear throughout his work.
The famous "melting watches" that appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. Dalí later claimed that the idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to him when he was contemplating Camembert cheese.
Animals
The rhinoceros and rhinoceros horn shapes began to proliferate in Dalí's work from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. He linked the rhinoceros to themes of chastity and to the Virgin Mary. However, he also used it as an obvious phallic symbol as in Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity.
Various other animals appear throughout Dalí's work: rotting donkeys and ants have been interpreted as pointing to death, decay, and sexual desire; the snail as connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts as a symbol of waste and fear. The elephant is also a recurring image in his work; for example, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants are inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk.
Science
Dalí's life-long interest in science and mathematics was often reflected in his work. His soft watches have been interpreted as references to Einstein's theory of the relativity of time and space. Images of atomic particles appeared in his work soon after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and strands of D.N.A. appeared from the mid-1950s. In 1958 he wrote in his Anti-Matter Manifesto: "In the Surrealist period, I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today, the exterior world and that of physics have transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg."
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954) harks back to The Persistence of Memory (1931) and in portraying that painting in fragmentation and disintegration has been interpreted as a reference to Heisenberg's quantum mechanics.
Endeavors outside painting
Dalí was a versatile artist. Some of his more popular works are sculptures and other objects, and he is also noted for his contributions to theater, fashion, and photography, among other areas.
Sculptures and other objects
From the early 1930s, Dalí was an enthusiastic proponent of the proliferation of three-dimensional Surrealist Objects to subvert perceptions of conventional reality, writing: "museums will fast fill with objects whose uselessness, size and crowding will necessitate the construction, in deserts, of special towers to contain them." His more notable early objects include Board of Demented Associations (1930–31), Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933), Venus de Milo with Chest of Drawers (1936) and Aphrodisiac Dinner Jacket (1936). Two of the most popular objects of the Surrealist movement were Lobster Telephone (1936) and Mae West Lips Sofa (1937) which were commissioned by art patron Edward James. Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for Dalí who drew a close analogy between food and sex. The telephone was functional, and James purchased four of them from Dalí to replace the phones in his home. The Mae West Lips Sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, who was previously the subject of Dalí's watercolor, The Face of Mae West which may be used as a Surrealist Apartment (1934–35). In December 1936 Dalí sent Harpo Marx a Christmas present of a harp with barbed-wire strings.
After World War II Dalí authorized many sculptures derived from his most famous works and images. In his later years other sculptures also appeared, often in large editions, whose authenticity has sometimes been questioned.
Between 1941 and 1970, Dalí created an ensemble of 39 pieces of jewelry, many of which are intricate, some containing moving parts. The most famous assemblage, The Royal Heart, is made of gold and is encrusted with 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and four emeralds, created in such a way that the center "beats" like a heart.
Dalí ventured into industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Dalí decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's "Studio Linie". In 1969 he designed the Chupa Chups logo. He facilitated the design of the advertising campaign for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest and created a large on-stage metal sculpture that stood at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Theater and film
In theater, Dalí designed the scenery for Federico García Lorca's 1927 romantic play Mariana Pineda. For Bacchanale (1939), a ballet based on and set to the music of Richard Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser, Dalí provided both the set design and the libretto. He executed designs for a number of other ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944) and The Three-Cornered Hat (1949).
Dalí became interested in film when he was young, going to the theater most Sundays. By the late 1920s he was fascinated by the potential of film to reveal "the unlimited fantasy born of things themselves" and went on to collaborate with the director Luis Buñuel on two Surrealist films: the 17-minute short Un Chien Andalou (1929) and the feature film L'Age d'Or (1930). Dalí and Buñuel agree that they jointly developed the script and imagery of Un Chien Andalou, but there is controversy over the extent of Dalí's contribution to L'Age d'Or. Un Chien Andalou features a graphic opening scene of a human eyeball being slashed with a razor and develops surreal imagery and irrational discontinuities in time and space to produce a dreamlike quality. L'Age d'Or is more overtly anti-clerical and anti-establishment, and was banned after right-wing groups staged a riot in the Parisian theater where it was being shown. Summarizing the impact of these two films on the Surrealist film movement, one commentator has stated: "If Un Chien Andalou stands as the supreme record of Surrealism's adventures into the realm of the unconscious, then L'Âge d'Or is perhaps the most trenchant and implacable expression of its revolutionary intent."
After he collaborated with Buñuel, Dalí worked on several unrealized film projects including a published script for a film, Babaouo (1932); a scenario for Harpo Marx called Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937); and an abandoned dream sequence for the film Moontide (1942). In 1945 Dalí created the dream sequence in Hitchcock's Spellbound, but neither Dalí nor the director was satisfied with the result. Dalí also worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on the short film Destino in 1946. After initially being abandoned, the animated film was completed in 2003 by Baker Bloodworth and Walt Disney's nephew Roy E. Disney. Between 1954 and 1961 Dalí worked with photographer Robert Descharnes on The Prodigious History of the Lacemaker and the Rhinoceros, but the film was never completed.
In the 1960s Dalí worked with some directors on documentary and performance films including with Philippe Halsman on Chaos and Creation (1960), Jack Bond on Dalí in New York (1966) and Jean-Christophe Averty on Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dalí (1966).
Dalí collaborated with director José-Montes Baquer on the pseudo-documentary film Impressions of Upper Mongolia (1975), in which Dalí narrates a story about an expedition in search of giant hallucinogenic mushrooms. In the mid-1970s film director Alejandro Jodorowsky initially cast Dalí in the role of the Padishah Emperor in a production of Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert. However, Jodorowsky changed his mind after Dalí publicly supported the execution of alleged ETA terrorists in December 1975. The film was ultimately never made.
In 1972 Dalí began to write the scenario for an opera-poem called Être Dieu (To Be God). The Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán wrote the libretto and Igor Wakhévitch the music. The opera poem was recorded in Paris in 1974 with Dalí in the role of the protagonist.
Fashion and photography
Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli worked with Dalí from the 1930s and commissioned him to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dalí made for her include a shoe-shaped hat and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. In 1950, Dalí created a special "costume for the year 2045" with Christian Dior.
Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. Halsman produced the Dalí Atomica series (1948) – inspired by Dalí's painting Leda Atomica – which in one photograph depicts "a painter's easel, three cats, a bucket of water, and Dalí himself floating in the air".
Architecture
Dalí's architectural achievements include his Port Lligat house near Cadaqués, as well as his Theatre Museum in Figueres. A major work outside of Spain was the temporary Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, which contained several unusual sculptures and statues, including live performers posing as statues.
Literary works
In his only novel, Hidden Faces (1944), Dalí describes the intrigues of a group of eccentric aristocrats whose extravagant lifestyle symbolizes the decadence of the 1930s. The Comte de Grandsailles and Solange de Cléda pursue a love affair, but interwar political turmoil and other vicissitudes drive them apart. It is variously set in Paris, rural France, Casablanca in North Africa, and Palm Springs in the United States. Secondary characters include aging widow Barbara Rogers, her bisexual daughter Veronica, Veronica's sometime female lover Betka, and Baba, a disfigured U.S. fighter pilot. The novel was written in New York, and translated by Haakon Chevalier.
His other literary works include The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), Diary of a Genius (1966), and Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1971). Dalí also published poetry, essays, art criticism, and a technical manual on art.
Graphic arts
Dalí worked extensively in the graphic arts, producing many drawings, etchings, and lithographs. Among the most notable of these works are forty etchings for an edition of Lautréamont's The Songs of Maldoror (1933) and eighty drypoint reworkings of Goya's Caprichos (1973–77). From the 1960s, however, Dalí would often sell the rights to images but not be involved in the print production itself. In addition, a large number of fakes were produced in the 1980s and 1990s, thus further confusing the Dalí print market.
Book illustrations were an important part of Dalí's work throughout his career. His first book illustration was for the 1924 publication of the Catalan poem ("The Witches of Liers") by his friend and schoolmate, poet Carles Fages de Climent. His other notable book illustrations, apart from The Songs of Maldoror, include 101 watercolors and engravings for The Divine Comedy (1960) and 100 drawings and watercolors for The Arabian Nights (1964).
Politics and personality
Politics and religion
As a youth, Dalí identified as Communist, anti-monarchist and anti-clerical and in 1924 he was briefly imprisoned by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship as a person "intensely liable to cause public disorder". When Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in 1929 his political activism initially intensified. In 1931, he became involved in the Workers' and Peasants' Front, delivering lectures at meetings and contributing to their party journal. However, as political divisions within the Surrealist group grew, Dalí soon developed a more apolitical stance, refusing to publicly denounce fascism. In 1934, Andre Breton accused him of being sympathetic to Hitler and Dalí narrowly avoided being expelled from the group. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic. However, immediately after Franco's victory in 1939, Dalí praised Catholicism and the Falange and was expelled from the Surrealist group.
After Dalí's return to his native Catalonia in 1948, he publicly supported Franco's regime and announced his return to the Catholic faith. Dalí was granted an audience with Pope Pius XII in 1949 and with Pope John XXIII in 1959. He had official meetings with General Franco in June 1956, October 1968, and May 1974. In 1968, Dalí stated that on Franco's death there should be no return to democracy and Spain should become an absolute monarchy. In September 1975, Dalí publicly supported Franco's decision to execute three alleged Basque terrorists and repeated his support for an absolute monarchy, adding: "Personally, I'm against freedom; I'm for the Holy Inquisition." In the following days, he fled to New York after his home in Port Lligat was stoned and he had received numerous death threats. When King Juan Carlos visited the ailing Dalí in August 1981, Dalí told him: "I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."
Dalí espoused a mystical view of Catholicism and in his later years he claimed to be a Catholic and an agnostic. He was interested in the writings of the Jesuit priest and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin and his Omega Point theory. Dalí's painting Tuna Fishing (Homage to Meissonier) (1967) was inspired by his reading of Chardin.
Sexuality
Dalí's sexuality had a profound influence on his work. He stated that as a child he saw a book with graphic illustrations of venereal diseases and this provoked a life-long disgust of female genitalia and a fear of impotence and sexual intimacy. Dalí frequently stated that his main sexual activity involved voyeurism and masturbation and his preferred sexual orifice was the anus. Dalí said that his wife Gala was the only person with whom he had achieved complete coitus. From 1927 Dalí's work featured graphic and symbolic sexual images usually associated with other images evoking shame and disgust. Images of anality and excrement also abound in his work from this time. Some of the most notable works reflecting these themes include The First Days of Spring (1929), The Great Masturbator (1929), and The Lugubrious Game (1929). Several of Dalí's intimates in the 1960s and 1970s have stated that he would arrange for selected guests to perform choreographed sexual activities to aid his voyeurism and masturbation.
Personality
Dalí was renowned for his eccentric and ostentatious behavior throughout his career. In 1941, the Director of Exhibitions and Publications at MoMA wrote: "The fame of Salvador Dalí has been an issue of particular controversy for more than a decade...Dalí's conduct may have been undignified, but the greater part of his art is a matter of dead earnest." When Dalí was elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1979, one of his fellow academicians stated that he hoped Dalí would now abandon his "clowneries".
In 1936, at the premiere screening of Joseph Cornell's film Rose Hobart at Julien Levy's gallery in New York City, Dalí knocked over the projector in a rage. "My idea for a film is exactly that," he said shortly afterward, "I never wrote it down or told anyone, but it is as if he had stolen it!" In 1939, while working on a window display for Bonwit Teller, he became so enraged by unauthorized changes to his work that he pushed a display bathtub through a plate glass window. In 1955, he delivered a lecture at the Sorbonne, arriving in a Rolls Royce full of cauliflowers. To promote Robert Descharnes' 1962 book The World of Salvador Dalí, he appeared in a Manhattan bookstore on a bed, wired up to a machine that traced his brain waves and blood pressure. He would autograph books while thus monitored, and the book buyer would also be given the paper chart recording.
After World War II, Dalí became one of the most recognized artists in the world, and his long cape, walking stick, haughty expression, and upturned waxed mustache became icons of his brand. His boastfulness and public declarations of his genius became essential elements of the public Dalí persona: "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí".
Dalí frequently traveled with his pet ocelot Babou, even bringing it aboard the luxury ocean liner SS France. He was also known to avoid paying at restaurants by executing drawings on the checks he wrote. His theory was the restaurant would never want to cash such a valuable piece of art, and he was usually correct.
Dalí's fame meant he was a frequent guest on television in Spain, France and the United States, including appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 7 January 1963 The Mike Wallace Interview and the panel show What's My Line?. Dalí appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on 6 March 1970 carrying an anteater.
He also appeared in numerous advertising campaigns such for chocolates and Braniff International Airlines in 1968.
Legacy
Two major museums are devoted to Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.
Dalí's life and work have been an important influence on pop art, other Surrealists, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. He has been portrayed on film by Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes (2008), and by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris (2011). The Salvador Dalí Desert in Bolivia and the Dalí crater on the planet Mercury are named for him.
The Spanish television series Money Heist (2017–2021) includes characters wearing a costume of red jumpsuits and Dalí masks. The creator of the series stated that the Dalí mask was chosen because it was an iconic Spanish image. The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation protested against the use of Dalí's image without the authorisation of the Dali estate. Following the popular success of the series, there were reports of people in various countries wearing the costume while participating in political protests, committing crimes or as fancy dress.
Honors
1964: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
1972: Associate member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
1978: Associate member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France
1981: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III
1982: Created 1st Marquess of Dalí of Púbol, by King Juan Carlos
List of selected works
Dalí produced over 1,600 paintings and numerous graphic works, sculptures, three-dimensional objects, and designs. Below is a sample of important and representative works.
Landscape Near Figueras (1910–14)
Vilabertran (1910–14)
Cabaret Scene (1922)
Night Walking Dreams (1922)
The Basket of Bread (1926)
Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) (1927)
Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927)
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
The Lugubrious Game (1929)
The Great Masturbator (1929)
The First Days of Spring (1929)
L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) (1930) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
Board of Demented Associations (1930–31) (Surrealist object)
Premature Ossification of a Railway Station (1931)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933) (mixed media sculpture collage)
The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table (c.1934)
Lobster Telephone (1936)
Venus de Milo with Drawers (1936)
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
The Burning Giraffe (1937)
Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939)
Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
The Face of War (also known as The Visage of the War) (1940)
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (c.1944)
Basket of Bread – Rather Death than Shame (1945)
The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946)
The Elephants (1948) (also known as Project for "As You Like It")
Leda Atomica (1947–1949)
The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
Christ of Saint John of the Cross (also known as The Christ) (1951)
Galatea of the Spheres (1952) (also known as Gala Placidia)
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–54)
Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (c.1954) (also known as Hypercubic Christ)
Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955)
Still Life Moving Fast (c. 1956) (also known as Fast-Moving Still Life)
The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958)
Perpignan Railway Station (c. 1965)
Tuna Fishing (1966–67)
The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970)
Nieuw Amsterdam (1974 object/sculpture)
The Swallow's Tail (c.1983)
Dalí museums and permanent exhibitions
Dalí Theatre-Museum – Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, holds the largest collection of Dalí's work
Gala Dalí House-Museum – Castle of Púbol in Púbol, Catalonia, Spain
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Reina Sofia Museum) – Madrid, Spain, holds a significant collection
Salvador Dalí House Museum – Port Lligat, Catalonia, Spain
Salvador Dalí Museum – St Petersburg, Florida, contains the collection of Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, and over 1500 works by Dalí, including seven large "masterworks"
Major temporary exhibitions
In 2018, a traveling museum exhibition focusing on Dalí's illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy premiered at the Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana. The exhibition titled Salvador Dalí's Stairway to Heaven will be touring the United States through 2021.
Gallery
See also
List of Spanish artists
Salvador Dalí and Dance
References
Further reading
Important books by or about Salvador Dalí readily available in English include:
Ades, Dawn, Salvador Dalí, Thames and Hudson, 1995 (2nd ed.)
Dalí, Salvador, Oui: the paranoid-critical revolution: writings 1927–1933, (edited by Robert Descharnes, translated by Yvonne Shafir), Boston: Exact Change, 1998
Dalí, Salvador, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, New York, Dover, 1993 (translated by Haakon M. Chevalier, first published 1942)
Dalí, Salvador, The Diary of a Genius, London, Hutchinson, 1990 (translated by Richard Howard, first published 1964)
Dalí, Salvador, The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí, London, Quartet Books, 1977 (first published 1973)
Descharnes, Robert, Salvador Dalí (translated by Eleanor R. Morse), New York, Abradale Press, 1993
Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, London, Faber and Faber, 1997
Shanes, Eric, Salvador Dalí, Parkstone International, 2014
External links
Salvador Dalí on What's My Line?
Interview and bank advertisement.
A collection of interviews and footage of Dalí in the French television
Mike Wallace interviews Salvador Dalí Archived 15 December 2015. Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin
Panorama: Salvador Dali - Malcolm Muggeridge BBC interview, first transmitted 4 May 1955
Salvador Dalí at LletrA, Catalan Literature Online (Open University of Catalonia).
1904 births
1989 deaths
People from Figueres
Spanish artists
20th-century Spanish painters
Spanish male painters
Surrealist artists
Painters from Catalonia
Spanish illustrators
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
Marquesses of Spain
Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium
Modern painters
Spanish printmakers
Spanish erotic artists
Spanish Roman Catholics
Spanish surrealist artists
Surrealist filmmakers
20th-century Spanish sculptors
20th-century male artists
Spanish male sculptors
Mathematical artists
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Federico García Lorca
1939 New York World's Fair artists
Spanish people of Arab descent
Spanish people of Jewish descent
| false |
[
"Salvador Dali's Tarot is a book by Rachel Pollack published in 1985.\n\nContents\nSalvador Dali's Tarot is a book about the 78 paintings of Dalí's personal Tarot pack, each of which is reproduced in color on its own page.\n\nReception\nDave Langford reviewed Salvador Dali's Tarot for White Dwarf #71, and stated that \"I have no faith in fortune-telling, but the cabalistic symbolism is fascinating ... especially when refracted through the eye of a supremely dotty surrealist.\"\n\nReferences\n\nSalvador Dalí",
"Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:\n\nArts\n Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism\n Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries\n Russian symbolism, the Russian branch of the symbolist movement in European art\n Symbol, something that represents, stands for or suggests an idea, belief, action, or entity\n Color symbolism, the use of colors within various cultures to express a variety of symbolic meanings\n\nReligion\n Religious symbol, an iconic representation of a religion or religious concept\n Buddhist symbolism, the use of Buddhist art to represent certain aspects of dharma\n Christian symbolism, the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork or events, by Christianity\n Symbols of Islam, the use of symbols in Islamic literature, art and architecture\n Jewish symbolism, a visible religious token of the relation between God and man\n\nScience\n Symbolic anthropology, the study of cultural symbols and how those symbols can be interpreted to better understand a particular society\n Symbolic system, a system of interconnected symbolic meanings\n Solar symbol, a symbol which represents the Sun in psychoanalysis, symbolism, semiotics, or other fields\n\nSee also\n Symbolic representation (disambiguation)\n Symbolic (disambiguation)\n Symbology (disambiguation)\n Symbol (disambiguation)\n Realism (arts)\n Naturalism (arts)\n Representationalism"
] |
[
"Salvador Dalí",
"Symbolism",
"What type of symbolism did Dali use?",
"The elephant is also a recurring image in Dali's works.",
"What did the elephant mean?",
"\"The elephant is a distortion in space\", one analysis explains, \"its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure.",
"Did Dali use any other forms of symbolism?",
"The egg is another common Daliesque image.",
"What did the egg represent?",
"He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love;",
"How did Dali come up with these symbolism ideas?",
"I don't know.",
"how did Dali use this symbolism?",
"Dali employed extensive symbolism in his work."
] |
C_6b3cf6c103be4cff822da0ceaebbd6b1_0
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did people like Dalli's work?
| 7 |
Did people like Salvador Dalí's work?
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Salvador Dalí
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Dali employed extensive symbolism in his work. For instance, the hallmark "melting watches" that first appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. The idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to Dali when he was staring at a runny piece of Camembert cheese on a hot August day. The elephant is also a recurring image in Dali's works. It appeared in his 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants, inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, are portrayed "with long, multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire" along with obelisks on their backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic overtones, create a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant is a distortion in space", one analysis explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure." "I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly." --Salvador Dali, in Dawn Ades, Dali and Surrealism. The egg is another common Daliesque image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love; it appears in The Great Masturbator and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. The Metamorphosis of Narcissus also symbolized death and petrification. There are also giant sculptures of eggs in various locations at Dali's house in Port Lligat as well as at the Dali Theatre and Museum in Figueres. Various other animals appear throughout his work as well: ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire; the snail is connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear. Both Dali and his father enjoyed eating sea urchins, freshly caught in the sea near Cadaques. The radial symmetry of the sea urchin fascinated Dali, and he adapted its form to many art works. Other foods also appear throughout his work. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.
Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931, and is one of the most famous Surrealist paintings. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his "nuclear mysticism" style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments.
Dalí's artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork. His public support for the Francoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial. His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.
There are two major museums devoted to Salvador Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Biography
Early life
Salvador Dalí was born on 11 May 1904, at 8:45 am, on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí's older brother, who had also been named Salvador (born 12 October 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier, on 1 August 1903. His father, Salvador Rafael Aniceto Dalí Cusí (1872–1950) was a middle-class lawyer and notary, an anti-clerical atheist and Catalan federalist, whose strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa Domènech Ferrés (1874–1921), who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors. In the summer of 1912, the family moved to the top floor of Carrer Monturiol 24 (presently 10). Dalí later attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descendants of the Moors.
Dalí was haunted by the idea of his dead brother throughout his life, mythologizing him in his writings and art. Dalí said of him, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections." He "was probably the first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute". Images of his brother would reappear in his later works, including Portrait of My Dead Brother (1963).
Dalí also had a sister, Anna Maria, who was three years younger. In 1949, she published a book about her brother, Dalí as Seen by His Sister.
His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Emili Sagi-Barba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort town of Cadaqués, the trio played football together.
Dalí attended the Municipal Drawing School at Figueres in 1916 and also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres in 1918, a site he would return to decades later. In early 1921 the Pichot family introduced Dalí to Futurism and Dalí's uncle Anselm Domènech, who owned a bookshop in Barcelona, supplied him with books and magazines on Cubism and contemporary art.
On 6 February 1921, Dalí's mother died of uterine cancer. Dalí was 16 years old and later said his mother's death "was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul." After his wife's death, Dalí's father married her sister. Dalí did not resent this marriage, because he had great love and respect for his aunt.
Madrid, Barcelona and Paris
In 1922, Dalí moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts). A lean tall, Dalí already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy. He had long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee-breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century.
At the Residencia, he became close friends with Pepín Bello, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, and others associated with the Madrid avant-garde group Ultra. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí said he rejected the poet's sexual advances. Dalí's friendship with Lorca was to remain one of his most emotionally intense relationships until the poet's death at the hands of Nationalist forces in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Also in 1922, he began what would become a lifelong relationship with the Prado Museum, which he felt was, 'incontestably the best museum of old paintings in the world.' Each Sunday morning, Dalí went to the Prado to study the works of the great masters. 'This was the start of a monk-like period for me, devoted entirely to solitary work: visits to the Prado, where, pencil in hand, I analyzed all of the great masterpieces, studio work, models, research.'
Dalí's paintings in which he experimented with Cubism earned him the most attention from his fellow students since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time. Cabaret Scene (1922) is a typical example of such work. Through his association with members of the Ultra group, Dalí became more acquainted with avant-garde movements, including Dada and Futurism. One of his earliest works to show a strong Futurist and Cubist influence was the watercolor Night-Walking Dreams (1922). At this time, Dalí also read Freud and Lautréamont who were to have a profound influence on his work.
In May 1925 Dalí exhibited eleven works in a group exhibition held by the newly formed Sociedad Ibérica de Artistas in Madrid. Seven of the works were in his Cubist mode and four in a more realist style. Several leading critics praised Dalí's work. Dalí held his first solo exhibition at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, from 14 to 27 November 1925. This exhibition, before his exposure to Surrealism, included twenty-two works and was a critical and commercial success.
In April 1926 Dalí made his first trip to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about Dalí from Joan Miró, a fellow Catalan who later introduced him to many Surrealist friends. As he developed his own style over the next few years, Dalí made some works strongly influenced by Picasso and Miró. Dalí was also influenced by the work of Yves Tanguy, and he later allegedly told Tanguy's niece, "I pinched everything from your uncle Yves."
Dalí left the Royal Academy in 1926, shortly before his final exams. His mastery of painting skills at that time was evidenced by his realistic The Basket of Bread, painted in 1926.
Later that year he exhibited again at Galeries Dalmau, from 31 December 1926 to 14 January 1927, with the support of the art critic . The show included twenty-three paintings and seven drawings, with the "Cubist" works displayed in a separate section from the "objective" works. The critical response was generally positive with Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) singled out for particular attention.
From 1927 Dalí's work became increasingly influenced by Surrealism. Two of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927) and Gadget and Hand (1927), were shown at the annual Autumn Salon (Saló de tardor) in Barcelona in October 1927. Dalí described the earlier of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood, as "equidistant between Cubism and Surrealism". The works featured many elements that were to become characteristic of his Surrealist period including dreamlike images, precise draftsmanship, idiosyncratic iconography (such as rotting donkeys and dismembered bodies), and lighting and landscapes strongly evocative of his native Catalonia. The works provoked bemusement among the public and debate among critics about whether Dalí had become a Surrealist.
Influenced by his reading of Freud, Dalí increasingly introduced suggestive sexual imagery and symbolism into his work. He submitted Dialogue on the Beach (Unsatisfied Desires) (1928) to the Barcelona Autumn Salon for 1928 but the work was rejected because "it was not fit to be exhibited in any gallery habitually visited by the numerous public little prepared for certain surprises." The resulting scandal was widely covered in the Barcelona press and prompted a popular Madrid illustrated weekly to publish an interview with Dalí.
Some trends in Dalí's work that would continue throughout his life were already evident in the 1920s. Dalí was influenced by many styles of art, ranging from the most academically classic, to the most cutting-edge avant-garde. His classical influences included Raphael, Bronzino, Francisco de Zurbarán, Vermeer and Velázquez. Exhibitions of his works attracted much attention and a mixture of praise and puzzled debate from critics who noted an apparent inconsistency in his work by the use of both traditional and modern techniques and motifs between works and within individual works.
In the mid-1920s Dalí grew a neatly trimmed mustache. In later decades he cultivated a more flamboyant one in the manner of 17th-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez, and this mustache became a well known Dalí icon.
1929 to World War II
In 1929, Dalí collaborated with Surrealist film director Luis Buñuel on the short film (An Andalusian Dog). His main contribution was to help Buñuel write the script for the film. Dalí later claimed to have also played a significant role in the filming of the project, but this is not substantiated by contemporary accounts. In August 1929, Dalí met his lifelong muse and future wife Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. She was a Russian immigrant ten years his senior, who at that time was married to Surrealist poet Paul Éluard.
In works such as The First Days of Spring, The Great Masturbator and The Lugubrious Game Dalí continued his exploration of the themes of sexual anxiety and unconscious desires. Dalí's first Paris exhibition was at the recently opened Goemans Gallery in November 1929 and featured eleven works. In his preface to the catalog, André Breton described Dalí's new work as "the most hallucinatory that has been produced up to now". The exhibition was a commercial success but the critical response was divided. In the same year, Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris. The Surrealists hailed what Dalí was later to call his paranoiac-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity.
Meanwhile, Dalí's relationship with his father was close to rupture. Don Salvador Dalí y Cusi strongly disapproved of his son's romance with Gala and saw his connection to the Surrealists as a bad influence on his morals. The final straw was when Don Salvador read in a Barcelona newspaper that his son had recently exhibited in Paris a drawing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, with a provocative inscription: "Sometimes, I spit for fun on my mother's portrait". Outraged, Don Salvador demanded that his son recant publicly. Dalí refused, perhaps out of fear of expulsion from the Surrealist group, and was violently thrown out of his paternal home on 28 December 1929. His father told him that he would be disinherited and that he should never set foot in Cadaqués again. The following summer, Dalí and Gala rented a small fisherman's cabin in a nearby bay at Port Lligat. He soon bought the cabin, and over the years enlarged it by buying neighboring ones, gradually building his beloved villa by the sea. Dalí's father would eventually relent and come to accept his son's companion.
In 1931, Dalí painted one of his most famous works, The Persistence of Memory, which developed a surrealistic image of soft, melting pocket watches. The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and other limp watches shown being devoured by ants.
Dalí had two important exhibitions at the Pierre Colle Gallery in Paris in June 1931 and May–June 1932. The earlier exhibition included sixteen paintings of which The Persistence of Memory attracted the most attention. Some of the notable features of the exhibitions were the proliferation of images and references to Dalí's muse Gala and the inclusion of Surrealist Objects such as Hypnagogic Clock and Clock Based on the Decomposition of Bodies. Dalí's last, and largest, the exhibition at the Pierre Colle Gallery was held in June 1933 and included twenty-two paintings, ten drawings, and two objects. One critic noted Dalí's precise draftsmanship and attention to detail, describing him as a "paranoiac of geometrical temperament". Dalí's first New York exhibition was held at Julien Levy's gallery in November–December 1933. The exhibition featured twenty-six works and was a commercial and critical success. The New Yorker critic praised the precision and lack of sentimentality in the works, calling them "frozen nightmares".
Dalí and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were civilly married on 30 January 1934 in Paris. They later remarried in a Church ceremony on 8 August 1958 at Sant Martí Vell. In addition to inspiring many artworks throughout her life, Gala would act as Dalí's business manager, supporting their extravagant lifestyle while adeptly steering clear of insolvency. Gala, who herself engaged in extra-marital affairs, seemed to tolerate Dalí's dalliances with younger muses, secure in her own position as his primary relationship. Dalí continued to paint her as they both aged, producing sympathetic and adoring images of her. The "tense, complex and ambiguous relationship" lasting over 50 years would later become the subject of an opera, Jo, Dalí (I, Dalí) by Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel.
Dalí's first visit to the United States in November 1934 attracted widespread press coverage. His second New York exhibition was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in November–December 1934 and was again a commercial and critical success. Dalí delivered three lectures on Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and other venues during which he told his audience for the first time that "[t]he only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad." The heiress Caresse Crosby, the inventor of the brassiere, organized a farewell fancy dress ball for Dalí on 18 January 1935. Dalí wore a glass case on his chest containing a brassiere and Gala dressed as a woman giving birth through her head. A Paris newspaper later claimed that the Dalís had dressed as the Lindbergh baby and his kidnapper, a claim which Dalí denied.
While the majority of the Surrealist group had become increasingly associated with leftist politics, Dalí maintained an ambiguous position on the subject of the proper relationship between politics and art. Leading Surrealist André Breton accused Dalí of defending the "new" and "irrational" in "the Hitler phenomenon", but Dalí quickly rejected this claim, saying, "I am Hitlerian neither in fact nor intention". Dalí insisted that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism. Later in 1934, Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he narrowly avoided being expelled from the Surrealist group. To this, Dalí retorted, "The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist."
In 1936, Dalí took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. His lecture, titled , was delivered while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply into the human mind."
Dalí's first solo London exhibition was held at the Alex, Reid, and Lefevre Gallery the same year. The show included twenty-nine paintings and eighteen drawings. The critical response was generally favorable, although the Daily Telegraph critic wrote: "These pictures from the subconscious reveal so skilled a craftsman that the artist's return to full consciousness may be awaited with interest."
In December 1936 Dalí participated in the Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at MoMA and a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. Both exhibitions attracted large attendances and widespread press coverage. The painting Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936) attracted particular attention. Dalí later described it as, "a vast human body breaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto-strangulation". On 14 December, Dalí, aged 32, was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
From 1933 Dalí was supported by Zodiac, a group of affluent admirers who each contributed to a monthly stipend for the painter in exchange for a painting of their choice. From 1936 Dalí's main patron in London was the wealthy Edward James who would support him financially for two years. One of Dalí's most important paintings from the period of James' patronage was The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937). They also collaborated on two of the most enduring icons of the Surrealist movement: the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa.
Dalí was in London when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. When he later learned that his friend Lorca had been executed by Nationalist forces, Dalí's claimed response was to shout: "Olé!" Dalí was to include frequent references to the poet in his art and writings for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic for the duration of the conflict.
In January 1938, Dalí unveiled Rainy Taxi, a three-dimensional artwork consisting of an automobile and two mannequin occupants being soaked with rain from within the taxi. The piece was first displayed at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, organized by André Breton and Paul Éluard. The Exposition was designed by artist Marcel Duchamp, who also served as host.
In March that year, Dalí met Sigmund Freud thanks to Stefan Zweig. As Dalí sketched Freud's portrait, Freud whispered, "That boy looks like a fanatic." Dalí was delighted upon hearing later about this comment from his hero. The following day Freud wrote to Zweig "...until now I have been inclined to regard the Surrealists, who have apparently adopted me as their patron saint, as complete fools.....That young Spaniard, with his candid fanatical eyes and his undeniable technical mastery, has changed my estimate. It would indeed be very interesting to investigate analytically how he came to create that picture [i.e. Metamorphosis of Narcissus]."
In September 1938, Salvador Dalí was invited by Gabrielle Coco Chanel to her house "La Pausa" in Roquebrune on the French Riviera. There he painted numerous paintings he later exhibited at Julien Levy Gallery in New York. This exhibition in March–April 1939 included twenty-one paintings and eleven drawings. Life reported that no exhibition in New York had been so popular since Whistler's Mother was shown in 1934.
At the 1939 New York World's Fair, Dalí debuted his Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion, located in the Amusements Area of the exposition. It featured bizarre sculptures, statues, mermaids, and live nude models in "costumes" made of fresh seafood, an event photographed by Horst P. Horst, George Platt Lynes, and Murray Korman. Dalí was angered by changes to his designs, railing against mediocrities who thought that "a woman with the tail of a fish is possible; a woman with the head of a fish impossible."
Soon after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, Dalí wrote to Luis Buñuel denouncing socialism and Marxism and praising Catholicism and the Falange. As a result, Buñuel broke off relations with Dalí.
In the May issue of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, André Breton announced Dalí's expulsion from the Surrealist group, claiming that Dalí had espoused race war and that the over-refinement of his paranoiac-critical method was a repudiation of Surrealist automatism. This led many Surrealists to break off relations with Dalí. In 1949 Breton coined the derogatory nickname "Avida Dollars" (avid for dollars), an anagram for "Salvador Dalí". This was a derisive reference to the increasing commercialization of Dalí's work, and the perception that Dalí sought self-aggrandizement through fame and fortune.
World War II
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 saw the Dalís in France. Following the German invasion, they were able to escape because on 20 June 1940 they were issued visas by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, France. They crossed into Portugal and subsequently sailed on the Excambion from Lisbon to New York in August 1940. Dalí and Gala were to live in the United States for eight years, splitting their time between New York and the Monterey Peninsula, California.
Dalí spent the winter of 1940–41 at Hampton Manor, the residence of Caresse Crosby, in Caroline County, Virginia, where he worked on various projects including his autobiography and paintings for his upcoming exhibition.
Dalí announced the death of the Surrealist movement and the return of classicism in his exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in April–May 1941. The exhibition included nineteen paintings (among them Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire and The Face of War) and other works. In his catalog essay and media comments, Dalí proclaimed a return to form, control, structure and the Golden Section. Sales however were disappointing and the majority of critics did not believe there had been a major change in Dalí's work.
The Museum of Modern Art held two major, simultaneous retrospectives of Dali and Joan Miró from November 1941 to February 1942, Dalí being represented by forty-two paintings and sixteen drawings. Dalí's work attracted significant attention of critics and the exhibition later toured eight American cities, enhancing his reputation in America.
In October 1942, Dalí's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí was published simultaneously in New York and London and was reviewed widely by the press. Time magazine's reviewer called it "one of the most irresistible books of the year". George Orwell later wrote a scathing review in the Saturday Book. A passage in the autobiography in which Dalí claimed that Buñuel was solely responsible for the anti-clericalism in the film L'Age d'Or may have indirectly led to Buñuel resigning his position at MoMA in 1943 under pressure from the State Department. Dalí also published a novel Hidden Faces in 1944 with less critical and commercial success.
In the catalog essay for his exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1943 Dalí continued his attack on the Surrealist movement, writing: "Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system. ... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college [collage]". The critical response to the society portraits in the exhibition, however, was generally negative.
In November–December 1945 Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery in New York. The exhibition included eleven oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and illustrations. Works included Basket of Bread, Atomic and Uranian Melancholic Ideal, and My Wife Nude Contemplating her own Body Transformed into Steps, the Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture. The exhibition was notable for works in Dalí's new classicism style and those heralding his "atomic period".
During the war years, Dalí was also engaged in projects in various other fields. He executed designs for a number of ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, and The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944). In 1945 he created the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound. He also produced artwork and designs for products such as perfumes, cosmetics, hosiery and ties.
Post War in United States (1946–48)
In 1946 Dalí worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on an unfinished animated film Destino.
Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery from November 1947 to January 1948. The 14 oil paintings and other works in the exhibition reflected Dalí's increasing interest in atomic physics. Notable works included Dematerialization Near the Nose of Nero (The Separation of the Atom), Intra-Atomic Equilibrium of a Swan's Feather, and a study for Leda Atomica. The proportions of the latter work were worked out in collaboration with a mathematician.
In early 1948 Dalí's 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship was published. The book was a mixture of anecdotes, practical advice on painting, and Dalínian polemics.
Later years in Spain
In 1948 Dalí and Gala moved back into their house in Port Lligat, on the coast near Cadaqués. For the next three decades, they would spend most of their time there, spending winters in Paris and New York. Dalí's decision to live in Spain under Franco and his public support for the regime prompted outrage from many anti-Francoist artists and intellectuals. Pablo Picasso refused to mention Dalí's name or acknowledge his existence for the rest of his life. In 1960, André Breton unsuccessfully fought against the inclusion of Dalí's Sistine Madonna in the Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanter's Domain exhibition organized by Marcel Duchamp in New York. Breton and other Surrealists issued a tract to coincide with the exhibition denouncing Dalí as "the ex-apologist of Hitler... and friend of Franco".
In December 1949 Dalí's sister Anna Maria published her book Salvador Dalí Seen by his Sister. Dalí was angered by passages that he considered derogatory towards his wife Gala and broke off relations with his family. When Dalí's father died in September 1950 Dalí learned that he had been virtually disinherited in his will. A two-year legal dispute followed over paintings and drawings Dalí had left in his family home, during which Dalí was accused of assaulting a public notary.
As Dalí moved further towards embracing Catholicism he introduced more religious iconography and themes in his painting. In 1949 he painted a study for The Madonna of Port Lligat (first version, 1949) and showed it to Pope Pius XII during an audience arranged to discuss Dalí 's marriage to Gala. This work was a precursor to the phase Dalí dubbed "Nuclear Mysticism," a fusion of Einsteinian physics, classicism, and Catholic mysticism. In paintings such as The Madonna of Port Lligat, The Christ of Saint John on the Cross and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, Dalí sought to synthesize Christian iconography with images of material disintegration inspired by nuclear physics. His later Nuclear Mysticism works included La Gare de Perpignan (1965) and The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–70).
Dalí's keen interest in natural science and mathematics was further manifested by the proliferation of images of DNA and rhinoceros horn shapes in works from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. Dalí was also fascinated by the Tesseract (a four-dimensional cube), using it, for example, in Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).
Dalí had been extensively using optical illusions such as double images, anamorphosis, negative space, visual puns and trompe-l'œil since his Surrealist period and this continued in his later work. At some point, Dalí had a glass floor installed in a room near his studio in Port Lligat. He made extensive use of it to study foreshortening, both from above and from below, incorporating dramatic perspectives of figures and objects into his paintings. He also experimented with the bulletist technique pointillism, enlarged half-tone dot grids and stereoscopic images. He was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. In Dalí's later years, young artists such as Andy Warhol proclaimed him an important influence on pop art.
In 1960, Dalí began work on his Theatre-Museum in his home town of Figueres. It was his largest single project and a main focus of his energy through to 1974, when it opened. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s.
In 1955 Dalí met Nanita Kalaschnikoff, who was to become a close friend, muse, and model. At a French nightclub in 1965 Dalí met Amanda Lear, a fashion model then known as Peki Oslo. Lear became his protégée and one of his muses. According to Lear, she and Dalí were united in a "spiritual marriage" on a deserted mountaintop.
Final years and death
In 1968, Dalí bought a castle in Púbol for Gala, and from 1971 she would retreat there for weeks at a time, Dalí having agreed not to visit without her written permission. His fears of abandonment and estrangement from his longtime artistic muse contributed to depression and failing health.
In 1980, at age 76, Dalí's health deteriorated sharply and he was treated for depression, drug addiction, and Parkinson-like symptoms, including a severe tremor in his right arm. There were also allegations that Gala had been supplying Dalí with pharmaceuticals from her own prescriptions.
Gala died on 10 June 1982, at the age of 87. After her death, Dalí moved from Figueres to the castle in Púbol, where she was entombed.
In 1982, King Juan Carlos bestowed on Dalí the title of Marqués de Dalí de Púbol (Marquess of Dalí of Púbol) in the nobility of Spain, Púbol being where Dalí then lived. The title was initially hereditary, but at Dalí's request was changed to life-only in 1983.
In May 1983, what was said to be Dalí's last painting, The Swallow's Tail, was revealed. The work was heavily influenced by the mathematical catastrophe theory of René Thom. However, some critics have questioned how Dalí could have executed a painting with such precision given the severe tremor in his painting arm.
From early 1984 Dalí's depression worsened and he refused food, leading to severe undernourishment. Dalí had previously stated his intention to put himself into a state of suspended animation as he had read that some microorganisms could do. In August 1984 a fire broke out in Dalí's bedroom and he was hospitalized with severe burns. Two judicial inquiries found that the fire was caused by an electrical fault and no findings of negligence were made. After his release from hospital Dalí moved to the Torre Galatea, an annex to the Dalí Theatre-Museum.
There have been allegations that Dalí was forced by his guardians to sign blank canvases that could later be used in forgeries. It is also alleged that he knowingly sold otherwise-blank lithograph paper which he had signed, possibly producing over 50,000 such sheets from 1965 until his death. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late graphic works attributed to Dalí.
In July 1986, Dalí had a pacemaker implanted. On his return to his Theatre-Museum he made a brief public appearance, saying:
In November 1988, Dalí entered hospital with heart failure. On 5 December 1988, he was visited by King Juan Carlos, who confessed that he had always been a serious devotee of Dalí. Dalí gave the king a drawing, Head of Europa, which would turn out to be Dalí's final drawing.
On the morning of 23 January 1989, while his favorite record of Tristan and Isolde played, Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84. He is buried in the crypt below the stage of his Theatre-Museum in Figueres. The location is across the street from the church of Sant Pere, where he had his baptism, first communion, and funeral, and is only from the house where he was born.
The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation currently serves as his official estate. The US copyright representative for the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.
Exhumation
On 26 June 2017 it was announced that a judge in Madrid had ordered the exhumation of Dalí's body in order to obtain samples for a paternity suit. Joan Manuel Sevillano, manager of the Fundación Gala Salvador Dalí (The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation), denounced the exhumation as inappropriate. The exhumation took place on the evening of 20 July, and his DNA was extracted. On 6 September 2017 the Foundation stated that the tests carried out proved conclusively that Dalí and the claimant were not related. On 18 May 2020 a Spanish court dismissed an appeal from the claimant and ordered her to pay the costs of the exhumation.
Symbolism
From the late 1920s, Dalí progressively introduced many bizarre or incongruous images into his work which invite symbolic interpretation. While some of these images suggest a straightforward sexual or Freudian interpretation (Dalí read Freud in the 1920s) others (such as locusts, rotting donkeys, and sea urchins) are idiosyncratic and have been variously interpreted. Some commentators have cautioned that Dalí's own comments on these images are not always reliable.
Food
Food and eating have a central place in Dalí's thoughts and work. He associated food with beauty and sex and was obsessed with the image of the female praying mantis eating her mate after copulation. Bread was a recurring image in Dalí's art, from his early work The Basket of Bread to later public performances such as in 1958 when he gave a lecture in Paris armed with a 12-meter-long baguette. He saw bread as "the elementary basis of continuity" and "sacred subsistence".
The egg is another common Dalínian image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love. It appears in The Great Masturbator, The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and many other works. There are also giant sculptures of eggs in various locations at Dalí's house in Port Lligat as well as at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres.
Both Dalí and his father enjoyed eating sea urchins, freshly caught in the sea near Cadaqués. The radial symmetry of the sea urchin fascinated Dalí, and he adapted its form to many artworks. Other foods also appear throughout his work.
The famous "melting watches" that appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. Dalí later claimed that the idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to him when he was contemplating Camembert cheese.
Animals
The rhinoceros and rhinoceros horn shapes began to proliferate in Dalí's work from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. He linked the rhinoceros to themes of chastity and to the Virgin Mary. However, he also used it as an obvious phallic symbol as in Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity.
Various other animals appear throughout Dalí's work: rotting donkeys and ants have been interpreted as pointing to death, decay, and sexual desire; the snail as connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts as a symbol of waste and fear. The elephant is also a recurring image in his work; for example, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants are inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk.
Science
Dalí's life-long interest in science and mathematics was often reflected in his work. His soft watches have been interpreted as references to Einstein's theory of the relativity of time and space. Images of atomic particles appeared in his work soon after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and strands of D.N.A. appeared from the mid-1950s. In 1958 he wrote in his Anti-Matter Manifesto: "In the Surrealist period, I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today, the exterior world and that of physics have transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg."
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954) harks back to The Persistence of Memory (1931) and in portraying that painting in fragmentation and disintegration has been interpreted as a reference to Heisenberg's quantum mechanics.
Endeavors outside painting
Dalí was a versatile artist. Some of his more popular works are sculptures and other objects, and he is also noted for his contributions to theater, fashion, and photography, among other areas.
Sculptures and other objects
From the early 1930s, Dalí was an enthusiastic proponent of the proliferation of three-dimensional Surrealist Objects to subvert perceptions of conventional reality, writing: "museums will fast fill with objects whose uselessness, size and crowding will necessitate the construction, in deserts, of special towers to contain them." His more notable early objects include Board of Demented Associations (1930–31), Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933), Venus de Milo with Chest of Drawers (1936) and Aphrodisiac Dinner Jacket (1936). Two of the most popular objects of the Surrealist movement were Lobster Telephone (1936) and Mae West Lips Sofa (1937) which were commissioned by art patron Edward James. Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for Dalí who drew a close analogy between food and sex. The telephone was functional, and James purchased four of them from Dalí to replace the phones in his home. The Mae West Lips Sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, who was previously the subject of Dalí's watercolor, The Face of Mae West which may be used as a Surrealist Apartment (1934–35). In December 1936 Dalí sent Harpo Marx a Christmas present of a harp with barbed-wire strings.
After World War II Dalí authorized many sculptures derived from his most famous works and images. In his later years other sculptures also appeared, often in large editions, whose authenticity has sometimes been questioned.
Between 1941 and 1970, Dalí created an ensemble of 39 pieces of jewelry, many of which are intricate, some containing moving parts. The most famous assemblage, The Royal Heart, is made of gold and is encrusted with 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and four emeralds, created in such a way that the center "beats" like a heart.
Dalí ventured into industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Dalí decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's "Studio Linie". In 1969 he designed the Chupa Chups logo. He facilitated the design of the advertising campaign for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest and created a large on-stage metal sculpture that stood at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Theater and film
In theater, Dalí designed the scenery for Federico García Lorca's 1927 romantic play Mariana Pineda. For Bacchanale (1939), a ballet based on and set to the music of Richard Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser, Dalí provided both the set design and the libretto. He executed designs for a number of other ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944) and The Three-Cornered Hat (1949).
Dalí became interested in film when he was young, going to the theater most Sundays. By the late 1920s he was fascinated by the potential of film to reveal "the unlimited fantasy born of things themselves" and went on to collaborate with the director Luis Buñuel on two Surrealist films: the 17-minute short Un Chien Andalou (1929) and the feature film L'Age d'Or (1930). Dalí and Buñuel agree that they jointly developed the script and imagery of Un Chien Andalou, but there is controversy over the extent of Dalí's contribution to L'Age d'Or. Un Chien Andalou features a graphic opening scene of a human eyeball being slashed with a razor and develops surreal imagery and irrational discontinuities in time and space to produce a dreamlike quality. L'Age d'Or is more overtly anti-clerical and anti-establishment, and was banned after right-wing groups staged a riot in the Parisian theater where it was being shown. Summarizing the impact of these two films on the Surrealist film movement, one commentator has stated: "If Un Chien Andalou stands as the supreme record of Surrealism's adventures into the realm of the unconscious, then L'Âge d'Or is perhaps the most trenchant and implacable expression of its revolutionary intent."
After he collaborated with Buñuel, Dalí worked on several unrealized film projects including a published script for a film, Babaouo (1932); a scenario for Harpo Marx called Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937); and an abandoned dream sequence for the film Moontide (1942). In 1945 Dalí created the dream sequence in Hitchcock's Spellbound, but neither Dalí nor the director was satisfied with the result. Dalí also worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on the short film Destino in 1946. After initially being abandoned, the animated film was completed in 2003 by Baker Bloodworth and Walt Disney's nephew Roy E. Disney. Between 1954 and 1961 Dalí worked with photographer Robert Descharnes on The Prodigious History of the Lacemaker and the Rhinoceros, but the film was never completed.
In the 1960s Dalí worked with some directors on documentary and performance films including with Philippe Halsman on Chaos and Creation (1960), Jack Bond on Dalí in New York (1966) and Jean-Christophe Averty on Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dalí (1966).
Dalí collaborated with director José-Montes Baquer on the pseudo-documentary film Impressions of Upper Mongolia (1975), in which Dalí narrates a story about an expedition in search of giant hallucinogenic mushrooms. In the mid-1970s film director Alejandro Jodorowsky initially cast Dalí in the role of the Padishah Emperor in a production of Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert. However, Jodorowsky changed his mind after Dalí publicly supported the execution of alleged ETA terrorists in December 1975. The film was ultimately never made.
In 1972 Dalí began to write the scenario for an opera-poem called Être Dieu (To Be God). The Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán wrote the libretto and Igor Wakhévitch the music. The opera poem was recorded in Paris in 1974 with Dalí in the role of the protagonist.
Fashion and photography
Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli worked with Dalí from the 1930s and commissioned him to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dalí made for her include a shoe-shaped hat and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. In 1950, Dalí created a special "costume for the year 2045" with Christian Dior.
Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. Halsman produced the Dalí Atomica series (1948) – inspired by Dalí's painting Leda Atomica – which in one photograph depicts "a painter's easel, three cats, a bucket of water, and Dalí himself floating in the air".
Architecture
Dalí's architectural achievements include his Port Lligat house near Cadaqués, as well as his Theatre Museum in Figueres. A major work outside of Spain was the temporary Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, which contained several unusual sculptures and statues, including live performers posing as statues.
Literary works
In his only novel, Hidden Faces (1944), Dalí describes the intrigues of a group of eccentric aristocrats whose extravagant lifestyle symbolizes the decadence of the 1930s. The Comte de Grandsailles and Solange de Cléda pursue a love affair, but interwar political turmoil and other vicissitudes drive them apart. It is variously set in Paris, rural France, Casablanca in North Africa, and Palm Springs in the United States. Secondary characters include aging widow Barbara Rogers, her bisexual daughter Veronica, Veronica's sometime female lover Betka, and Baba, a disfigured U.S. fighter pilot. The novel was written in New York, and translated by Haakon Chevalier.
His other literary works include The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), Diary of a Genius (1966), and Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1971). Dalí also published poetry, essays, art criticism, and a technical manual on art.
Graphic arts
Dalí worked extensively in the graphic arts, producing many drawings, etchings, and lithographs. Among the most notable of these works are forty etchings for an edition of Lautréamont's The Songs of Maldoror (1933) and eighty drypoint reworkings of Goya's Caprichos (1973–77). From the 1960s, however, Dalí would often sell the rights to images but not be involved in the print production itself. In addition, a large number of fakes were produced in the 1980s and 1990s, thus further confusing the Dalí print market.
Book illustrations were an important part of Dalí's work throughout his career. His first book illustration was for the 1924 publication of the Catalan poem ("The Witches of Liers") by his friend and schoolmate, poet Carles Fages de Climent. His other notable book illustrations, apart from The Songs of Maldoror, include 101 watercolors and engravings for The Divine Comedy (1960) and 100 drawings and watercolors for The Arabian Nights (1964).
Politics and personality
Politics and religion
As a youth, Dalí identified as Communist, anti-monarchist and anti-clerical and in 1924 he was briefly imprisoned by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship as a person "intensely liable to cause public disorder". When Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in 1929 his political activism initially intensified. In 1931, he became involved in the Workers' and Peasants' Front, delivering lectures at meetings and contributing to their party journal. However, as political divisions within the Surrealist group grew, Dalí soon developed a more apolitical stance, refusing to publicly denounce fascism. In 1934, Andre Breton accused him of being sympathetic to Hitler and Dalí narrowly avoided being expelled from the group. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic. However, immediately after Franco's victory in 1939, Dalí praised Catholicism and the Falange and was expelled from the Surrealist group.
After Dalí's return to his native Catalonia in 1948, he publicly supported Franco's regime and announced his return to the Catholic faith. Dalí was granted an audience with Pope Pius XII in 1949 and with Pope John XXIII in 1959. He had official meetings with General Franco in June 1956, October 1968, and May 1974. In 1968, Dalí stated that on Franco's death there should be no return to democracy and Spain should become an absolute monarchy. In September 1975, Dalí publicly supported Franco's decision to execute three alleged Basque terrorists and repeated his support for an absolute monarchy, adding: "Personally, I'm against freedom; I'm for the Holy Inquisition." In the following days, he fled to New York after his home in Port Lligat was stoned and he had received numerous death threats. When King Juan Carlos visited the ailing Dalí in August 1981, Dalí told him: "I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."
Dalí espoused a mystical view of Catholicism and in his later years he claimed to be a Catholic and an agnostic. He was interested in the writings of the Jesuit priest and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin and his Omega Point theory. Dalí's painting Tuna Fishing (Homage to Meissonier) (1967) was inspired by his reading of Chardin.
Sexuality
Dalí's sexuality had a profound influence on his work. He stated that as a child he saw a book with graphic illustrations of venereal diseases and this provoked a life-long disgust of female genitalia and a fear of impotence and sexual intimacy. Dalí frequently stated that his main sexual activity involved voyeurism and masturbation and his preferred sexual orifice was the anus. Dalí said that his wife Gala was the only person with whom he had achieved complete coitus. From 1927 Dalí's work featured graphic and symbolic sexual images usually associated with other images evoking shame and disgust. Images of anality and excrement also abound in his work from this time. Some of the most notable works reflecting these themes include The First Days of Spring (1929), The Great Masturbator (1929), and The Lugubrious Game (1929). Several of Dalí's intimates in the 1960s and 1970s have stated that he would arrange for selected guests to perform choreographed sexual activities to aid his voyeurism and masturbation.
Personality
Dalí was renowned for his eccentric and ostentatious behavior throughout his career. In 1941, the Director of Exhibitions and Publications at MoMA wrote: "The fame of Salvador Dalí has been an issue of particular controversy for more than a decade...Dalí's conduct may have been undignified, but the greater part of his art is a matter of dead earnest." When Dalí was elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1979, one of his fellow academicians stated that he hoped Dalí would now abandon his "clowneries".
In 1936, at the premiere screening of Joseph Cornell's film Rose Hobart at Julien Levy's gallery in New York City, Dalí knocked over the projector in a rage. "My idea for a film is exactly that," he said shortly afterward, "I never wrote it down or told anyone, but it is as if he had stolen it!" In 1939, while working on a window display for Bonwit Teller, he became so enraged by unauthorized changes to his work that he pushed a display bathtub through a plate glass window. In 1955, he delivered a lecture at the Sorbonne, arriving in a Rolls Royce full of cauliflowers. To promote Robert Descharnes' 1962 book The World of Salvador Dalí, he appeared in a Manhattan bookstore on a bed, wired up to a machine that traced his brain waves and blood pressure. He would autograph books while thus monitored, and the book buyer would also be given the paper chart recording.
After World War II, Dalí became one of the most recognized artists in the world, and his long cape, walking stick, haughty expression, and upturned waxed mustache became icons of his brand. His boastfulness and public declarations of his genius became essential elements of the public Dalí persona: "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí".
Dalí frequently traveled with his pet ocelot Babou, even bringing it aboard the luxury ocean liner SS France. He was also known to avoid paying at restaurants by executing drawings on the checks he wrote. His theory was the restaurant would never want to cash such a valuable piece of art, and he was usually correct.
Dalí's fame meant he was a frequent guest on television in Spain, France and the United States, including appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 7 January 1963 The Mike Wallace Interview and the panel show What's My Line?. Dalí appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on 6 March 1970 carrying an anteater.
He also appeared in numerous advertising campaigns such for chocolates and Braniff International Airlines in 1968.
Legacy
Two major museums are devoted to Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.
Dalí's life and work have been an important influence on pop art, other Surrealists, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. He has been portrayed on film by Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes (2008), and by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris (2011). The Salvador Dalí Desert in Bolivia and the Dalí crater on the planet Mercury are named for him.
The Spanish television series Money Heist (2017–2021) includes characters wearing a costume of red jumpsuits and Dalí masks. The creator of the series stated that the Dalí mask was chosen because it was an iconic Spanish image. The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation protested against the use of Dalí's image without the authorisation of the Dali estate. Following the popular success of the series, there were reports of people in various countries wearing the costume while participating in political protests, committing crimes or as fancy dress.
Honors
1964: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
1972: Associate member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
1978: Associate member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France
1981: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III
1982: Created 1st Marquess of Dalí of Púbol, by King Juan Carlos
List of selected works
Dalí produced over 1,600 paintings and numerous graphic works, sculptures, three-dimensional objects, and designs. Below is a sample of important and representative works.
Landscape Near Figueras (1910–14)
Vilabertran (1910–14)
Cabaret Scene (1922)
Night Walking Dreams (1922)
The Basket of Bread (1926)
Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) (1927)
Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927)
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
The Lugubrious Game (1929)
The Great Masturbator (1929)
The First Days of Spring (1929)
L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) (1930) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
Board of Demented Associations (1930–31) (Surrealist object)
Premature Ossification of a Railway Station (1931)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933) (mixed media sculpture collage)
The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table (c.1934)
Lobster Telephone (1936)
Venus de Milo with Drawers (1936)
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
The Burning Giraffe (1937)
Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939)
Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
The Face of War (also known as The Visage of the War) (1940)
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (c.1944)
Basket of Bread – Rather Death than Shame (1945)
The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946)
The Elephants (1948) (also known as Project for "As You Like It")
Leda Atomica (1947–1949)
The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
Christ of Saint John of the Cross (also known as The Christ) (1951)
Galatea of the Spheres (1952) (also known as Gala Placidia)
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–54)
Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (c.1954) (also known as Hypercubic Christ)
Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955)
Still Life Moving Fast (c. 1956) (also known as Fast-Moving Still Life)
The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958)
Perpignan Railway Station (c. 1965)
Tuna Fishing (1966–67)
The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970)
Nieuw Amsterdam (1974 object/sculpture)
The Swallow's Tail (c.1983)
Dalí museums and permanent exhibitions
Dalí Theatre-Museum – Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, holds the largest collection of Dalí's work
Gala Dalí House-Museum – Castle of Púbol in Púbol, Catalonia, Spain
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Reina Sofia Museum) – Madrid, Spain, holds a significant collection
Salvador Dalí House Museum – Port Lligat, Catalonia, Spain
Salvador Dalí Museum – St Petersburg, Florida, contains the collection of Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, and over 1500 works by Dalí, including seven large "masterworks"
Major temporary exhibitions
In 2018, a traveling museum exhibition focusing on Dalí's illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy premiered at the Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana. The exhibition titled Salvador Dalí's Stairway to Heaven will be touring the United States through 2021.
Gallery
See also
List of Spanish artists
Salvador Dalí and Dance
References
Further reading
Important books by or about Salvador Dalí readily available in English include:
Ades, Dawn, Salvador Dalí, Thames and Hudson, 1995 (2nd ed.)
Dalí, Salvador, Oui: the paranoid-critical revolution: writings 1927–1933, (edited by Robert Descharnes, translated by Yvonne Shafir), Boston: Exact Change, 1998
Dalí, Salvador, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, New York, Dover, 1993 (translated by Haakon M. Chevalier, first published 1942)
Dalí, Salvador, The Diary of a Genius, London, Hutchinson, 1990 (translated by Richard Howard, first published 1964)
Dalí, Salvador, The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí, London, Quartet Books, 1977 (first published 1973)
Descharnes, Robert, Salvador Dalí (translated by Eleanor R. Morse), New York, Abradale Press, 1993
Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, London, Faber and Faber, 1997
Shanes, Eric, Salvador Dalí, Parkstone International, 2014
External links
Salvador Dalí on What's My Line?
Interview and bank advertisement.
A collection of interviews and footage of Dalí in the French television
Mike Wallace interviews Salvador Dalí Archived 15 December 2015. Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin
Panorama: Salvador Dali - Malcolm Muggeridge BBC interview, first transmitted 4 May 1955
Salvador Dalí at LletrA, Catalan Literature Online (Open University of Catalonia).
1904 births
1989 deaths
People from Figueres
Spanish artists
20th-century Spanish painters
Spanish male painters
Surrealist artists
Painters from Catalonia
Spanish illustrators
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
Marquesses of Spain
Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium
Modern painters
Spanish printmakers
Spanish erotic artists
Spanish Roman Catholics
Spanish surrealist artists
Surrealist filmmakers
20th-century Spanish sculptors
20th-century male artists
Spanish male sculptors
Mathematical artists
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Federico García Lorca
1939 New York World's Fair artists
Spanish people of Arab descent
Spanish people of Jewish descent
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"Dalli is a surname of Italian origin, and has a related Spanish surname form Dali. Notable people with the surname include:\nHelena Dalli, Maltese politician\nJohn Dalli (born 1948), prominent Maltese politician, European Commissioner in the second Barroso Commission\nLarissa Dalli, Gibraltarian dancer\nToni Dalli (born 1980), Italian musician and restaurant owner\n\nItalian-language surnames",
"Dalli may refer to:\n\nPlaces\n Dallı, Aşkale\n Dalli Rajhara, a city and a municipality, Durg district, Chhattisgarh State, India\n Dalli, Guyana, a community in Essequibo Islands-West Demerara, Guyana\n Dalli, Tanout, a former town in Tanout District, Zinder Region, Niger\n\nOther uses\n Dalli (surname)\n DALLI Group, a German detergent producer\n\nSee also\n Dali (disambiguation)\n DALI (disambiguation)\n Dalli Dalli, a German game show, see List of international game shows"
] |
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"Did Dali use any other forms of symbolism?",
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"What did the egg represent?",
"He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love;",
"How did Dali come up with these symbolism ideas?",
"I don't know.",
"how did Dali use this symbolism?",
"Dali employed extensive symbolism in his work.",
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C_6b3cf6c103be4cff822da0ceaebbd6b1_0
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What is the name of some of his work?
| 8 |
What is the name of some of Salvador Dalí's works?
|
Salvador Dalí
|
Dali employed extensive symbolism in his work. For instance, the hallmark "melting watches" that first appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. The idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to Dali when he was staring at a runny piece of Camembert cheese on a hot August day. The elephant is also a recurring image in Dali's works. It appeared in his 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants, inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, are portrayed "with long, multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire" along with obelisks on their backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic overtones, create a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant is a distortion in space", one analysis explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure." "I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly." --Salvador Dali, in Dawn Ades, Dali and Surrealism. The egg is another common Daliesque image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love; it appears in The Great Masturbator and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. The Metamorphosis of Narcissus also symbolized death and petrification. There are also giant sculptures of eggs in various locations at Dali's house in Port Lligat as well as at the Dali Theatre and Museum in Figueres. Various other animals appear throughout his work as well: ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire; the snail is connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear. Both Dali and his father enjoyed eating sea urchins, freshly caught in the sea near Cadaques. The radial symmetry of the sea urchin fascinated Dali, and he adapted its form to many art works. Other foods also appear throughout his work. CANNOTANSWER
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Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening.
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Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.
Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931, and is one of the most famous Surrealist paintings. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his "nuclear mysticism" style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments.
Dalí's artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork. His public support for the Francoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial. His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.
There are two major museums devoted to Salvador Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Biography
Early life
Salvador Dalí was born on 11 May 1904, at 8:45 am, on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí's older brother, who had also been named Salvador (born 12 October 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier, on 1 August 1903. His father, Salvador Rafael Aniceto Dalí Cusí (1872–1950) was a middle-class lawyer and notary, an anti-clerical atheist and Catalan federalist, whose strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa Domènech Ferrés (1874–1921), who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors. In the summer of 1912, the family moved to the top floor of Carrer Monturiol 24 (presently 10). Dalí later attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descendants of the Moors.
Dalí was haunted by the idea of his dead brother throughout his life, mythologizing him in his writings and art. Dalí said of him, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections." He "was probably the first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute". Images of his brother would reappear in his later works, including Portrait of My Dead Brother (1963).
Dalí also had a sister, Anna Maria, who was three years younger. In 1949, she published a book about her brother, Dalí as Seen by His Sister.
His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Emili Sagi-Barba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort town of Cadaqués, the trio played football together.
Dalí attended the Municipal Drawing School at Figueres in 1916 and also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres in 1918, a site he would return to decades later. In early 1921 the Pichot family introduced Dalí to Futurism and Dalí's uncle Anselm Domènech, who owned a bookshop in Barcelona, supplied him with books and magazines on Cubism and contemporary art.
On 6 February 1921, Dalí's mother died of uterine cancer. Dalí was 16 years old and later said his mother's death "was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul." After his wife's death, Dalí's father married her sister. Dalí did not resent this marriage, because he had great love and respect for his aunt.
Madrid, Barcelona and Paris
In 1922, Dalí moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts). A lean tall, Dalí already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy. He had long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee-breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century.
At the Residencia, he became close friends with Pepín Bello, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, and others associated with the Madrid avant-garde group Ultra. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí said he rejected the poet's sexual advances. Dalí's friendship with Lorca was to remain one of his most emotionally intense relationships until the poet's death at the hands of Nationalist forces in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Also in 1922, he began what would become a lifelong relationship with the Prado Museum, which he felt was, 'incontestably the best museum of old paintings in the world.' Each Sunday morning, Dalí went to the Prado to study the works of the great masters. 'This was the start of a monk-like period for me, devoted entirely to solitary work: visits to the Prado, where, pencil in hand, I analyzed all of the great masterpieces, studio work, models, research.'
Dalí's paintings in which he experimented with Cubism earned him the most attention from his fellow students since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time. Cabaret Scene (1922) is a typical example of such work. Through his association with members of the Ultra group, Dalí became more acquainted with avant-garde movements, including Dada and Futurism. One of his earliest works to show a strong Futurist and Cubist influence was the watercolor Night-Walking Dreams (1922). At this time, Dalí also read Freud and Lautréamont who were to have a profound influence on his work.
In May 1925 Dalí exhibited eleven works in a group exhibition held by the newly formed Sociedad Ibérica de Artistas in Madrid. Seven of the works were in his Cubist mode and four in a more realist style. Several leading critics praised Dalí's work. Dalí held his first solo exhibition at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, from 14 to 27 November 1925. This exhibition, before his exposure to Surrealism, included twenty-two works and was a critical and commercial success.
In April 1926 Dalí made his first trip to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about Dalí from Joan Miró, a fellow Catalan who later introduced him to many Surrealist friends. As he developed his own style over the next few years, Dalí made some works strongly influenced by Picasso and Miró. Dalí was also influenced by the work of Yves Tanguy, and he later allegedly told Tanguy's niece, "I pinched everything from your uncle Yves."
Dalí left the Royal Academy in 1926, shortly before his final exams. His mastery of painting skills at that time was evidenced by his realistic The Basket of Bread, painted in 1926.
Later that year he exhibited again at Galeries Dalmau, from 31 December 1926 to 14 January 1927, with the support of the art critic . The show included twenty-three paintings and seven drawings, with the "Cubist" works displayed in a separate section from the "objective" works. The critical response was generally positive with Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) singled out for particular attention.
From 1927 Dalí's work became increasingly influenced by Surrealism. Two of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927) and Gadget and Hand (1927), were shown at the annual Autumn Salon (Saló de tardor) in Barcelona in October 1927. Dalí described the earlier of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood, as "equidistant between Cubism and Surrealism". The works featured many elements that were to become characteristic of his Surrealist period including dreamlike images, precise draftsmanship, idiosyncratic iconography (such as rotting donkeys and dismembered bodies), and lighting and landscapes strongly evocative of his native Catalonia. The works provoked bemusement among the public and debate among critics about whether Dalí had become a Surrealist.
Influenced by his reading of Freud, Dalí increasingly introduced suggestive sexual imagery and symbolism into his work. He submitted Dialogue on the Beach (Unsatisfied Desires) (1928) to the Barcelona Autumn Salon for 1928 but the work was rejected because "it was not fit to be exhibited in any gallery habitually visited by the numerous public little prepared for certain surprises." The resulting scandal was widely covered in the Barcelona press and prompted a popular Madrid illustrated weekly to publish an interview with Dalí.
Some trends in Dalí's work that would continue throughout his life were already evident in the 1920s. Dalí was influenced by many styles of art, ranging from the most academically classic, to the most cutting-edge avant-garde. His classical influences included Raphael, Bronzino, Francisco de Zurbarán, Vermeer and Velázquez. Exhibitions of his works attracted much attention and a mixture of praise and puzzled debate from critics who noted an apparent inconsistency in his work by the use of both traditional and modern techniques and motifs between works and within individual works.
In the mid-1920s Dalí grew a neatly trimmed mustache. In later decades he cultivated a more flamboyant one in the manner of 17th-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez, and this mustache became a well known Dalí icon.
1929 to World War II
In 1929, Dalí collaborated with Surrealist film director Luis Buñuel on the short film (An Andalusian Dog). His main contribution was to help Buñuel write the script for the film. Dalí later claimed to have also played a significant role in the filming of the project, but this is not substantiated by contemporary accounts. In August 1929, Dalí met his lifelong muse and future wife Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. She was a Russian immigrant ten years his senior, who at that time was married to Surrealist poet Paul Éluard.
In works such as The First Days of Spring, The Great Masturbator and The Lugubrious Game Dalí continued his exploration of the themes of sexual anxiety and unconscious desires. Dalí's first Paris exhibition was at the recently opened Goemans Gallery in November 1929 and featured eleven works. In his preface to the catalog, André Breton described Dalí's new work as "the most hallucinatory that has been produced up to now". The exhibition was a commercial success but the critical response was divided. In the same year, Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris. The Surrealists hailed what Dalí was later to call his paranoiac-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity.
Meanwhile, Dalí's relationship with his father was close to rupture. Don Salvador Dalí y Cusi strongly disapproved of his son's romance with Gala and saw his connection to the Surrealists as a bad influence on his morals. The final straw was when Don Salvador read in a Barcelona newspaper that his son had recently exhibited in Paris a drawing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, with a provocative inscription: "Sometimes, I spit for fun on my mother's portrait". Outraged, Don Salvador demanded that his son recant publicly. Dalí refused, perhaps out of fear of expulsion from the Surrealist group, and was violently thrown out of his paternal home on 28 December 1929. His father told him that he would be disinherited and that he should never set foot in Cadaqués again. The following summer, Dalí and Gala rented a small fisherman's cabin in a nearby bay at Port Lligat. He soon bought the cabin, and over the years enlarged it by buying neighboring ones, gradually building his beloved villa by the sea. Dalí's father would eventually relent and come to accept his son's companion.
In 1931, Dalí painted one of his most famous works, The Persistence of Memory, which developed a surrealistic image of soft, melting pocket watches. The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and other limp watches shown being devoured by ants.
Dalí had two important exhibitions at the Pierre Colle Gallery in Paris in June 1931 and May–June 1932. The earlier exhibition included sixteen paintings of which The Persistence of Memory attracted the most attention. Some of the notable features of the exhibitions were the proliferation of images and references to Dalí's muse Gala and the inclusion of Surrealist Objects such as Hypnagogic Clock and Clock Based on the Decomposition of Bodies. Dalí's last, and largest, the exhibition at the Pierre Colle Gallery was held in June 1933 and included twenty-two paintings, ten drawings, and two objects. One critic noted Dalí's precise draftsmanship and attention to detail, describing him as a "paranoiac of geometrical temperament". Dalí's first New York exhibition was held at Julien Levy's gallery in November–December 1933. The exhibition featured twenty-six works and was a commercial and critical success. The New Yorker critic praised the precision and lack of sentimentality in the works, calling them "frozen nightmares".
Dalí and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were civilly married on 30 January 1934 in Paris. They later remarried in a Church ceremony on 8 August 1958 at Sant Martí Vell. In addition to inspiring many artworks throughout her life, Gala would act as Dalí's business manager, supporting their extravagant lifestyle while adeptly steering clear of insolvency. Gala, who herself engaged in extra-marital affairs, seemed to tolerate Dalí's dalliances with younger muses, secure in her own position as his primary relationship. Dalí continued to paint her as they both aged, producing sympathetic and adoring images of her. The "tense, complex and ambiguous relationship" lasting over 50 years would later become the subject of an opera, Jo, Dalí (I, Dalí) by Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel.
Dalí's first visit to the United States in November 1934 attracted widespread press coverage. His second New York exhibition was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in November–December 1934 and was again a commercial and critical success. Dalí delivered three lectures on Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and other venues during which he told his audience for the first time that "[t]he only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad." The heiress Caresse Crosby, the inventor of the brassiere, organized a farewell fancy dress ball for Dalí on 18 January 1935. Dalí wore a glass case on his chest containing a brassiere and Gala dressed as a woman giving birth through her head. A Paris newspaper later claimed that the Dalís had dressed as the Lindbergh baby and his kidnapper, a claim which Dalí denied.
While the majority of the Surrealist group had become increasingly associated with leftist politics, Dalí maintained an ambiguous position on the subject of the proper relationship between politics and art. Leading Surrealist André Breton accused Dalí of defending the "new" and "irrational" in "the Hitler phenomenon", but Dalí quickly rejected this claim, saying, "I am Hitlerian neither in fact nor intention". Dalí insisted that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism. Later in 1934, Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he narrowly avoided being expelled from the Surrealist group. To this, Dalí retorted, "The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist."
In 1936, Dalí took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. His lecture, titled , was delivered while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply into the human mind."
Dalí's first solo London exhibition was held at the Alex, Reid, and Lefevre Gallery the same year. The show included twenty-nine paintings and eighteen drawings. The critical response was generally favorable, although the Daily Telegraph critic wrote: "These pictures from the subconscious reveal so skilled a craftsman that the artist's return to full consciousness may be awaited with interest."
In December 1936 Dalí participated in the Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at MoMA and a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. Both exhibitions attracted large attendances and widespread press coverage. The painting Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936) attracted particular attention. Dalí later described it as, "a vast human body breaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto-strangulation". On 14 December, Dalí, aged 32, was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
From 1933 Dalí was supported by Zodiac, a group of affluent admirers who each contributed to a monthly stipend for the painter in exchange for a painting of their choice. From 1936 Dalí's main patron in London was the wealthy Edward James who would support him financially for two years. One of Dalí's most important paintings from the period of James' patronage was The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937). They also collaborated on two of the most enduring icons of the Surrealist movement: the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa.
Dalí was in London when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. When he later learned that his friend Lorca had been executed by Nationalist forces, Dalí's claimed response was to shout: "Olé!" Dalí was to include frequent references to the poet in his art and writings for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic for the duration of the conflict.
In January 1938, Dalí unveiled Rainy Taxi, a three-dimensional artwork consisting of an automobile and two mannequin occupants being soaked with rain from within the taxi. The piece was first displayed at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, organized by André Breton and Paul Éluard. The Exposition was designed by artist Marcel Duchamp, who also served as host.
In March that year, Dalí met Sigmund Freud thanks to Stefan Zweig. As Dalí sketched Freud's portrait, Freud whispered, "That boy looks like a fanatic." Dalí was delighted upon hearing later about this comment from his hero. The following day Freud wrote to Zweig "...until now I have been inclined to regard the Surrealists, who have apparently adopted me as their patron saint, as complete fools.....That young Spaniard, with his candid fanatical eyes and his undeniable technical mastery, has changed my estimate. It would indeed be very interesting to investigate analytically how he came to create that picture [i.e. Metamorphosis of Narcissus]."
In September 1938, Salvador Dalí was invited by Gabrielle Coco Chanel to her house "La Pausa" in Roquebrune on the French Riviera. There he painted numerous paintings he later exhibited at Julien Levy Gallery in New York. This exhibition in March–April 1939 included twenty-one paintings and eleven drawings. Life reported that no exhibition in New York had been so popular since Whistler's Mother was shown in 1934.
At the 1939 New York World's Fair, Dalí debuted his Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion, located in the Amusements Area of the exposition. It featured bizarre sculptures, statues, mermaids, and live nude models in "costumes" made of fresh seafood, an event photographed by Horst P. Horst, George Platt Lynes, and Murray Korman. Dalí was angered by changes to his designs, railing against mediocrities who thought that "a woman with the tail of a fish is possible; a woman with the head of a fish impossible."
Soon after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, Dalí wrote to Luis Buñuel denouncing socialism and Marxism and praising Catholicism and the Falange. As a result, Buñuel broke off relations with Dalí.
In the May issue of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, André Breton announced Dalí's expulsion from the Surrealist group, claiming that Dalí had espoused race war and that the over-refinement of his paranoiac-critical method was a repudiation of Surrealist automatism. This led many Surrealists to break off relations with Dalí. In 1949 Breton coined the derogatory nickname "Avida Dollars" (avid for dollars), an anagram for "Salvador Dalí". This was a derisive reference to the increasing commercialization of Dalí's work, and the perception that Dalí sought self-aggrandizement through fame and fortune.
World War II
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 saw the Dalís in France. Following the German invasion, they were able to escape because on 20 June 1940 they were issued visas by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, France. They crossed into Portugal and subsequently sailed on the Excambion from Lisbon to New York in August 1940. Dalí and Gala were to live in the United States for eight years, splitting their time between New York and the Monterey Peninsula, California.
Dalí spent the winter of 1940–41 at Hampton Manor, the residence of Caresse Crosby, in Caroline County, Virginia, where he worked on various projects including his autobiography and paintings for his upcoming exhibition.
Dalí announced the death of the Surrealist movement and the return of classicism in his exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in April–May 1941. The exhibition included nineteen paintings (among them Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire and The Face of War) and other works. In his catalog essay and media comments, Dalí proclaimed a return to form, control, structure and the Golden Section. Sales however were disappointing and the majority of critics did not believe there had been a major change in Dalí's work.
The Museum of Modern Art held two major, simultaneous retrospectives of Dali and Joan Miró from November 1941 to February 1942, Dalí being represented by forty-two paintings and sixteen drawings. Dalí's work attracted significant attention of critics and the exhibition later toured eight American cities, enhancing his reputation in America.
In October 1942, Dalí's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí was published simultaneously in New York and London and was reviewed widely by the press. Time magazine's reviewer called it "one of the most irresistible books of the year". George Orwell later wrote a scathing review in the Saturday Book. A passage in the autobiography in which Dalí claimed that Buñuel was solely responsible for the anti-clericalism in the film L'Age d'Or may have indirectly led to Buñuel resigning his position at MoMA in 1943 under pressure from the State Department. Dalí also published a novel Hidden Faces in 1944 with less critical and commercial success.
In the catalog essay for his exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1943 Dalí continued his attack on the Surrealist movement, writing: "Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system. ... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college [collage]". The critical response to the society portraits in the exhibition, however, was generally negative.
In November–December 1945 Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery in New York. The exhibition included eleven oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and illustrations. Works included Basket of Bread, Atomic and Uranian Melancholic Ideal, and My Wife Nude Contemplating her own Body Transformed into Steps, the Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture. The exhibition was notable for works in Dalí's new classicism style and those heralding his "atomic period".
During the war years, Dalí was also engaged in projects in various other fields. He executed designs for a number of ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, and The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944). In 1945 he created the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound. He also produced artwork and designs for products such as perfumes, cosmetics, hosiery and ties.
Post War in United States (1946–48)
In 1946 Dalí worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on an unfinished animated film Destino.
Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery from November 1947 to January 1948. The 14 oil paintings and other works in the exhibition reflected Dalí's increasing interest in atomic physics. Notable works included Dematerialization Near the Nose of Nero (The Separation of the Atom), Intra-Atomic Equilibrium of a Swan's Feather, and a study for Leda Atomica. The proportions of the latter work were worked out in collaboration with a mathematician.
In early 1948 Dalí's 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship was published. The book was a mixture of anecdotes, practical advice on painting, and Dalínian polemics.
Later years in Spain
In 1948 Dalí and Gala moved back into their house in Port Lligat, on the coast near Cadaqués. For the next three decades, they would spend most of their time there, spending winters in Paris and New York. Dalí's decision to live in Spain under Franco and his public support for the regime prompted outrage from many anti-Francoist artists and intellectuals. Pablo Picasso refused to mention Dalí's name or acknowledge his existence for the rest of his life. In 1960, André Breton unsuccessfully fought against the inclusion of Dalí's Sistine Madonna in the Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanter's Domain exhibition organized by Marcel Duchamp in New York. Breton and other Surrealists issued a tract to coincide with the exhibition denouncing Dalí as "the ex-apologist of Hitler... and friend of Franco".
In December 1949 Dalí's sister Anna Maria published her book Salvador Dalí Seen by his Sister. Dalí was angered by passages that he considered derogatory towards his wife Gala and broke off relations with his family. When Dalí's father died in September 1950 Dalí learned that he had been virtually disinherited in his will. A two-year legal dispute followed over paintings and drawings Dalí had left in his family home, during which Dalí was accused of assaulting a public notary.
As Dalí moved further towards embracing Catholicism he introduced more religious iconography and themes in his painting. In 1949 he painted a study for The Madonna of Port Lligat (first version, 1949) and showed it to Pope Pius XII during an audience arranged to discuss Dalí 's marriage to Gala. This work was a precursor to the phase Dalí dubbed "Nuclear Mysticism," a fusion of Einsteinian physics, classicism, and Catholic mysticism. In paintings such as The Madonna of Port Lligat, The Christ of Saint John on the Cross and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, Dalí sought to synthesize Christian iconography with images of material disintegration inspired by nuclear physics. His later Nuclear Mysticism works included La Gare de Perpignan (1965) and The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–70).
Dalí's keen interest in natural science and mathematics was further manifested by the proliferation of images of DNA and rhinoceros horn shapes in works from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. Dalí was also fascinated by the Tesseract (a four-dimensional cube), using it, for example, in Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).
Dalí had been extensively using optical illusions such as double images, anamorphosis, negative space, visual puns and trompe-l'œil since his Surrealist period and this continued in his later work. At some point, Dalí had a glass floor installed in a room near his studio in Port Lligat. He made extensive use of it to study foreshortening, both from above and from below, incorporating dramatic perspectives of figures and objects into his paintings. He also experimented with the bulletist technique pointillism, enlarged half-tone dot grids and stereoscopic images. He was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. In Dalí's later years, young artists such as Andy Warhol proclaimed him an important influence on pop art.
In 1960, Dalí began work on his Theatre-Museum in his home town of Figueres. It was his largest single project and a main focus of his energy through to 1974, when it opened. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s.
In 1955 Dalí met Nanita Kalaschnikoff, who was to become a close friend, muse, and model. At a French nightclub in 1965 Dalí met Amanda Lear, a fashion model then known as Peki Oslo. Lear became his protégée and one of his muses. According to Lear, she and Dalí were united in a "spiritual marriage" on a deserted mountaintop.
Final years and death
In 1968, Dalí bought a castle in Púbol for Gala, and from 1971 she would retreat there for weeks at a time, Dalí having agreed not to visit without her written permission. His fears of abandonment and estrangement from his longtime artistic muse contributed to depression and failing health.
In 1980, at age 76, Dalí's health deteriorated sharply and he was treated for depression, drug addiction, and Parkinson-like symptoms, including a severe tremor in his right arm. There were also allegations that Gala had been supplying Dalí with pharmaceuticals from her own prescriptions.
Gala died on 10 June 1982, at the age of 87. After her death, Dalí moved from Figueres to the castle in Púbol, where she was entombed.
In 1982, King Juan Carlos bestowed on Dalí the title of Marqués de Dalí de Púbol (Marquess of Dalí of Púbol) in the nobility of Spain, Púbol being where Dalí then lived. The title was initially hereditary, but at Dalí's request was changed to life-only in 1983.
In May 1983, what was said to be Dalí's last painting, The Swallow's Tail, was revealed. The work was heavily influenced by the mathematical catastrophe theory of René Thom. However, some critics have questioned how Dalí could have executed a painting with such precision given the severe tremor in his painting arm.
From early 1984 Dalí's depression worsened and he refused food, leading to severe undernourishment. Dalí had previously stated his intention to put himself into a state of suspended animation as he had read that some microorganisms could do. In August 1984 a fire broke out in Dalí's bedroom and he was hospitalized with severe burns. Two judicial inquiries found that the fire was caused by an electrical fault and no findings of negligence were made. After his release from hospital Dalí moved to the Torre Galatea, an annex to the Dalí Theatre-Museum.
There have been allegations that Dalí was forced by his guardians to sign blank canvases that could later be used in forgeries. It is also alleged that he knowingly sold otherwise-blank lithograph paper which he had signed, possibly producing over 50,000 such sheets from 1965 until his death. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late graphic works attributed to Dalí.
In July 1986, Dalí had a pacemaker implanted. On his return to his Theatre-Museum he made a brief public appearance, saying:
In November 1988, Dalí entered hospital with heart failure. On 5 December 1988, he was visited by King Juan Carlos, who confessed that he had always been a serious devotee of Dalí. Dalí gave the king a drawing, Head of Europa, which would turn out to be Dalí's final drawing.
On the morning of 23 January 1989, while his favorite record of Tristan and Isolde played, Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84. He is buried in the crypt below the stage of his Theatre-Museum in Figueres. The location is across the street from the church of Sant Pere, where he had his baptism, first communion, and funeral, and is only from the house where he was born.
The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation currently serves as his official estate. The US copyright representative for the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.
Exhumation
On 26 June 2017 it was announced that a judge in Madrid had ordered the exhumation of Dalí's body in order to obtain samples for a paternity suit. Joan Manuel Sevillano, manager of the Fundación Gala Salvador Dalí (The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation), denounced the exhumation as inappropriate. The exhumation took place on the evening of 20 July, and his DNA was extracted. On 6 September 2017 the Foundation stated that the tests carried out proved conclusively that Dalí and the claimant were not related. On 18 May 2020 a Spanish court dismissed an appeal from the claimant and ordered her to pay the costs of the exhumation.
Symbolism
From the late 1920s, Dalí progressively introduced many bizarre or incongruous images into his work which invite symbolic interpretation. While some of these images suggest a straightforward sexual or Freudian interpretation (Dalí read Freud in the 1920s) others (such as locusts, rotting donkeys, and sea urchins) are idiosyncratic and have been variously interpreted. Some commentators have cautioned that Dalí's own comments on these images are not always reliable.
Food
Food and eating have a central place in Dalí's thoughts and work. He associated food with beauty and sex and was obsessed with the image of the female praying mantis eating her mate after copulation. Bread was a recurring image in Dalí's art, from his early work The Basket of Bread to later public performances such as in 1958 when he gave a lecture in Paris armed with a 12-meter-long baguette. He saw bread as "the elementary basis of continuity" and "sacred subsistence".
The egg is another common Dalínian image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love. It appears in The Great Masturbator, The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and many other works. There are also giant sculptures of eggs in various locations at Dalí's house in Port Lligat as well as at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres.
Both Dalí and his father enjoyed eating sea urchins, freshly caught in the sea near Cadaqués. The radial symmetry of the sea urchin fascinated Dalí, and he adapted its form to many artworks. Other foods also appear throughout his work.
The famous "melting watches" that appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. Dalí later claimed that the idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to him when he was contemplating Camembert cheese.
Animals
The rhinoceros and rhinoceros horn shapes began to proliferate in Dalí's work from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. He linked the rhinoceros to themes of chastity and to the Virgin Mary. However, he also used it as an obvious phallic symbol as in Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity.
Various other animals appear throughout Dalí's work: rotting donkeys and ants have been interpreted as pointing to death, decay, and sexual desire; the snail as connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts as a symbol of waste and fear. The elephant is also a recurring image in his work; for example, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants are inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk.
Science
Dalí's life-long interest in science and mathematics was often reflected in his work. His soft watches have been interpreted as references to Einstein's theory of the relativity of time and space. Images of atomic particles appeared in his work soon after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and strands of D.N.A. appeared from the mid-1950s. In 1958 he wrote in his Anti-Matter Manifesto: "In the Surrealist period, I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today, the exterior world and that of physics have transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg."
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954) harks back to The Persistence of Memory (1931) and in portraying that painting in fragmentation and disintegration has been interpreted as a reference to Heisenberg's quantum mechanics.
Endeavors outside painting
Dalí was a versatile artist. Some of his more popular works are sculptures and other objects, and he is also noted for his contributions to theater, fashion, and photography, among other areas.
Sculptures and other objects
From the early 1930s, Dalí was an enthusiastic proponent of the proliferation of three-dimensional Surrealist Objects to subvert perceptions of conventional reality, writing: "museums will fast fill with objects whose uselessness, size and crowding will necessitate the construction, in deserts, of special towers to contain them." His more notable early objects include Board of Demented Associations (1930–31), Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933), Venus de Milo with Chest of Drawers (1936) and Aphrodisiac Dinner Jacket (1936). Two of the most popular objects of the Surrealist movement were Lobster Telephone (1936) and Mae West Lips Sofa (1937) which were commissioned by art patron Edward James. Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for Dalí who drew a close analogy between food and sex. The telephone was functional, and James purchased four of them from Dalí to replace the phones in his home. The Mae West Lips Sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, who was previously the subject of Dalí's watercolor, The Face of Mae West which may be used as a Surrealist Apartment (1934–35). In December 1936 Dalí sent Harpo Marx a Christmas present of a harp with barbed-wire strings.
After World War II Dalí authorized many sculptures derived from his most famous works and images. In his later years other sculptures also appeared, often in large editions, whose authenticity has sometimes been questioned.
Between 1941 and 1970, Dalí created an ensemble of 39 pieces of jewelry, many of which are intricate, some containing moving parts. The most famous assemblage, The Royal Heart, is made of gold and is encrusted with 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and four emeralds, created in such a way that the center "beats" like a heart.
Dalí ventured into industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Dalí decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's "Studio Linie". In 1969 he designed the Chupa Chups logo. He facilitated the design of the advertising campaign for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest and created a large on-stage metal sculpture that stood at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Theater and film
In theater, Dalí designed the scenery for Federico García Lorca's 1927 romantic play Mariana Pineda. For Bacchanale (1939), a ballet based on and set to the music of Richard Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser, Dalí provided both the set design and the libretto. He executed designs for a number of other ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944) and The Three-Cornered Hat (1949).
Dalí became interested in film when he was young, going to the theater most Sundays. By the late 1920s he was fascinated by the potential of film to reveal "the unlimited fantasy born of things themselves" and went on to collaborate with the director Luis Buñuel on two Surrealist films: the 17-minute short Un Chien Andalou (1929) and the feature film L'Age d'Or (1930). Dalí and Buñuel agree that they jointly developed the script and imagery of Un Chien Andalou, but there is controversy over the extent of Dalí's contribution to L'Age d'Or. Un Chien Andalou features a graphic opening scene of a human eyeball being slashed with a razor and develops surreal imagery and irrational discontinuities in time and space to produce a dreamlike quality. L'Age d'Or is more overtly anti-clerical and anti-establishment, and was banned after right-wing groups staged a riot in the Parisian theater where it was being shown. Summarizing the impact of these two films on the Surrealist film movement, one commentator has stated: "If Un Chien Andalou stands as the supreme record of Surrealism's adventures into the realm of the unconscious, then L'Âge d'Or is perhaps the most trenchant and implacable expression of its revolutionary intent."
After he collaborated with Buñuel, Dalí worked on several unrealized film projects including a published script for a film, Babaouo (1932); a scenario for Harpo Marx called Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937); and an abandoned dream sequence for the film Moontide (1942). In 1945 Dalí created the dream sequence in Hitchcock's Spellbound, but neither Dalí nor the director was satisfied with the result. Dalí also worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on the short film Destino in 1946. After initially being abandoned, the animated film was completed in 2003 by Baker Bloodworth and Walt Disney's nephew Roy E. Disney. Between 1954 and 1961 Dalí worked with photographer Robert Descharnes on The Prodigious History of the Lacemaker and the Rhinoceros, but the film was never completed.
In the 1960s Dalí worked with some directors on documentary and performance films including with Philippe Halsman on Chaos and Creation (1960), Jack Bond on Dalí in New York (1966) and Jean-Christophe Averty on Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dalí (1966).
Dalí collaborated with director José-Montes Baquer on the pseudo-documentary film Impressions of Upper Mongolia (1975), in which Dalí narrates a story about an expedition in search of giant hallucinogenic mushrooms. In the mid-1970s film director Alejandro Jodorowsky initially cast Dalí in the role of the Padishah Emperor in a production of Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert. However, Jodorowsky changed his mind after Dalí publicly supported the execution of alleged ETA terrorists in December 1975. The film was ultimately never made.
In 1972 Dalí began to write the scenario for an opera-poem called Être Dieu (To Be God). The Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán wrote the libretto and Igor Wakhévitch the music. The opera poem was recorded in Paris in 1974 with Dalí in the role of the protagonist.
Fashion and photography
Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli worked with Dalí from the 1930s and commissioned him to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dalí made for her include a shoe-shaped hat and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. In 1950, Dalí created a special "costume for the year 2045" with Christian Dior.
Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. Halsman produced the Dalí Atomica series (1948) – inspired by Dalí's painting Leda Atomica – which in one photograph depicts "a painter's easel, three cats, a bucket of water, and Dalí himself floating in the air".
Architecture
Dalí's architectural achievements include his Port Lligat house near Cadaqués, as well as his Theatre Museum in Figueres. A major work outside of Spain was the temporary Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, which contained several unusual sculptures and statues, including live performers posing as statues.
Literary works
In his only novel, Hidden Faces (1944), Dalí describes the intrigues of a group of eccentric aristocrats whose extravagant lifestyle symbolizes the decadence of the 1930s. The Comte de Grandsailles and Solange de Cléda pursue a love affair, but interwar political turmoil and other vicissitudes drive them apart. It is variously set in Paris, rural France, Casablanca in North Africa, and Palm Springs in the United States. Secondary characters include aging widow Barbara Rogers, her bisexual daughter Veronica, Veronica's sometime female lover Betka, and Baba, a disfigured U.S. fighter pilot. The novel was written in New York, and translated by Haakon Chevalier.
His other literary works include The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), Diary of a Genius (1966), and Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1971). Dalí also published poetry, essays, art criticism, and a technical manual on art.
Graphic arts
Dalí worked extensively in the graphic arts, producing many drawings, etchings, and lithographs. Among the most notable of these works are forty etchings for an edition of Lautréamont's The Songs of Maldoror (1933) and eighty drypoint reworkings of Goya's Caprichos (1973–77). From the 1960s, however, Dalí would often sell the rights to images but not be involved in the print production itself. In addition, a large number of fakes were produced in the 1980s and 1990s, thus further confusing the Dalí print market.
Book illustrations were an important part of Dalí's work throughout his career. His first book illustration was for the 1924 publication of the Catalan poem ("The Witches of Liers") by his friend and schoolmate, poet Carles Fages de Climent. His other notable book illustrations, apart from The Songs of Maldoror, include 101 watercolors and engravings for The Divine Comedy (1960) and 100 drawings and watercolors for The Arabian Nights (1964).
Politics and personality
Politics and religion
As a youth, Dalí identified as Communist, anti-monarchist and anti-clerical and in 1924 he was briefly imprisoned by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship as a person "intensely liable to cause public disorder". When Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in 1929 his political activism initially intensified. In 1931, he became involved in the Workers' and Peasants' Front, delivering lectures at meetings and contributing to their party journal. However, as political divisions within the Surrealist group grew, Dalí soon developed a more apolitical stance, refusing to publicly denounce fascism. In 1934, Andre Breton accused him of being sympathetic to Hitler and Dalí narrowly avoided being expelled from the group. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic. However, immediately after Franco's victory in 1939, Dalí praised Catholicism and the Falange and was expelled from the Surrealist group.
After Dalí's return to his native Catalonia in 1948, he publicly supported Franco's regime and announced his return to the Catholic faith. Dalí was granted an audience with Pope Pius XII in 1949 and with Pope John XXIII in 1959. He had official meetings with General Franco in June 1956, October 1968, and May 1974. In 1968, Dalí stated that on Franco's death there should be no return to democracy and Spain should become an absolute monarchy. In September 1975, Dalí publicly supported Franco's decision to execute three alleged Basque terrorists and repeated his support for an absolute monarchy, adding: "Personally, I'm against freedom; I'm for the Holy Inquisition." In the following days, he fled to New York after his home in Port Lligat was stoned and he had received numerous death threats. When King Juan Carlos visited the ailing Dalí in August 1981, Dalí told him: "I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."
Dalí espoused a mystical view of Catholicism and in his later years he claimed to be a Catholic and an agnostic. He was interested in the writings of the Jesuit priest and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin and his Omega Point theory. Dalí's painting Tuna Fishing (Homage to Meissonier) (1967) was inspired by his reading of Chardin.
Sexuality
Dalí's sexuality had a profound influence on his work. He stated that as a child he saw a book with graphic illustrations of venereal diseases and this provoked a life-long disgust of female genitalia and a fear of impotence and sexual intimacy. Dalí frequently stated that his main sexual activity involved voyeurism and masturbation and his preferred sexual orifice was the anus. Dalí said that his wife Gala was the only person with whom he had achieved complete coitus. From 1927 Dalí's work featured graphic and symbolic sexual images usually associated with other images evoking shame and disgust. Images of anality and excrement also abound in his work from this time. Some of the most notable works reflecting these themes include The First Days of Spring (1929), The Great Masturbator (1929), and The Lugubrious Game (1929). Several of Dalí's intimates in the 1960s and 1970s have stated that he would arrange for selected guests to perform choreographed sexual activities to aid his voyeurism and masturbation.
Personality
Dalí was renowned for his eccentric and ostentatious behavior throughout his career. In 1941, the Director of Exhibitions and Publications at MoMA wrote: "The fame of Salvador Dalí has been an issue of particular controversy for more than a decade...Dalí's conduct may have been undignified, but the greater part of his art is a matter of dead earnest." When Dalí was elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1979, one of his fellow academicians stated that he hoped Dalí would now abandon his "clowneries".
In 1936, at the premiere screening of Joseph Cornell's film Rose Hobart at Julien Levy's gallery in New York City, Dalí knocked over the projector in a rage. "My idea for a film is exactly that," he said shortly afterward, "I never wrote it down or told anyone, but it is as if he had stolen it!" In 1939, while working on a window display for Bonwit Teller, he became so enraged by unauthorized changes to his work that he pushed a display bathtub through a plate glass window. In 1955, he delivered a lecture at the Sorbonne, arriving in a Rolls Royce full of cauliflowers. To promote Robert Descharnes' 1962 book The World of Salvador Dalí, he appeared in a Manhattan bookstore on a bed, wired up to a machine that traced his brain waves and blood pressure. He would autograph books while thus monitored, and the book buyer would also be given the paper chart recording.
After World War II, Dalí became one of the most recognized artists in the world, and his long cape, walking stick, haughty expression, and upturned waxed mustache became icons of his brand. His boastfulness and public declarations of his genius became essential elements of the public Dalí persona: "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí".
Dalí frequently traveled with his pet ocelot Babou, even bringing it aboard the luxury ocean liner SS France. He was also known to avoid paying at restaurants by executing drawings on the checks he wrote. His theory was the restaurant would never want to cash such a valuable piece of art, and he was usually correct.
Dalí's fame meant he was a frequent guest on television in Spain, France and the United States, including appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 7 January 1963 The Mike Wallace Interview and the panel show What's My Line?. Dalí appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on 6 March 1970 carrying an anteater.
He also appeared in numerous advertising campaigns such for chocolates and Braniff International Airlines in 1968.
Legacy
Two major museums are devoted to Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.
Dalí's life and work have been an important influence on pop art, other Surrealists, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. He has been portrayed on film by Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes (2008), and by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris (2011). The Salvador Dalí Desert in Bolivia and the Dalí crater on the planet Mercury are named for him.
The Spanish television series Money Heist (2017–2021) includes characters wearing a costume of red jumpsuits and Dalí masks. The creator of the series stated that the Dalí mask was chosen because it was an iconic Spanish image. The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation protested against the use of Dalí's image without the authorisation of the Dali estate. Following the popular success of the series, there were reports of people in various countries wearing the costume while participating in political protests, committing crimes or as fancy dress.
Honors
1964: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
1972: Associate member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
1978: Associate member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France
1981: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III
1982: Created 1st Marquess of Dalí of Púbol, by King Juan Carlos
List of selected works
Dalí produced over 1,600 paintings and numerous graphic works, sculptures, three-dimensional objects, and designs. Below is a sample of important and representative works.
Landscape Near Figueras (1910–14)
Vilabertran (1910–14)
Cabaret Scene (1922)
Night Walking Dreams (1922)
The Basket of Bread (1926)
Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) (1927)
Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927)
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
The Lugubrious Game (1929)
The Great Masturbator (1929)
The First Days of Spring (1929)
L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) (1930) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
Board of Demented Associations (1930–31) (Surrealist object)
Premature Ossification of a Railway Station (1931)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933) (mixed media sculpture collage)
The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table (c.1934)
Lobster Telephone (1936)
Venus de Milo with Drawers (1936)
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
The Burning Giraffe (1937)
Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939)
Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
The Face of War (also known as The Visage of the War) (1940)
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (c.1944)
Basket of Bread – Rather Death than Shame (1945)
The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946)
The Elephants (1948) (also known as Project for "As You Like It")
Leda Atomica (1947–1949)
The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
Christ of Saint John of the Cross (also known as The Christ) (1951)
Galatea of the Spheres (1952) (also known as Gala Placidia)
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–54)
Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (c.1954) (also known as Hypercubic Christ)
Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955)
Still Life Moving Fast (c. 1956) (also known as Fast-Moving Still Life)
The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958)
Perpignan Railway Station (c. 1965)
Tuna Fishing (1966–67)
The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970)
Nieuw Amsterdam (1974 object/sculpture)
The Swallow's Tail (c.1983)
Dalí museums and permanent exhibitions
Dalí Theatre-Museum – Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, holds the largest collection of Dalí's work
Gala Dalí House-Museum – Castle of Púbol in Púbol, Catalonia, Spain
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Reina Sofia Museum) – Madrid, Spain, holds a significant collection
Salvador Dalí House Museum – Port Lligat, Catalonia, Spain
Salvador Dalí Museum – St Petersburg, Florida, contains the collection of Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, and over 1500 works by Dalí, including seven large "masterworks"
Major temporary exhibitions
In 2018, a traveling museum exhibition focusing on Dalí's illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy premiered at the Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana. The exhibition titled Salvador Dalí's Stairway to Heaven will be touring the United States through 2021.
Gallery
See also
List of Spanish artists
Salvador Dalí and Dance
References
Further reading
Important books by or about Salvador Dalí readily available in English include:
Ades, Dawn, Salvador Dalí, Thames and Hudson, 1995 (2nd ed.)
Dalí, Salvador, Oui: the paranoid-critical revolution: writings 1927–1933, (edited by Robert Descharnes, translated by Yvonne Shafir), Boston: Exact Change, 1998
Dalí, Salvador, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, New York, Dover, 1993 (translated by Haakon M. Chevalier, first published 1942)
Dalí, Salvador, The Diary of a Genius, London, Hutchinson, 1990 (translated by Richard Howard, first published 1964)
Dalí, Salvador, The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí, London, Quartet Books, 1977 (first published 1973)
Descharnes, Robert, Salvador Dalí (translated by Eleanor R. Morse), New York, Abradale Press, 1993
Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, London, Faber and Faber, 1997
Shanes, Eric, Salvador Dalí, Parkstone International, 2014
External links
Salvador Dalí on What's My Line?
Interview and bank advertisement.
A collection of interviews and footage of Dalí in the French television
Mike Wallace interviews Salvador Dalí Archived 15 December 2015. Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin
Panorama: Salvador Dali - Malcolm Muggeridge BBC interview, first transmitted 4 May 1955
Salvador Dalí at LletrA, Catalan Literature Online (Open University of Catalonia).
1904 births
1989 deaths
People from Figueres
Spanish artists
20th-century Spanish painters
Spanish male painters
Surrealist artists
Painters from Catalonia
Spanish illustrators
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
Marquesses of Spain
Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium
Modern painters
Spanish printmakers
Spanish erotic artists
Spanish Roman Catholics
Spanish surrealist artists
Surrealist filmmakers
20th-century Spanish sculptors
20th-century male artists
Spanish male sculptors
Mathematical artists
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Federico García Lorca
1939 New York World's Fair artists
Spanish people of Arab descent
Spanish people of Jewish descent
| true |
[
"Lespedeza frutescens, commonly known as shrubby lespedeza, is a species of herbaceous plant in the legume family.\n\nIt is native to eastern North America, where it is found on cliffs, balds, or ledges, forests, ridges or ledges, talus and rocky slopes, woodlands.\n\nTaxonomy\nRecent taxonomic work has changed the entity to which the name Lespedeza violacea applies. Based upon a reexamination of the type specimens, it was determined that Lespedeza violacea is the correct name of what was traditionally known as Lespedeza intermedia. The entity traditionally known as Lespedeza violacea now has the name Lespedeza frutescens. This nomenclature rearrangement has resulted in widespread confusion among botanists, with older references and some modern botanists retaining the traditional usage. Literature referencing L. violacea must be carefully checked to determine what concept of the species the author is using.\n\nReferences\n\nfrutescens\nFlora of North America",
"Gadāʼī (), or Gadā (, []), was a 15th-century poet of Central Asia who wrote in the Chaghatay Turkic language. He is recognised by the better-known Ali-Shir Nava'i as a predecessor, whom he had met.\n\nLife \nLittle is known about Gadāʼī's life. Based on information about him provided by Navaʼi in the third section of Majalis un-Nafāʼis (compiled in 1497 or 1498), which describes poets who were still alive and whom Navaʼi knew, it is possible to deduce that Gadāʼī was born around 1403 or 1404. However, based on other evidence, Ergash Rustamov concluded in the 1960s that Gadāʼī must have been born no later than 1360 and later served at the court of Abul-Qasim Babur Mirza at over 90 years of age.\n\nName \nThe poet is referred to as Gadāʼī by Navāʼi, and in the one manuscript of his divans, as Gadā. This name, meaning \"beggar\", is understood to be a pen name. It is not known what his given name may have been.\n\nWorks \nGadāʼī wrote a divan, or collection of poems, in what would now be considered the pre-classical Chaghatay literary language. At the time, this language was known as \"Türkī\", meaning \"Turkish\" or \"Turkic\". Rustamov highlights the fact that Gadāʼī was not a Sufi poet, and incorporated aspects of the local Turkic literary traditions into his work.\n\nThe single manuscript containing Gadāʼī's divan is housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and is composed of two halves: the first containing the Divan of Luṭfi (another 15th-century poet who wrote in Chaghatay), and the second containing the \"Dīvān-i Gadā\", on folios 96b through 161a. The last folio is missing, and may have included metadata about the manuscript, such as the name of the copyist and when it was copied.\n\nThe divan consists of mostly ghazals (229), but also five tuyughs, two qaṣīdas, and one mustazād.\n\nResearch \nThe first mention of Gadāʼī in non-Chaghatay literature is thought to be in a 1914 work that mentions him by Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, a Turkish historian. Fuad provided more information about him in his history of Chaghatay literature in 1945. The Uzbek scholar Ergash Rustamov provides the first \"scholarly appraisal\" of Gadāʼi's work in a source published in the 1960s. János Eckmann published a translation of some of Gadāʼī's works in 1960, which formed the basis of Rustamov's work, and in 1971 published a complete transcription of Gadāʼī's divan, with facsimiles of all the folios, a glossary, and a brief introduction.\n\nReferences \n\n15th-century Asian people\n15th-century poets\n15th-century writers\nCentral Asian people"
] |
[
"Bobby Thomson",
"Controversy"
] |
C_cdce3a49e3074777b875ecc6d610adf3_0
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What was controversial about thomson?
| 1 |
What was controversial about Bobby Thomson?
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Bobby Thomson
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Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told the Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book. Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials but made no public comment at the time. Later he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37-7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961. Thomson however, late in his life, rebuked his prior claims of not receiving the sign on the Shot Heard 'Round the World, and admitted that the sign was received. CANNOTANSWER
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Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson.
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Robert Brown Thomson (October 25, 1923 – August 16, 2010) was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player, nicknamed the "Staten Island Scot". He was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants (1946–53, 1957), Milwaukee Braves (1954–57), Chicago Cubs (1958–59), Boston Red Sox (1960), and Baltimore Orioles (1960). His pennant-winning three-run home run for the Giants in 1951 is popularly known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", and is one of the most famous moments in baseball history. It overshadowed his other accomplishments, including eight 20-home-run seasons and three All-Star selections. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me", he said. "It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody."
Early life
Thomson was born in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the youngest of six children born to parents James and Elizabeth. He arrived in the United States two years later. James, a cabinet maker, had moved to New York City shortly before Bobby's birth and sent for his family in 1925.
Thomson grew up on Staten Island in New York City and signed with the New York Giants for a $100 bonus right out of Curtis High School in 1942. On December 5, 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Forces and trained as a bombardier. His entire service was within the continental United States. He played semiprofessional baseball in the summer of 1945 while awaiting his discharge.
Early baseball career
Thomson batted .283 with 29 home runs and 82 runs batted in (RBIs) in his rookie year, 1947. The following season, he batted .248 with 16 home runs. In 1949, Thomson had career bests in RBIs (109) and batting average (.309). His batting average dropped to .252 in 1950. He then hit a career-high 32 home runs in 1951, the fifth-best total in the major leagues; he also had the fourth-highest slugging average in baseball that year.
The "Shot Heard 'Round the World"
Thomson became a celebrity for his walk-off home run off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca to win the 1951 National League pennant. The home run, nicknamed the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", was dramatic, as until 1969, league pennants were only decided by a playoff when the teams involved finished the regular season in a tie. Prior to 1951, playoffs had only been necessary in 1946 (NL) and 1948 (AL).
Although in mid-August, the Giants were games behind the league-leading Dodgers, they won 37 of their final 44 games to tie Brooklyn on the final day of the regular season, forcing a three-game playoff. The Giants won the first game 3–1 as a result of a two-run home run by Thomson (off Branca). Brooklyn's Clem Labine shut out the Giants in the second game, 10–0. The decisive contest, played on October 3 at the Polo Grounds, was the first major sporting event televised coast-to-coast in the United States. The Dodgers took a 4–1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, but Giants shortstop Alvin Dark singled, advanced to third on a single by Don Mueller, and scored on a double by Whitey Lockman. With Lockman on second and pinch runner Clint Hartung at third, Thomson's walk-off home run turned looming defeat into a 5–4 victory. The moment was immortalized by Giants play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges's excited multiple repetitions: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
Waiting in the on-deck circle to hit behind Thomson was rookie Willie Mays. The Giants' season ended, however, at the 1951 World Series; the Yankees swept the last three games to win the best-of-seven series, four games to two. Thomson batted .238 in the series with no home runs.
The bat from the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" is in the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The uniform worn by Thomson on that day is apparently a part of a large private collection owned by Dan Scheinman, a member of the San Francisco Giants ownership group.
Sign stealing
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told The Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, coach Herman Franks used a telescope positioned in the Giants clubhouse behind center field to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book.
Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials, but made no public comment at the time. Later, he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37–7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961.
Later years
In 1952, Thomson led the National League with 14 triples while batting .271 with 25 home runs and 109 RBIs for the Giants. In his final season with the Giants in 1953, Thomson hit 26 home runs and 106 RBIs, and a .288 average. That winter, he was sent to the Milwaukee Braves in a multiplayer deal. During his first spring training with the Braves in 1954, he suffered a broken ankle, which allowed rookie Hank Aaron to earn a place in the Milwaukee lineup. Thomson batted a career-low .232 in 1954.
The Braves traded Thomson back to the Giants during the 1957 season, and he was in the lineup for the club's final game at the Polo Grounds. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the 1958 season, but Thomson was gone, traded to the Cubs. He spent two seasons in Chicago before closing out his major-league career in the American League with the Red Sox and Orioles. He played one final season in 1963 with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.
Thomson was a career .270 hitter with 264 home runs and 1,026 RBIs in 1,779 games. He was selected an All-Star in 1948, 1949, and 1952.
In the 1990s, over 40 years after his famous home run, Thomson received a letter from a Marine who had been stationed in Korea in 1951:
"I was in a bunker in the front line with my buddy listening to the radio. It was contrary to orders, but he was a Giants fanatic. He never made it home, and I promised him if I ever got back, I'd write and tell you about the happiest moment of his life. It's taken me this long to put my feelings into words. On behalf of my buddy, thanks, Bobby."
After baseball, Thomson became a sales executive at a New York City paper-products company. He lived in Watchung, New Jersey, until 2006, when he moved to Savannah, Georgia, to be near his daughter Nancy and his grandchildren. He died August 16, 2010, at his home in The Marshes of Skidaway Island, a continuing care facility in Savannah.
Honors
Scottish baseball team Edinburgh Diamond Devils named their home Bobby Thomson Field. It was opened by Thomson himself in 2003, while he was in Scotland to be inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
The UK Chapter of The Society for American Baseball Research is named the Bobby Thomson Chapter.
The Curtis High School Field in Staten Island was renamed Bobby Thomson Field in 2007.
Thomson was inducted into the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame in the class of 1995.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
References
External links
ESPN/The Associated Press obituary
BBC obituary
Thomson's profile at Baseball Library
Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run 1951. According to the description at Cleveland Public Library's site: "45? min., recorded on tape with Luke Sewell interview/ Between 1973 and 1987 historian Eugene Converse Murdock interviewed 76 former baseball players in 22 states. Most had been active in the 1930s. Murdock was chairman of the history department at Marietta College from 1972 until his retirement in 1986. The interviews were not professionally recorded, and the audio quality is variable."
Joshua Prager's The Echoing Green
Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments: The Shot Heard 'Round the World at The Sporting News
Article, The Herald (Scotland)
National League All-Stars
Baltimore Orioles players
Boston Red Sox players
Chicago Cubs players
Milwaukee Braves players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball center fielders
Major League Baseball left fielders
Bristol Twins players
Jersey City Giants players
Rocky Mount Rocks players
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
Major League Baseball players from Scotland
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Sportspeople from Glasgow
Sportspeople from Staten Island
Semi-professional baseball players
1923 births
2010 deaths
Curtis High School alumni
People from Watchung, New Jersey
Sportspeople from Somerset County, New Jersey
United States Army Air Forces officers
Military personnel from New Jersey
| true |
[
"The United States Penitentiary, Thomson (USP Thomson), formerly Thomson Correctional Center, is a high-security federal prison located in Thomson, Illinois. It has an area of about and comprises 15 buildings. The facility is enclosed by a , 7000 volt electric fence surrounded by an additional exterior fence covered with razor wire. Thomson has eight cellhouses with a rated capacity of 2,100 beds—1,900 high-security SMU beds and 200 minimum-security beds at the onsite camp—and according to BOP officials, the potential to use some of its high-security rated capacity to house up to 400 ADX inmates. From its completion in 2001 to 2006, it remained empty. By 2009, only the minimum-security section housed prisoners.\n\nIn October 2012, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) purchased Thomson Correctional Center from the State of Illinois for $165 million. Plans to transfer inmates from Guantanamo Bay to the facility had already been blocked by Congress.\n\nIn August 2014, Donald Hudson was named the first warden of the prison. The prison was fully activated in January 2019 and as of March 2020, the prison had an inmate population of 1,067. In June 2019, the prison crossed the 400 employee mark with an authorization to hire 200 more over the next few years as inmate population continues to ramp up.\nAs of May 2020, USP Thomson holds 1009 inmates at the high-security USP and 74 at the minimum security camp.\n\nHistory\nThe building of the prison was controversial; early plans suggested using the site of the former Savanna Army Depot, several miles north of Thomson. One of the main reasons the prison was controversial was concern that the prison would have a negative impact on the environment, especially being so close to the Mississippi River.\n\nThomson Correctional Center was built between May 1999 and November 2001. Its completion cost $140 million, but the state omitted opening costs from the 2002 budget, and Governor George H. Ryan called for a delay to the opening to save $50 million per year in operating costs. By 2009, the total cost to the state of Illinois had exceeded $170 million. The minimum security unit has an annual budget of $7 million. State budget constraints as well as labor union opposition to closing other state prisons prevented the maximum-security prison from opening.\n\nIn 2008, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich proposed to close the state prison in Pontiac and to open the Thomson maximum-security unit instead. However, Blagojevich was subsequently arrested on December 9, 2008, and was removed from office. His replacement, Governor Pat Quinn, cancelled plans to close the Pontiac prison in March 2009, leaving Thomson unused.\n\nTransfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees \n\nOn December 15, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama, via a Presidential memorandum, formally ordered the departments of Justice and Defense to arrange federal ownership of the prison, and prepare for transfer there of both federal prisoners and Guantanamo detainees. According to previous press reports, the acquisition plan contemplated housing up to 100 inmates from the camp, in addition to other federal prisoners. The Federal Bureau of Prisons would erect a more secure perimeter fence, so its perimeter security exceeded supermax standards. The portion of the Thomson prison that would be used to house Guantanamo detainees would be operated by the Department of Defense, while the rest of the prison would be operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.\n\nCNN stated that before the decision was announced, many in the town had welcomed the idea of Guantanamo prisoners being housed in their town, in hopes it would revitalize the local economy and bring jobs. However, funding for detainee transfers was blocked.\n\nFederal Bureau of Prisons Purchase \nIllinois Senator Dick Durbin’s office announced on October 2, 2012, that the Obama administration and Federal Bureau of Prisons would buy the Thomson Correctional Center from the state of Illinois for $165 million. An administration official said the deal was to address overcrowding issues, and Thomson would not be used to house any Guantanamo detainees, which the official noted was prohibited by law. \"The entire facility will house only [Bureau of Prisons] inmates (up to 2,800) and be operated solely by BOP. Specifically, it will be used for administrative maximum security inmates and others who have proven difficult to manage in high-security institutions,\" said the official, who asked not to be named. This statement was echoed in a letter from United States Attorney General Eric Holder. \"I have committed that no Guantanamo detainees will be transferred to Thomson. As you know, any such transfer would violate express legal statutory prohibitions,\" Holder said in a letter to Representative Frank Wolf, who fought the proposal.\n\nDemocratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said the move would create 1,000 jobs in the area of Thomson. Federal officials have said that building a new prison instead of buying Thomson would take years and cost about $400 million. State officials estimated that annual operation of the facility would generate more than $122 million in operating expenditures, including salaries and $61 million in local business sales. The prison was fully activated in January 2019.\n\nNotable inmates\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nInfrastructure completed in 2001\nBuildings and structures in Carroll County, Illinois\nGuantanamo Bay detention camp\nPrisons in Illinois\n2001 establishments in Illinois\nFederal Bureau of Prisons",
"W.B. Thomson was a rugby union international who represented England from 1892 to 1895.\n\nEarly life\nW.B. Thomson was born in 1871, in Matabeleland, then deemed part of South Africa but in what would later become South Rhodesia. He was educated at Bedford Modern School.\n\nRugby union career\nThomson played his club rugby for Blackheath F.C. and made his international debut on 2 January 1892 at his club's home ground at the Rectory Field, Blackheath in the England vs Wales match. He played on four occasions for England and was on the winning side on three occasions. He played his final match for England on 9 March 1895 at the Athletic Ground, Richmond in the England vs Scotland match.\n\nPersonal life\nWardlaw Brown Thomson married Mary Ethel Brewis in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1896 They had a son, Wardlaw Ivor Thomson who was killed in the First World War. WB Thomson died in 1921.\n\nReferences\n\n1871 births\nPeople educated at Bedford Modern School\nEnglish rugby union players\nEngland international rugby union players\nRugby union centres\nYear of death missing"
] |
[
"Bobby Thomson",
"Controversy",
"What was controversial about thomson?",
"Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson."
] |
C_cdce3a49e3074777b875ecc6d610adf3_0
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 2 |
Are there any other interesting aspects about Bobby Thomson other than the controversy about Branca's pitch?
|
Bobby Thomson
|
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told the Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book. Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials but made no public comment at the time. Later he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37-7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961. Thomson however, late in his life, rebuked his prior claims of not receiving the sign on the Shot Heard 'Round the World, and admitted that the sign was received. CANNOTANSWER
|
the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers.
|
Robert Brown Thomson (October 25, 1923 – August 16, 2010) was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player, nicknamed the "Staten Island Scot". He was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants (1946–53, 1957), Milwaukee Braves (1954–57), Chicago Cubs (1958–59), Boston Red Sox (1960), and Baltimore Orioles (1960). His pennant-winning three-run home run for the Giants in 1951 is popularly known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", and is one of the most famous moments in baseball history. It overshadowed his other accomplishments, including eight 20-home-run seasons and three All-Star selections. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me", he said. "It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody."
Early life
Thomson was born in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the youngest of six children born to parents James and Elizabeth. He arrived in the United States two years later. James, a cabinet maker, had moved to New York City shortly before Bobby's birth and sent for his family in 1925.
Thomson grew up on Staten Island in New York City and signed with the New York Giants for a $100 bonus right out of Curtis High School in 1942. On December 5, 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Forces and trained as a bombardier. His entire service was within the continental United States. He played semiprofessional baseball in the summer of 1945 while awaiting his discharge.
Early baseball career
Thomson batted .283 with 29 home runs and 82 runs batted in (RBIs) in his rookie year, 1947. The following season, he batted .248 with 16 home runs. In 1949, Thomson had career bests in RBIs (109) and batting average (.309). His batting average dropped to .252 in 1950. He then hit a career-high 32 home runs in 1951, the fifth-best total in the major leagues; he also had the fourth-highest slugging average in baseball that year.
The "Shot Heard 'Round the World"
Thomson became a celebrity for his walk-off home run off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca to win the 1951 National League pennant. The home run, nicknamed the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", was dramatic, as until 1969, league pennants were only decided by a playoff when the teams involved finished the regular season in a tie. Prior to 1951, playoffs had only been necessary in 1946 (NL) and 1948 (AL).
Although in mid-August, the Giants were games behind the league-leading Dodgers, they won 37 of their final 44 games to tie Brooklyn on the final day of the regular season, forcing a three-game playoff. The Giants won the first game 3–1 as a result of a two-run home run by Thomson (off Branca). Brooklyn's Clem Labine shut out the Giants in the second game, 10–0. The decisive contest, played on October 3 at the Polo Grounds, was the first major sporting event televised coast-to-coast in the United States. The Dodgers took a 4–1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, but Giants shortstop Alvin Dark singled, advanced to third on a single by Don Mueller, and scored on a double by Whitey Lockman. With Lockman on second and pinch runner Clint Hartung at third, Thomson's walk-off home run turned looming defeat into a 5–4 victory. The moment was immortalized by Giants play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges's excited multiple repetitions: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
Waiting in the on-deck circle to hit behind Thomson was rookie Willie Mays. The Giants' season ended, however, at the 1951 World Series; the Yankees swept the last three games to win the best-of-seven series, four games to two. Thomson batted .238 in the series with no home runs.
The bat from the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" is in the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The uniform worn by Thomson on that day is apparently a part of a large private collection owned by Dan Scheinman, a member of the San Francisco Giants ownership group.
Sign stealing
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told The Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, coach Herman Franks used a telescope positioned in the Giants clubhouse behind center field to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book.
Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials, but made no public comment at the time. Later, he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37–7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961.
Later years
In 1952, Thomson led the National League with 14 triples while batting .271 with 25 home runs and 109 RBIs for the Giants. In his final season with the Giants in 1953, Thomson hit 26 home runs and 106 RBIs, and a .288 average. That winter, he was sent to the Milwaukee Braves in a multiplayer deal. During his first spring training with the Braves in 1954, he suffered a broken ankle, which allowed rookie Hank Aaron to earn a place in the Milwaukee lineup. Thomson batted a career-low .232 in 1954.
The Braves traded Thomson back to the Giants during the 1957 season, and he was in the lineup for the club's final game at the Polo Grounds. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the 1958 season, but Thomson was gone, traded to the Cubs. He spent two seasons in Chicago before closing out his major-league career in the American League with the Red Sox and Orioles. He played one final season in 1963 with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.
Thomson was a career .270 hitter with 264 home runs and 1,026 RBIs in 1,779 games. He was selected an All-Star in 1948, 1949, and 1952.
In the 1990s, over 40 years after his famous home run, Thomson received a letter from a Marine who had been stationed in Korea in 1951:
"I was in a bunker in the front line with my buddy listening to the radio. It was contrary to orders, but he was a Giants fanatic. He never made it home, and I promised him if I ever got back, I'd write and tell you about the happiest moment of his life. It's taken me this long to put my feelings into words. On behalf of my buddy, thanks, Bobby."
After baseball, Thomson became a sales executive at a New York City paper-products company. He lived in Watchung, New Jersey, until 2006, when he moved to Savannah, Georgia, to be near his daughter Nancy and his grandchildren. He died August 16, 2010, at his home in The Marshes of Skidaway Island, a continuing care facility in Savannah.
Honors
Scottish baseball team Edinburgh Diamond Devils named their home Bobby Thomson Field. It was opened by Thomson himself in 2003, while he was in Scotland to be inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
The UK Chapter of The Society for American Baseball Research is named the Bobby Thomson Chapter.
The Curtis High School Field in Staten Island was renamed Bobby Thomson Field in 2007.
Thomson was inducted into the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame in the class of 1995.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
References
External links
ESPN/The Associated Press obituary
BBC obituary
Thomson's profile at Baseball Library
Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run 1951. According to the description at Cleveland Public Library's site: "45? min., recorded on tape with Luke Sewell interview/ Between 1973 and 1987 historian Eugene Converse Murdock interviewed 76 former baseball players in 22 states. Most had been active in the 1930s. Murdock was chairman of the history department at Marietta College from 1972 until his retirement in 1986. The interviews were not professionally recorded, and the audio quality is variable."
Joshua Prager's The Echoing Green
Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments: The Shot Heard 'Round the World at The Sporting News
Article, The Herald (Scotland)
National League All-Stars
Baltimore Orioles players
Boston Red Sox players
Chicago Cubs players
Milwaukee Braves players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball center fielders
Major League Baseball left fielders
Bristol Twins players
Jersey City Giants players
Rocky Mount Rocks players
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
Major League Baseball players from Scotland
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Sportspeople from Glasgow
Sportspeople from Staten Island
Semi-professional baseball players
1923 births
2010 deaths
Curtis High School alumni
People from Watchung, New Jersey
Sportspeople from Somerset County, New Jersey
United States Army Air Forces officers
Military personnel from New Jersey
| false |
[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Bobby Thomson",
"Controversy",
"What was controversial about thomson?",
"Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers."
] |
C_cdce3a49e3074777b875ecc6d610adf3_0
|
WHere ther any penalties for this?
| 3 |
Were there any penalties after Bobby Thomson's team stole finger signals from opposing catchers?
|
Bobby Thomson
|
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told the Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book. Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials but made no public comment at the time. Later he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37-7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961. Thomson however, late in his life, rebuked his prior claims of not receiving the sign on the Shot Heard 'Round the World, and admitted that the sign was received. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Robert Brown Thomson (October 25, 1923 – August 16, 2010) was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player, nicknamed the "Staten Island Scot". He was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants (1946–53, 1957), Milwaukee Braves (1954–57), Chicago Cubs (1958–59), Boston Red Sox (1960), and Baltimore Orioles (1960). His pennant-winning three-run home run for the Giants in 1951 is popularly known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", and is one of the most famous moments in baseball history. It overshadowed his other accomplishments, including eight 20-home-run seasons and three All-Star selections. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me", he said. "It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody."
Early life
Thomson was born in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the youngest of six children born to parents James and Elizabeth. He arrived in the United States two years later. James, a cabinet maker, had moved to New York City shortly before Bobby's birth and sent for his family in 1925.
Thomson grew up on Staten Island in New York City and signed with the New York Giants for a $100 bonus right out of Curtis High School in 1942. On December 5, 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Forces and trained as a bombardier. His entire service was within the continental United States. He played semiprofessional baseball in the summer of 1945 while awaiting his discharge.
Early baseball career
Thomson batted .283 with 29 home runs and 82 runs batted in (RBIs) in his rookie year, 1947. The following season, he batted .248 with 16 home runs. In 1949, Thomson had career bests in RBIs (109) and batting average (.309). His batting average dropped to .252 in 1950. He then hit a career-high 32 home runs in 1951, the fifth-best total in the major leagues; he also had the fourth-highest slugging average in baseball that year.
The "Shot Heard 'Round the World"
Thomson became a celebrity for his walk-off home run off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca to win the 1951 National League pennant. The home run, nicknamed the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", was dramatic, as until 1969, league pennants were only decided by a playoff when the teams involved finished the regular season in a tie. Prior to 1951, playoffs had only been necessary in 1946 (NL) and 1948 (AL).
Although in mid-August, the Giants were games behind the league-leading Dodgers, they won 37 of their final 44 games to tie Brooklyn on the final day of the regular season, forcing a three-game playoff. The Giants won the first game 3–1 as a result of a two-run home run by Thomson (off Branca). Brooklyn's Clem Labine shut out the Giants in the second game, 10–0. The decisive contest, played on October 3 at the Polo Grounds, was the first major sporting event televised coast-to-coast in the United States. The Dodgers took a 4–1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, but Giants shortstop Alvin Dark singled, advanced to third on a single by Don Mueller, and scored on a double by Whitey Lockman. With Lockman on second and pinch runner Clint Hartung at third, Thomson's walk-off home run turned looming defeat into a 5–4 victory. The moment was immortalized by Giants play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges's excited multiple repetitions: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
Waiting in the on-deck circle to hit behind Thomson was rookie Willie Mays. The Giants' season ended, however, at the 1951 World Series; the Yankees swept the last three games to win the best-of-seven series, four games to two. Thomson batted .238 in the series with no home runs.
The bat from the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" is in the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The uniform worn by Thomson on that day is apparently a part of a large private collection owned by Dan Scheinman, a member of the San Francisco Giants ownership group.
Sign stealing
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told The Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, coach Herman Franks used a telescope positioned in the Giants clubhouse behind center field to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book.
Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials, but made no public comment at the time. Later, he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37–7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961.
Later years
In 1952, Thomson led the National League with 14 triples while batting .271 with 25 home runs and 109 RBIs for the Giants. In his final season with the Giants in 1953, Thomson hit 26 home runs and 106 RBIs, and a .288 average. That winter, he was sent to the Milwaukee Braves in a multiplayer deal. During his first spring training with the Braves in 1954, he suffered a broken ankle, which allowed rookie Hank Aaron to earn a place in the Milwaukee lineup. Thomson batted a career-low .232 in 1954.
The Braves traded Thomson back to the Giants during the 1957 season, and he was in the lineup for the club's final game at the Polo Grounds. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the 1958 season, but Thomson was gone, traded to the Cubs. He spent two seasons in Chicago before closing out his major-league career in the American League with the Red Sox and Orioles. He played one final season in 1963 with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.
Thomson was a career .270 hitter with 264 home runs and 1,026 RBIs in 1,779 games. He was selected an All-Star in 1948, 1949, and 1952.
In the 1990s, over 40 years after his famous home run, Thomson received a letter from a Marine who had been stationed in Korea in 1951:
"I was in a bunker in the front line with my buddy listening to the radio. It was contrary to orders, but he was a Giants fanatic. He never made it home, and I promised him if I ever got back, I'd write and tell you about the happiest moment of his life. It's taken me this long to put my feelings into words. On behalf of my buddy, thanks, Bobby."
After baseball, Thomson became a sales executive at a New York City paper-products company. He lived in Watchung, New Jersey, until 2006, when he moved to Savannah, Georgia, to be near his daughter Nancy and his grandchildren. He died August 16, 2010, at his home in The Marshes of Skidaway Island, a continuing care facility in Savannah.
Honors
Scottish baseball team Edinburgh Diamond Devils named their home Bobby Thomson Field. It was opened by Thomson himself in 2003, while he was in Scotland to be inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
The UK Chapter of The Society for American Baseball Research is named the Bobby Thomson Chapter.
The Curtis High School Field in Staten Island was renamed Bobby Thomson Field in 2007.
Thomson was inducted into the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame in the class of 1995.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
References
External links
ESPN/The Associated Press obituary
BBC obituary
Thomson's profile at Baseball Library
Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run 1951. According to the description at Cleveland Public Library's site: "45? min., recorded on tape with Luke Sewell interview/ Between 1973 and 1987 historian Eugene Converse Murdock interviewed 76 former baseball players in 22 states. Most had been active in the 1930s. Murdock was chairman of the history department at Marietta College from 1972 until his retirement in 1986. The interviews were not professionally recorded, and the audio quality is variable."
Joshua Prager's The Echoing Green
Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments: The Shot Heard 'Round the World at The Sporting News
Article, The Herald (Scotland)
National League All-Stars
Baltimore Orioles players
Boston Red Sox players
Chicago Cubs players
Milwaukee Braves players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball center fielders
Major League Baseball left fielders
Bristol Twins players
Jersey City Giants players
Rocky Mount Rocks players
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
Major League Baseball players from Scotland
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Sportspeople from Glasgow
Sportspeople from Staten Island
Semi-professional baseball players
1923 births
2010 deaths
Curtis High School alumni
People from Watchung, New Jersey
Sportspeople from Somerset County, New Jersey
United States Army Air Forces officers
Military personnel from New Jersey
| false |
[
"Across the United Kingdom, many services such as hospitals and schools depend on private or corporate donation. In the sixteenth century,(before 1560 in Scotland) the Church and the nobility were the only source of such support. By the nineteenth century, government and local authorities had taken over this responsibility. Poor Laws in the nineteenth century provided a more secure form of help for the poor and gradually the use of mortifications declined. Sometimes a hospital, Bedehouse, or care home was given money directly to further its purposes. The City of Aberdeen like many across Scotland, and in the rest of the United Kingdom, administers charitable trusts to benefit its residents (approximately £8m in 2013). Some of these date back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In general these mortifications were endowed to benefit Guildry members, the poor, medical, educational, cultural, arts and heritage purposes individuals and groups. Recently the City Council has re-organised these charities together with OSCR. Some of the charities have been wound up with residual funds allocated to other charities with similar purposes in Aberdeen.\n\nMortifications for the poor \n\nThe city of \"new\" or Royal Aberdeen has been in receipt of many bequests from individuals and organizations. Some of these were intended to alleviate the poverty of widows, guild or Trades and craft members. The bequest by Marione Douglas, Lady Drum in 1633 was supplemented by a number of other benefactors. Lady Drum gave 3000 Scots Merks\n\n\"... to Widows of that have beine the wyffes of burgesses of Aberdeine, and who have leived, both in ther widowheide, and in the tyme of ther life and mariage and cohabitatione with ther hushands, .... of good lyfe and conversation, frie of anie publict scandle, or offence, ....\"\n\nA hospital or house was commissioned to provide a lodging for the ladies. It was known as Lady Drum's Hospital. In 1634, Jean Goold or Guild mortified 50 Merks Scots (In 1849, this sum was worth some £26 15s 6d). to assist \"poor widows and virgins\". Jean Guild was the \"relick\" or widow of a David Anderson(e) of Finzean, a burghess of Aberdeen. The text of the document indicates the strict standards to be met when allocating the funds.\n\" ... be it kend till all men, be thir present letters, Me Jeane Goold, relict of umquhile David Andersone of finzeauch, burges of Aberdeine, to the honor of Almightie God, to have frielie given and mortified to the provost Baillies Councell and Communitie of the said brugh of Aberdeine, and to ther Successors, in all tyme enmeing, for the use underwreittin, the Soume of fyve hundreth nierkes, usuall money of Scotland, to be bestowed and employed upone anuel rent where most convenient employment can be hade be advyse of the Provest Baillies and Councell of the said brugh, for the tyme, and the yeirlie anuel rent therof, I ordayne to be given and bestowed, be the master of the mortified moneyes of the said brugh, for the tyme, to Bessie Leask, .... and Beatrix Mollysone, and efter both ther deceiss, I appoynt and ordayne the anuel rent of the said fyve hundreth markes to be given and bestowed, from then furth, towards the helpe and maintenance of poore vidowes and virgines, within the said brugh of Aberdeine, of the qualitie efter specified, viz : to widowes that lies beine the wyiffes of burgesses of Aberdeine, merchands, or craftsmen, livand, both in the tyme of ther widowheide, and in the tyme of ther mariage and cohabitatione with ther husbandes, of good lyfe and conversatione, frie of anie publict Scandell or offence, and to aiged virgines who are borne bairnes in Aberdeine, and who have lived in the state of virginitie, and continowes in that estate .. to ther lyves end, frie of publict Scandell, as said is .. and if anie of the saids widowes or virgines, that sail happen to be admitted, sail prove scandelous, efter ther admissione therunto, I ordayne them to be simpliciter discharged therof, upon just tryall and notice taken of ther scandelous carriage, be the Provest Baillies and Councell of the said brngh, whome I appoynt to be judges for trying of the said Scandell or miscarriage ....\"\nAdditional bequests were made to the initial money by Lady Drum by several benefactors until the end of the seventeen hundreds (Alexander Galloway £226 13s 4d (Scots) 17th February, 1700; Mrs Agnes Durie (Divvie?) 1000 Merks Scots (£55 11s 1d); Jean Cattanach £200 0s 0d and Miss Bell Cattanach of £100 (Sterling)). The 1633 mortification by Lady Drum led to the building of a hospital in 1671. In 1721, maiden daughters of Burgesses of Guild were also admitted. This house was demolished in 1798. The City of Aberdeen has a plaque adjacent to the spot where the \"hospital\" was located on Upper Kirkgate.\n\nThe present\nThe Aberdeen City Council has decided to wind up a number of these charities that have insufficient funds to operate efficiently. An interesting example relates to the house or hospital founded by Lady Drum in 1633. After discussions with OSCR the residual funds from the Lady Drum Hospital have been allocated to another local charity, the Instant Neighbour scheme. OSCR have decided that historic charities should be amalgamated to maximize potential income to beneficiaries. OSCR's functions in Scotland, amongst others are to: Keep a public Register of charities; Encourage, facilitate and monitor compliance by charities with the provisions of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. In general, the future of many \"historic\" charities or trusts is in doubt. Many Pre-reformation hospital charities or trusts have been wound up in recent years due to the absence of beneficiaries and diminishing income from mortification and the old \"Feu\" system. Feuing was in practice abolished in Scotland in 2000. An example was the Bishop Gavin Dunbar's Hospital, SC003765 which no longer operates.\n\nSee also\nAberdeen poorhouses\nAberdeen trades hospitals\nBishop Dunbar's Hospital\nCowane's Hospital\nHospital chantry\nKincardine O'Neil Hospital, Aberdeenshire\nHospitals in medieval Scotland\nMitchell's Hospital Old Aberdeen\nScottish Bedesmen\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAberdeen\nHistory of Aberdeen",
"Rebecca Patek is an American choreographer and performance artist.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Website for Rebecca Patek\n 2ge(a)ther we are w/hole, TimeOut New York\n\nAmerican choreographers\nAmerican performance artists\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Bobby Thomson",
"Controversy",
"What was controversial about thomson?",
"Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers.",
"WHere ther any penalties for this?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_cdce3a49e3074777b875ecc6d610adf3_0
|
Where there any other scandals?
| 4 |
Where there any other scandals involving Bobby Thomson other than when the team stole finger signals of opposing catchers?
|
Bobby Thomson
|
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told the Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book. Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials but made no public comment at the time. Later he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37-7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961. Thomson however, late in his life, rebuked his prior claims of not receiving the sign on the Shot Heard 'Round the World, and admitted that the sign was received. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Robert Brown Thomson (October 25, 1923 – August 16, 2010) was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player, nicknamed the "Staten Island Scot". He was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants (1946–53, 1957), Milwaukee Braves (1954–57), Chicago Cubs (1958–59), Boston Red Sox (1960), and Baltimore Orioles (1960). His pennant-winning three-run home run for the Giants in 1951 is popularly known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", and is one of the most famous moments in baseball history. It overshadowed his other accomplishments, including eight 20-home-run seasons and three All-Star selections. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me", he said. "It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody."
Early life
Thomson was born in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the youngest of six children born to parents James and Elizabeth. He arrived in the United States two years later. James, a cabinet maker, had moved to New York City shortly before Bobby's birth and sent for his family in 1925.
Thomson grew up on Staten Island in New York City and signed with the New York Giants for a $100 bonus right out of Curtis High School in 1942. On December 5, 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Forces and trained as a bombardier. His entire service was within the continental United States. He played semiprofessional baseball in the summer of 1945 while awaiting his discharge.
Early baseball career
Thomson batted .283 with 29 home runs and 82 runs batted in (RBIs) in his rookie year, 1947. The following season, he batted .248 with 16 home runs. In 1949, Thomson had career bests in RBIs (109) and batting average (.309). His batting average dropped to .252 in 1950. He then hit a career-high 32 home runs in 1951, the fifth-best total in the major leagues; he also had the fourth-highest slugging average in baseball that year.
The "Shot Heard 'Round the World"
Thomson became a celebrity for his walk-off home run off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca to win the 1951 National League pennant. The home run, nicknamed the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", was dramatic, as until 1969, league pennants were only decided by a playoff when the teams involved finished the regular season in a tie. Prior to 1951, playoffs had only been necessary in 1946 (NL) and 1948 (AL).
Although in mid-August, the Giants were games behind the league-leading Dodgers, they won 37 of their final 44 games to tie Brooklyn on the final day of the regular season, forcing a three-game playoff. The Giants won the first game 3–1 as a result of a two-run home run by Thomson (off Branca). Brooklyn's Clem Labine shut out the Giants in the second game, 10–0. The decisive contest, played on October 3 at the Polo Grounds, was the first major sporting event televised coast-to-coast in the United States. The Dodgers took a 4–1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, but Giants shortstop Alvin Dark singled, advanced to third on a single by Don Mueller, and scored on a double by Whitey Lockman. With Lockman on second and pinch runner Clint Hartung at third, Thomson's walk-off home run turned looming defeat into a 5–4 victory. The moment was immortalized by Giants play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges's excited multiple repetitions: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
Waiting in the on-deck circle to hit behind Thomson was rookie Willie Mays. The Giants' season ended, however, at the 1951 World Series; the Yankees swept the last three games to win the best-of-seven series, four games to two. Thomson batted .238 in the series with no home runs.
The bat from the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" is in the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The uniform worn by Thomson on that day is apparently a part of a large private collection owned by Dan Scheinman, a member of the San Francisco Giants ownership group.
Sign stealing
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told The Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, coach Herman Franks used a telescope positioned in the Giants clubhouse behind center field to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book.
Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials, but made no public comment at the time. Later, he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37–7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961.
Later years
In 1952, Thomson led the National League with 14 triples while batting .271 with 25 home runs and 109 RBIs for the Giants. In his final season with the Giants in 1953, Thomson hit 26 home runs and 106 RBIs, and a .288 average. That winter, he was sent to the Milwaukee Braves in a multiplayer deal. During his first spring training with the Braves in 1954, he suffered a broken ankle, which allowed rookie Hank Aaron to earn a place in the Milwaukee lineup. Thomson batted a career-low .232 in 1954.
The Braves traded Thomson back to the Giants during the 1957 season, and he was in the lineup for the club's final game at the Polo Grounds. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the 1958 season, but Thomson was gone, traded to the Cubs. He spent two seasons in Chicago before closing out his major-league career in the American League with the Red Sox and Orioles. He played one final season in 1963 with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.
Thomson was a career .270 hitter with 264 home runs and 1,026 RBIs in 1,779 games. He was selected an All-Star in 1948, 1949, and 1952.
In the 1990s, over 40 years after his famous home run, Thomson received a letter from a Marine who had been stationed in Korea in 1951:
"I was in a bunker in the front line with my buddy listening to the radio. It was contrary to orders, but he was a Giants fanatic. He never made it home, and I promised him if I ever got back, I'd write and tell you about the happiest moment of his life. It's taken me this long to put my feelings into words. On behalf of my buddy, thanks, Bobby."
After baseball, Thomson became a sales executive at a New York City paper-products company. He lived in Watchung, New Jersey, until 2006, when he moved to Savannah, Georgia, to be near his daughter Nancy and his grandchildren. He died August 16, 2010, at his home in The Marshes of Skidaway Island, a continuing care facility in Savannah.
Honors
Scottish baseball team Edinburgh Diamond Devils named their home Bobby Thomson Field. It was opened by Thomson himself in 2003, while he was in Scotland to be inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
The UK Chapter of The Society for American Baseball Research is named the Bobby Thomson Chapter.
The Curtis High School Field in Staten Island was renamed Bobby Thomson Field in 2007.
Thomson was inducted into the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame in the class of 1995.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
References
External links
ESPN/The Associated Press obituary
BBC obituary
Thomson's profile at Baseball Library
Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run 1951. According to the description at Cleveland Public Library's site: "45? min., recorded on tape with Luke Sewell interview/ Between 1973 and 1987 historian Eugene Converse Murdock interviewed 76 former baseball players in 22 states. Most had been active in the 1930s. Murdock was chairman of the history department at Marietta College from 1972 until his retirement in 1986. The interviews were not professionally recorded, and the audio quality is variable."
Joshua Prager's The Echoing Green
Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments: The Shot Heard 'Round the World at The Sporting News
Article, The Herald (Scotland)
National League All-Stars
Baltimore Orioles players
Boston Red Sox players
Chicago Cubs players
Milwaukee Braves players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball center fielders
Major League Baseball left fielders
Bristol Twins players
Jersey City Giants players
Rocky Mount Rocks players
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
Major League Baseball players from Scotland
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Sportspeople from Glasgow
Sportspeople from Staten Island
Semi-professional baseball players
1923 births
2010 deaths
Curtis High School alumni
People from Watchung, New Jersey
Sportspeople from Somerset County, New Jersey
United States Army Air Forces officers
Military personnel from New Jersey
| false |
[
"In politics, a political scandal is an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Politicians, government officials, party officials and lobbyists can be accused of various illegal, corrupt, unethical or sexual practices. Scandalized politicians are more likely to retire or get lower vote shares.\n\nJournalism \nScandal sells, and broadsides, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines and the electronic media have covered it in depth. The Muckraker movement in American journalism was a component of the Progressive Era in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Journalists have built their careers on exposure of corruption and political scandal, often acting on behalf of the opposition party.\n \nThere are numerous contextual factors that make a scandal noteworthy, such as the importance of the people, the depth of conspiracy and the coverup strategies used.\n \nThe political ideology of media owners plays a role—they prefer to target the opposition but will reluctantly cover their own side. Journalists have to frame the story in terms of the audience's values and expectations to maximize the impact.\n\nLists by country\n\n Albania – Political scandals of Albania\n Australia – List of Australian political controversies\n Belgium – Belgian political scandals\n Canada – List of Canadian political scandals\n Chile – Chilean political scandals\n Colombia – Colombian parapolitics scandal\n France – French political scandals\n Germany – German political scandals\n Iceland – Icelandic political scandals\n India – Indian political scandals\n Ireland – Irish political scandals\n Italy – Italian political scandals\n Japan – Black Mist Scandal (Japanese politics)\n Lithuania – Generic article on corruption in Lithuania\n New Zealand – List of political scandals in New Zealand\nMalaysia – List of scandals in Malaysia\n Philippines – List of political scandals in the Philippines\n Poland - List of political scandals in Poland\n Slovakia – List of Slovak political scandals\n Slovenia – 1975 Zaliv Scandal\nSouth Korea – Political scandals in South Korea\n United Kingdom – List of political scandals in the United Kingdom\n\n United States – List of federal political scandals in the United States\n Ukraine – List of political scandals in Ukraine\n\nSee also\nDeviancy amplification spiral\nMass media\nMoral panic\nSensationalism\nSex scandal\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Canel, Maria Jose and Karen Sanders. Morality Tales: Political Scandals and Journalism in Britain and Spain in the 1990s (2005)\n Dagnes, Alison and Mark Sachleben. \"Scandal! An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Consequences, Outcomes, and Significance of Political Scandals\" (Bloomsbury 2013)\n Dziuda, Wioletta; Howell, William G. 2020. \"Political Scandal: A Theory.\" American Journal of Political Science. \nFisher, Trevor. Scandal: Sexual Politics of Late Victorian Britain (1995) \n Giroux, Gary. Business Scandals, Corruption, and Reform: An Encyclopedia (2013) \n Grossman, Mark. Political Corruption in America: An Encyclopedia of Scandals, Power, and Greed (2008)\n Heidenheimer, Arnold and M. Johnston. Political corruption: Concepts and contexts (2002)\n King, Anthony. Sex, Money and Power: Political Scandals in Great Britain and the United States (1984) \n Kohn, George C. The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal (2000) \n MacMullen, Ramsay. Corruption and the Decline of Rome (1990)\n Scott, James C. Comparative political corruption (1972)\n Temple, Kathryn. Scandal Nation: Law and Authorship in Britain, 1750–1832 (2002)\n\nExternal links",
"Public scandals involving allegations or information about possibly-immoral sexual activities are often associated with the sexual affairs of film stars, politicians, famous athletes, or others in the public eye. Sex scandals receive attention if a prominent figure is involved, if there is a perception of hypocrisy, if a public figure's sexuality is non-normative, or if it involves non-consensual acts. A scandal may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both. Whether the scandal is based in fact or not, it may lead to the celebrity disappearing from the public eye or to the resignation of prominent political figures.\n\nSex scandals involving politicians often become political scandals, particularly when there is an attempt at a cover-up or suspicions of illegality. Attempts at coverups include payoffs, threats, or, in extreme cases, murder. \n\nWhile some commentators see sex scandals as irrelevant to politics, particularly where \"professional performance [does] not seem to be impaired\", Gene Healy of the Cato Institute views them as not just \"great fun\", but a reminder \"that we should think twice before we cede more power to these fools.\" An increase in the prevalence of morally questionable expressions of sexuality is sometimes referred to as a sexidemic.\n\nSex scandals, in relation to political and public figures, often lead to questions of one's own ethics and moral code. A politician who is caught in a sex scandal is more likely to resign than a public figure in the face of a sex scandal.\n\nHistory\nScandals have been a part of history in major declarations, false truces, when political or celebrity figures need to pay someone off to protect their legacy and more. Scandals can involve bribery, immoral action, shame, slander, misdoing, etc. The Hamilton–Reynolds affair, which involved Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who had a one-year affair with Maria Reynolds during George Washington's presidency, is considered one of the first sex scandals in American political history. Political sex scandals in the U.S. have included the first sex scandal of Alexander Hamilton to three major national political figures, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Men and women have to face scrutiny of their career or life in the field of politics by the media looking for scandals.\n\nInfidelity\n\nSex scandals involve sexual affairs which usually, but not always, involve infidelity. Infidelity has many definitions, either based on experience or research done on people who have been involved in the act of disloyalty and trust. To some, infidelity \"is a complex phenomenon with multiple reasons driving people to cheat on their partners\". A 2018 New York Times article cited an American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy national survey, stating \"that 15 percent of married women and 25 percent of married men have had extramarital affairs\".\n\nGender stereotypes in scandals\n\nSex scandals tend to include a bias when it comes to men and women who are caught and then need evidence to explain their situation. A 2015 study concluded that gender stereotypes were \"refer(ed) to the meanings that individuals and societies ascribe to males and females\". According to Juliet Williams at the University of California, Los Angeles the 1998 Clinton–Lewinsky scandal in the United States made the US Congress, media, and citizens look at male candidates and politicians in a different light by \"normalizing public discussion of sex acts.\" John Edwards, David Petraeus, Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Herman Cain, are other examples of men involved in sex scandals that have caused the public not to give men the benefit of the doubt. This has caused the debate between politics and sex scandals to be seen in a different light. It has allowed gender-shifting and the role of gender to become more unbiased in the selection of candidates during their evaluation and allowing more power for women fighting against stereotypes due to scandals, and men being seen as more skeptical.\n\nA year after the 2017 Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases was first reported, leading to the viral spread of the #MeToo movement, New York Times published a list of 201 names of prominent men in the United States who had lost their jobs following public allegations of sexual harassment.\n\nSocial attitudes have traditionally been less forgiving when minors are involved. In France, for example, the scandal surrounding Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier and former call girl Zahia Dehar – for whom Bouvier allegedly acted as a pimp in the late 2000s, paying her to appear at dinners for entertainment when she was 17 years old – has caused outrage and opened a debate about powerful men in society abusing their power. The fall from grace and imprisonment of Anthony Weiner, following his sexting of explicit pictures to a 15-year-old girl, is another notable example of the pre-#MeToo era.\n\nSee also\n\nCasting couch\nCelebrity sex tape\nDeviancy amplification spiral\nList of federal political sex scandals in the United States\n:Category:Sex scandals\nWeinstein effect\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Beaucoup B.S. - Christopher Hitchens\n\nHuman sexuality\nScandal"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
|
How did this company come about?
| 1 |
How did Keystone Bridge company come about?
|
Andrew Carnegie
|
In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
|
Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
1919 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
American Civil War industrialists
American company founders
American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
American philanthropists
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Bessemer Gold Medal
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Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
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Scottish spiritualists
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University and college founders
Presidents of the Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York
Carnegie family
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"Panthongtae Shinawatra (born December 2, 1979) (; ), nickname Oak, is the only son of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.\n\nHe became a billionaire after having been given a large portion of his father's stock in Shin Corporation which transferred to him shortly before Thaksin ascended to the position of prime minister.\n\nPanthongtae was admitted to the Faculty of Engineering at Thammasat University in 1998. However, he dropped out after one year. In 2000, he enrolled in Ramkhamhaeng University, an open admission government university, where he studied political science. In August 2002, his studies attracted media attention when he was accused of cheating in an exam. A three-week university investigation concluded that Panthongtae had made a mistake by carrying unrelated notes into the exam room and he was cleared of wrongdoing, yet he automatically failed the political science subject he was sitting. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2003.\n\nAn amateur photographer, Panthongtae founded in 2003 a production company called How Come Entertainment (now Voice TV Co. Ltd.), which was awarded an exclusive advertising contract for the MRT and many other government contracts when his father was prime minister. This caused controversy and drew charges of nepotism, as How Come was a new firm and the advertising concession for the subway had previously been awarded to the long established Triad Networks Company.\n\nIn early 2006, Panthongtae was involved in his family's sale of Shin Corporation stock to Temasek Holdings of Singapore. Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that Panthongtae, as director of Ample Rich Investments (a shell company set up in the British Virgin Islands to control Shin stock), had failed to properly notify the regulators of his holdings in Shin and sale of Shin shares, in transactions that occurred in 2000, 2001 and 2002.\n\nPrasong Vinaiphiat, deputy director of the Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission, said: \"The case is not severe because Panthongtae did inform the SEC but his report was not totally correct.\" He was fined 5.982 million baht (about US$150,000) for three violations of the Securities and Exchange Act.\n\nIn November 2009, Panthongtae's company Voice TV (formerly How Come Entertainment) launched its own digital TV station of the same name with 300 million baht.\n\nReferences\n\n\"Premier's son graduates\", The Nation, June 24, 2003.\n\"The How Come subway deal\", 2bangkok.com.\n\"Panthongtae breached reporting regulations - SEC\", The Nation, February 24, 2006.\n\nExternal links\nHow Come Entertainment\nVoiceTV\n\nPanthongtae Shinawatra\nLiving people\n1979 births\nManchester City F.C. directors and chairmen\nPanthongtae Shinawatra\nPanthongtae Shinawatra\nPanthongtae Shinawatra",
"\"How Come, How Long\" is a song written, produced and performed by Babyface (Kenneth Edmonds). It was released as the third single from his album The Day. It is a duet with American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder.\n\nThe lyrics deal with physical abuse, regarding a woman killed by her husband after tremendous physical abuse. This release met with mixed reaction by critics and did not chart on any major charts in United States, finding a better chart performance in United Kingdom, where it became a top ten hit for the performers. This song was nominated twice for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.\n\nSong information\nThe track was written, produced and performed by Babyface as a duet with American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, who also co-wrote the song. The lyrics deal with domestic violence and is inspired by the Nicole Brown Simpson case. On the Entertainment Weekly review of The Day, David Browne wrote that this \"domestic-abuse saga\" needed \"tougher music to make its point.\" At the 40th Grammy Awards this song received a nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, which it lost to \"Don't Look Back\" by John Lee Hooker and Van Morrison. The following year, the song received the same nomination with the live version included on Babyface's Unplugged album, losing this time to Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach with their rendition of \"I Still Have That Other Girl\".\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for this song, directed by F. Gary Gray, shows several residents of an apartment building ignoring the shouts, screams, and arguments between a married couple, ending with a twist, showing that the woman killed her abusive husband, ending with her being arrested. This video received a nomination for Best R&B Video at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, which was awarded to \"I'll Be Missing You\" by Puff Daddy (Sean Combs) featuring Faith Evans and 112. It also was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video, losing to \"Got 'til It's Gone\" by Janet Jackson.\n\nTrack listing\nUS CD single\n\"How Come, How Long\" – 5:11\n\"Every Time I Close My Eyes\" (Timbaland remix) – 4:23\n\nUK CD single (XPCD2161)\n\"How Come, How Long\" (Radio edit) – 4:12\n\nCD maxi single (EPC 664402 2)\n\"How Come, How Long\" (radio edit) – 4:12\n\"How Come, How Long\" (Natty & Slaps remix) – 5:08\n\"How Come, How Long\" (Laws & Craigie remix) – 6:28\n\"Every Time I Close My Eyes\" (Timbaland remix) – 4:55\n\nChart\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nPersonnel\nThe following people contributed to \"How Come, How Long\":\nBabyface — main performer and producer\nStevie Wonder — vocals, harmonica\nTimbaland — producer, remixing\nJimmy Douglas — remixing\nJon Gass — mixing\nBenny Medina — management\nAnton Corbijn — photography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSong Lyrics on Rhapsody\nListen to the song\n\n1997 singles\nBabyface (musician) songs\nStevie Wonder songs\nMusic videos directed by F. Gary Gray\nSongs written by Babyface (musician)\nSongs written by Stevie Wonder\nSong recordings produced by Babyface (musician)\nSongs about domestic violence\nContemporary R&B ballads\nVocal duets\nAmerican soft rock songs"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
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What had he been doing previous?
| 2 |
What had Andrew Carnegie been doing before Keystone Bridge Company?
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Andrew Carnegie
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In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
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Carnegie family
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[
"\"What She's Doing Now\" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music singer Garth Brooks. It was released in December 1991 as the third single from his album Ropin' the Wind. It spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. It was co-written by Pat Alger.\n\nContent\nThe song is a ballad about a man who wonders what his former lover is currently doing and what her whereabouts are (\"last I heard she had moved to Boulder\"). While the singer has no idea what she is doing now, he proclaims \"what she's doing now is tearing [him] apart\".\n\nBackground and production\nBrooks provided the following background information on the song in the CD booklet liner notes from The Hits:\n\n\"What She's Doing Now\" was an idea I had a long, long time about a man wondering what a woman was doing. And it was very simple. What is she doing now? Is she hanging out the clothes? Is she running a business? Is she a mother? Is she married? Who is she with? When I told the idea to Pat Alger, he looked at me with a smile and said, 'I wonder if she knows what she's doing now to me?' When I heard that, the bumps went over my arms and the back of my neck, and I knew that he had something. Crystal Gayle cut this song back in 1989. It came back to us for the Ropin' The Wind album. It is a song that has crossed all boundaries and borders around the world. This has made me extremely happy because the greatest gift a writer can ask for is to relate to someone. I can't help but think that this song might relate to a lot of people.\"\n\nOther versions\nWhile Garth Brooks penned the song, he was not the first person to release it. On the 1990 release Ain't Gonna Worry'', Crystal Gayle recorded the song as \"What He's Doing Now\"; her version was not released as a single.\n\nTrack listing\nEuropean CD single\nLiberty CDCL 656\n\"What She's Doing Now\"\n\"Shameless\"\n\"We Bury The Hatchet\"\nUS 7\" Jukebox single\nLiberty S7-57784\n\"What She's Doing Now\"\n\"Friends in Low Places\"\n\nChart positions\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1991 singles\nCrystal Gayle songs\nGarth Brooks songs\nSongs written by Pat Alger\nSongs written by Garth Brooks\nSong recordings produced by Allen Reynolds\nLiberty Records singles\n1991 songs",
"\"Like I've Never Been Gone\" is a song written by Paul Hampton and Camille Monte and first released by American country singer Chase Webster in July 1962. In February 1963, English singer Billy Fury released a cover of the song which peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart.\n\nBilly Fury version\n\nRelease and reception \n\"Like I've Never Been Gone\" was released with the B-side \"What Do You Think You're Doing Of\", written by Fury. The phrase 'what are you doing of' which was another way of saying 'what are you doing'.\n\nReviewing for Disc, Don Nicholl wrote that \"Like I've Never Been Gone\" \"is the kind of song I can imagine Presley wishing he'd got his hands on. Instead it's going to make another hit for Fury. A sultry Latin beater which he sings in his most commercial voice. First-class backing, including chorus, is directed by Ivor Raymonde\". In New Record Mirror, the song was described as \"a semi-bluesy, semi-ballady thing with a good tune and an especially good lyric. Powerful Presley-type vocalising from Billy – this could be a really big one\".\n\nTrack listing\n7\": Decca / F 11582\n \"Like I've Never Been Gone\" – 2:01\n \"What Do You Think You're Doing Of\" – 2:59\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1963 singles\n1963 songs\nDecca Records singles\nBilly Fury songs"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
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What was Story Farm?
| 3 |
What was Story Farm?
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Andrew Carnegie
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In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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oil wells on the property sold profitably.
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
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20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
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American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
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American spiritualists
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Bessemer Gold Medal
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Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
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| true |
[
"The Farm House, also known as the Knapp–Wilson House, is the oldest building on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Now a museum open to the general public, this house was built 1861-65 as part of the model farm that eventually became Iowa State. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 for its association with agriculturist and teacher Seaman A. Knapp and with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, both of whom lived here while teaching at Iowa State.\n\nDescription and history\nThe Farm House is located near the center of the Iowa State campus, on the west side of Farmhouse Lane. It is a three-story structure, built primarily out of brick, and set on a stone foundation. The brick walls, fashioned out of locally sourced clay, were clad in limestone stucco in 1909 because they were crumbling. The interior is largely reflective of a major remodeling conducted about the same time. In 1972 the university undertook a major restoration of the building to restore it to its c. 1910 appearance.\n\nThe land for what became Iowa State was donated by Story County farmers in 1858 and 1859, and the farm was developed over the following five years, slowed by the ongoing American Civil War. Iowa Agricultural College opened on the farm in 1869. In 1880 Seaman Knapp was appointed farm superintendent and professor of practical and experimental agriculture. Knapp would later become influential in the promotion of modern rice-growing practices in the American South. In 1891 James Wilson moved into the house, which he would occupy until 1897, when he is offered the post of United States Secretary of Agriculture, a post he would hold for thirteen years. The house was occupied for much of the first half of the 20th century by Professor Charles F. Curtiss, under whose tenure the house's major alterations were made. In 1948 the house was converted into a dormitory for women, and its plant was updated again. In 1970 Dean Floyd Andre, whose family occupied it since 1950, moved out. Andre's lobbying to preserve the building from demolition succeeded, and it was opened as the Farm House Museum in 1976.\n\nSee also\nList of National Historic Landmarks in Iowa\nNational Register of Historic Places listings in Story County, Iowa\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Farm House Museum - Iowa State University\n\nNational Historic Landmarks in Iowa\nHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa\nIowa State University buildings and structures\nHouses completed in 1861\nNational Register of Historic Places in Story County, Iowa\n1861 establishments in Iowa\nHouses in Ames, Iowa\nMuseums in Story County, Iowa\nHistoric house museums in Iowa\nUniversity museums in Iowa\n1976 establishments in Iowa\nMuseums established in 1976",
"The Boyd–Wilson Farm is a historic district in Franklin, Tennessee, United States. The circa 1840 farm includes an I-house.\n\nThe district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. When listed, it included six contributing buildings, two contributing structures, one contributing site and two non-contributing buildings.\n\nThe farm's west edge is the West Harpeth River. The property includes the historic Boyd Mill Ruins (separately listed on the National Register).\n\nThe farmhouse's north, two-story facade was built c.1884 and is of heavy braced frame construction. It has a central hallway and chimneys at its gable ends in what is called an I-house. The chimneys, originally limestone, were modified c.1920 to include brick. It has a two-story portico with four square columns built in 1976 which replaced a one-story portico from c.1884.\n\nIt was deemed notable as \"one of the few historic farms in Williamson County to retain its agricultural integrity from a period in the county's history when agriculture was the basis of prosperity.\"\n\nIt is a designated Century Farm. Historic notability of properties of this type was covered in a 1994 study of historic family farms in Middle Tennessee.\n\nSee also\n Boyd Mill Ruins\n William Boyd House\n\nReferences\n\nFarmhouses in the United States\nHouses in Franklin, Tennessee\nI-houses in Tennessee\nHouses completed in 1840\nFarms on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee\nHistoric districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee\nNational Register of Historic Places in Williamson County, Tennessee\nHistoric farms in the United States\nCentury farms"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm",
"What was Story Farm?",
"oil wells on the property sold profitably."
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
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How much did they make from the oil?
| 4 |
How much did Andrew Carnegie make from the oil?
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Andrew Carnegie
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In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends,
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
1919 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
American Civil War industrialists
American company founders
American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
American philanthropists
American railway entrepreneurs
American spiritualists
American steel industry businesspeople
Bessemer Gold Medal
Lauder Greenway Family
Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Businesspeople from Pittsburgh
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People from Lenox, Massachusetts
Progressive Era in the United States
Rectors of the University of St Andrews
Scottish billionaires
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Scottish spiritualists
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University and college founders
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Carnegie family
| true |
[
"The Dos Bocas oil fire occurred in Veracruz, Mexico in 1908 when the oil well San Diego del Mar number 3 erupted into flames, spilling the equivalent of thousands of oil barrels that severely affected the environment and makes it one of the worse environmental catastrophes in the oil industry. The fire lasted almost two months and has permanently left two giant craters in the ground leaving \"Two Mouths\"\n\nHistory of oil in Veracruz \nForeign oil extraction which began in 1900 was dominated by American and European powers alike. Each time one of these new powers entered an area, like Veracruz, they would ultimately disrupt the local wildlife, alter the landscape, and affect how society was structured as well. The oil companies would then make their own type of society that would not only affect how people would interact with each other, but how the locals would interact with the environment around them as well. A major factor that changed their society was that the oil companies were able to put a price on the locals land. This made the people uneasy at the time and did not trust the companies at first, but with very high offers on their land, the people could not refuse. Once they acquired the land, they built major infrastructure like wells, refineries, living quarters for the workers, etc..\n\nAt first the companies were hesitant in laying down pipelines, until it started to rain oil form the wells. Oil would cover entire areas with this black gold they have found and when they would work on installing the pipelines, oil would still rain down from the wells. These open wells, or pits, as they called them would reach depths as much as seven to thirty feet deep. Having these pits open would be a dangerous move on the oil companies because they could easily catch fire at any moment.\n\nThe fire \nIn 1901 the Pennsylvania Oil Company, of Mexico, bought the land rights and drilled a well into the nearby lagoon called Dos Bocas, with no success in completely drilling the well. The English division of S. Pearsons and Son then acquired the land rights in 1908 and decided to continue drilling the well in the lagoon. During the drilling process, the pressure in the well became powerful enough to burst through the ground, gushing oil out of the well. Pressure in the well was so great that it blew a second hole nearby. The oil was then ignited by the flames that powered the oil derrick that was lifting the drill. The fire was so bright that it could be seen 200 miles away from the ocean. Ultimately, the Dos Bocas blowout ended up being one of the largest oil spills in the history of the oil industry. It was impossible to stop the flow of oil because the well casing had been blown off during the gush. The well itself kept pouring out oil at a rate of 90,000 barrels per day. The fire lasted almost two months from July 4 1908 to August 30 1908\n\nThe heat exacerbated the difficulties workers faced when trying to stop the flow of oil. Temperatures were high which caused those working to put out the fire and contain the spill to be unable to go closer than a few hundred feet. The oil coming out was a column and the fire burned at over . away from the fire, town residents said that they were able to read a newspaper at night by the light of the flames. Extinguishing the flames was not an easy task. With the lack of technology to put out this enormous fire, the Mexican government sent 400 soldiers to combat against the fire. Oil was leaking out into the nearby fields and swamps and had to act as fast as they can. The soldiers used a centrifugal pump to suck the oil out and used 3,000 tons of gravel and sand to snuff the fire out. After the fire was extinguished by naturally losing its oil, two billion gallons of oils that was worth twenty five million dollars leaked from the well.\n\nSee also\n List of environmental disasters\n Oil in Mexico\n Oil spill\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n \n \n\nVeracruz\nOil spills in Mexico\n1908 in the environment\n1908 in Mexico\nPorfiriato",
"Windfall: The Oil Crisis Game is a real-time business simulation game developed by David Mullich and published by Edu-Ware in 1980 for the Apple II. Based upon queuing theory and released after the 1979 energy crisis, the game puts the player in the role of chief executive of Engulf Oil, setting gas prices and worker salaries, monitoring gas station lines, scheduling oil tanker arrivals, and negotiating oil prices with OPEC countries in a race against the clock to maximize profits. As with most Edu-Ware games, Windfall has an educational aspect, demonstrating the delicate balance in complex systems.\n\nGameplay\n\nThe player has six primary choices in this simulation of oil company operations:\n\n Observe Service Stations: A low-resolution graphics display appears, showing six service stations, two of which are under the player's control, while the other four are operated by computer-controlled competitors. Small colored blocks entering the queue at each station represent thousands of cars. The queue length at each station is an indicator of the gasoline demand at the current selling price and the time it takes for each station to service cars.\n Observe Dock Yards: Another low-resolution graphics display appears, depicting oil tankers arriving at the docks. The queue length at each dock is an indicator of the oil supply at the current purchase price and the time it takes for each dock to service each tanker.\n Service Station Statistics: A table of text information allows players to see such things as the amount of gasoline each station has to sell, how long the waiting queue of cars is, how much the rival stations may be undercutting the player's prices.\n Dock Yard Statistics: This text table shows players how much they are paying oil producers, how efficient the oil flow from their suppliers is, how much they are paying their dock workers. Sometimes bad weather may slow down the arrival of ships.\n Set Wages, Prices, and Purchases: Here players can change the price of gasoline, wages of their station attendants, and select their oil source from among several fictional OPEC countries.\n Financial Status: This screen allows players to see the financial health of their company, buy or sell stock, and make an attempt at price fixing.\n\nStrategy is based upon several simple economic principles. If players pay their employees poorly, the service time will be longer; however, if players pay them too much, prices will need to be raised to maintain a profit, but competitors may steal business away with lower prices. If gasoline prices go too high, the government may step in and set price limits. Occasionally, stockholders will overrule players' decisions.\n\nA clock runs continuously throughout the play of the game. When time expires, the player's performance is evaluated.\n\nReception\n\nWindfall, like most games from Edu-Ware's zip-lock bag era, sold only a few hundred units. However, it was well reviewed, receiving an \"A\" rating from Peelings II magazine, which concluded, \"Behind the simple displays is (probably) a reasonably sophisticated realtime simulation program synthesized with a realtime display updated. Considering the programming effort involved and the educational value of the program, it is a bargain. And it is great fun to play.\"\n\nBruce Webster reviewed Windfall in The Space Gamer No. 31. Webster commented that \"If there is a problem with this game, it is that the topic may not be all that interesting to you, or that the treatment may be too simple for your tastes. Beyond that, I can think of no serious objections to the game.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1980 video games\nBusiness simulation games\nApple II games\nApple II-only games\nEdu-Ware games\nVideo games developed in the United States"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm",
"What was Story Farm?",
"oil wells on the property sold profitably.",
"How much did they make from the oil?",
"the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends,"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
|
What other items were they making?
| 5 |
Besides iron works, what other items were Keystone Bridge Company making?
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Andrew Carnegie
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In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill,
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
1919 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
American Civil War industrialists
American company founders
American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
American philanthropists
American railway entrepreneurs
American spiritualists
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Bessemer Gold Medal
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Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
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Progressive Era in the United States
Rectors of the University of St Andrews
Scottish billionaires
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Scottish spiritualists
U.S. Steel people
University and college founders
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Carnegie family
| true |
[
"Hunger marketing is a marketing strategy specially focusing on the emotions of human beings. Hunger marketing is a psychological strategy that focuses on the desire of consumers, making them hungry thus having strong desire to buy products which other people also want to buy. By stimulating psychology, it drives people into emotional rather than rational decision making by means of driving up the scarcity of the product. This marketing strategy boosts people’s interest, and through word-of-mouth helps businesses have more potential customers. Research suggests that the scarcity of product attracts consumer attention, increases the perceived value of the product, and encourages creative usage of the product.\n\nRelated concepts\n\nRational decision making \nRational decision making means what people do when they are not lacking what they need while making decisions. They are fully informed and can research their choices. Usually, people try to get and buy the best items with good prices, and for this, they think, judge, and calculate the benefits, price, and many things that are important for the deals. At this point, if people do rational decision making, people can have the best deals with good price.\n\nEmotional decision making \nIn contrast to rational decision making, emotional decision making is what people do without caution, but with feeling or emotion, much like intuitive decision making. Because people get attracted by many stimuli, they make decisions without being careful. Also, it means that they are lacking of information of alternatives, time to search or calculate, and reasonable thinking. This is exactly what many businesses try to make people, spending more money without rationality.\n\nTechniques \nThree representative techniques of hunger marketing are described below; Limited stock, time limit and special discounts.\n\nLimited stock \nLimited stock is the most representative technique of hunger marketing. It is also one of the strongest causes, which affects consumers directly and most powerfully. Many companies have not supplied their items adequately. Because it is hard for consumers to get and buy the product, they think that the item is really good and popular. As a result of this strategy, companies could get higher reputation of their items. Xiaomi has a strong strategy to supply their items inadequately so that they can do good inventory management and control the costs of shipping. Also, they can get increased demand. By restricting their supply, companies could make a kind of rumor that the item they sell is really good and add higher value to their product and even the price of their product, because the fact people wait in long lines or a product sold out in a couple of minutes makes people have illusion that the item seems really amazing.\n\nTime limit \nTime limit is the most common technique of hunger marketing. Time limit also has huge impact on consumption because It is one of the direct stimuli to consumers. It is used in many home shopping and internet shopping sites. QVC, one of the biggest home shopping website, has a banner on their first page and it says “Ends in time”, which is limited with a comment, and ‘Today’s special value’ in order to attract consumers’ attention. Also, “almost sold out!” or “we are about to terminate selling! In a minute!” is a comment often used in home shopping sites or flight and hotel sites, and it stimulates customers’ interests. “The time limit for this product,” or “Only 10 items left” is the case that companies try to attract people’s attention as well. This time limitation strategy is often used with special discounts strategies such as “Only today, up to 50%.” In fact, by limiting the time of offering their products, they make consumers have feeling like “I am allowed to buy this product only this time!”\n\nSpecial discounts \nSpecial discounts is the strongest technique of hunger marketing. Special discounts also have huge impact people’s consumption. People have experienced like “Oh, I should buy this because it is really cheap!”, even though the thing is something that people didn’t plan to buy. It is usually happening at an outlet where people suddenly stop or a TK Maxx. While web surfing, sometimes, people buy a flight and hotel ticket unexpectedly because they are attracted by special discounts. It is because consumers are really sensitive to price and many marketing strategies try to touch this sensitive point. There is a lot of research about people’s reaction to the special discounts, and, in order to influence consumers’ emotion, many companies try to emphasize their discounted price. People have very emotional reaction and they are easily impressed by discounts price. An experiment showed that people who get a big discount are happier than some people who could get only change after the experiment.\n\nExamples\n\nXiaomi and Apple \nXiaomi, the third biggest smartphone company in the world, has been known for their hunger marketing, and Apple also uses this strategy as well. “Sold out in just 50 seconds!” This comment is what an article said when Xiaomi released their latest smart phone, Mi Note 2, and it made more people focus on their new product. When Xiaomi releases their new items, they make the shortest time record every time they sell the new item. Their new item was only available on their official website to buy, and people who pre-registered could get a chance to buy that. Only for them, Xiaomi sold their product. This is how Xiaomi controls their supply. Apple also adjusts their supply to release their new product at different intervals. Because of this, they could get people’s reaction from all over the world after they release their product in a country for the first time. People who get the new product leave some comments online and people from all of the world can see their reviews. It makes them more curious about the new item.\n\nBlack Friday \nBlack Friday is one of the times that people feel they need to buy some stuff because, in this season, many stores offer huge discounts. Creating the mood of shopping that people spend a lot of money is coming from making a sense of urgency that many businesses use. Many companies emphasize Thanksgiving with the big discounts they offer and try to make mood of consumption, and only at this time, many stores add more services like giveaways, free wrapping or even free shipping services. As a result of this evidence, people react to the stimuli and hoard by spending their money unexpectedly.\n\nReferences\n\nMarketing strategy",
"Fangamer is a video game merchandising site which was spun out from Starmen.net, an EarthBound online forum. It operates an online store that sells items such as hats, pins, vinyl records and t-shirts and other video game apparel. In recent years the site has also begun selling physical editions of video games.\n\nHistory \nStarmen.net, an online forum, began selling T-shirts and mugs in 2007 as a way to pay for the server costs of the site. One of the creators of the site stated, \"Well, the ads weren’t paying the bills, so we thought, ‘What if we took the kinda-crappy print-on-demand stuff we’re making on CafePress, and we did it at a much higher-quality?\". The next year, Fangamer was launched with an initial offering of \"two t-shirts, a pin set, and a mug\" based on Earthbound. After the success of this initial run of merchandise, Fangamer started to expand into creating items for other games such as Phoenix Wright and Chrono Trigger. To avoid infringement of the various video game properties they were creating items for at the time, the site avoided using designs with any copyrighted symbols. Fangamer also produced physical copies of Starmen.net's unofficial \"player's guide\" for Mother 3.\n\nIn the mid-2010's Fangamer became known as a fulfillment partner for video game Kickstarters, providing merchandise for the campaigns of games such as Broken Age and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. After partnering with Toby Fox to create merchandise for Undertale, the site experienced a higher number of sales, with a cofounder saying \"I thought there was a glitch in Shopify... Undertale had become just an incredible phenomenon.”. This success allowed Fangamer to expand into acquiring licenses for other video game proprieties, going on to create merchandise for games such as Hollow Knight and Banjo-Kazooie.\n\nGames released\n\nReferences \n\nVideo game websites"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm",
"What was Story Farm?",
"oil wells on the property sold profitably.",
"How much did they make from the oil?",
"the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends,",
"What other items were they making?",
"Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill,"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
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What else were they producing?
| 6 |
Besides iron, what else was Keystone Bridge Company producing?
|
Andrew Carnegie
|
In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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Carnegie worked to develop several iron works,
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
1919 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
American Civil War industrialists
American company founders
American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
American philanthropists
American railway entrepreneurs
American spiritualists
American steel industry businesspeople
Bessemer Gold Medal
Lauder Greenway Family
Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Businesspeople from Pittsburgh
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carnegie Mellon University people
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Deaths from bronchopneumonia
English-language spelling reform advocates
Gilded Age
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees
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Non-interventionism
People associated with the University of Birmingham
People from Dunfermline
People from Lenox, Massachusetts
Progressive Era in the United States
Rectors of the University of St Andrews
Scottish billionaires
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Scottish spiritualists
U.S. Steel people
University and college founders
Presidents of the Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York
Carnegie family
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"\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer",
"In a general sense, market production refers to the production of a product or service which is intended for sale at a money-price in a market. The product or service in principle has to be tradable for money. \n\nHowever, in national accounts the term has a more specific meaning, because many producing organizations exist in the economy which either do not produce for any distinct market, or which partly produce for the market, and partly don't. These are non-commercial or partly commercial organizations, which can be mainly self-funded, but not-for-profit, or mainly funded by sources other than their own revenue. Statisticians therefore have to define \"market production\" much more exactly, in order to be able to separate out market production in a consistent way, and distinguish it from non-market production. If they would be unable to do so, they would be unable to measure market production in a meaningful and consistent way.\n\nIn the United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA), market production includes all those producing units who sell most or all of their output at prices which are \"economically significant\" (i.e. at prices which influence how much producers are willing to supply, and how much purchasers wish to buy).\nFor example, a school or a university would be a market producer if it charges fees which are based on their production costs, and which are sufficiently high to influence demand for their services. The school or university would have to generate a definite operating surplus (profit) or loss.\n\nNon-market production, by contrast, includes producing units which provide most of their output to others either free of charge, or at prices which are \"not economically significant\" - for example, government institutions, households, or non-profit institutions. If prices are charged for services supplied, these prices mostly do not change in response to fluctuations in supply or demand (as in the case of administered prices) or else they are prices which do not cover the cost of supply. The organizations in this category do not provide a financial gain (a source of income or profit) to the units which control or manage them. In addition, they depend mostly on funding other than sales revenue to cover their costs of production, or of other activities they might carry out (for example, funding such as taxes, authorized levies, subsidies, subscriptions, donations etc.). Non-market production can also include subsistence production where producers produce something for their own use, rather than trading what they produce for something else.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\n Market (economics)\n\nNational accounts\nOfficial statistics"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm",
"What was Story Farm?",
"oil wells on the property sold profitably.",
"How much did they make from the oil?",
"the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends,",
"What other items were they making?",
"Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill,",
"What else were they producing?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works,"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
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What else were they doing to grow the business?
| 7 |
Besides developing several iron works, what else was Andrew Carnegie doing to grow the business?
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Andrew Carnegie
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In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
1919 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
American Civil War industrialists
American company founders
American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
American philanthropists
American railway entrepreneurs
American spiritualists
American steel industry businesspeople
Bessemer Gold Medal
Lauder Greenway Family
Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Businesspeople from Pittsburgh
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carnegie Mellon University people
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Deaths from bronchopneumonia
English-language spelling reform advocates
Gilded Age
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees
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Non-interventionism
People associated with the University of Birmingham
People from Dunfermline
People from Lenox, Massachusetts
Progressive Era in the United States
Rectors of the University of St Andrews
Scottish billionaires
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Scottish spiritualists
U.S. Steel people
University and college founders
Presidents of the Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York
Carnegie family
| true |
[
"The GROW model (or process) is a simple method for goal setting and problem solving. It was developed in the United Kingdom and has been used extensively in corporate coaching from the late 1980s and 1990s.\n\nStages of GROW\nThere are a number of different versions of the GROW model. The following table presents one view of the stages but there are others. The \"O\" in this version has two meanings.\n\nAs with many simple principles, any user of GROW can apply a great deal of skill and knowledge at each stage but the basic process remains as written above. There are numerous questions which the coach could use at any point and part of the skill of the coach is to know which questions to use and how much detail to uncover.\n\nExample\nThe following is a very simple example of using the GROW model to achieve a goal. This example deals with weight loss. If the client wants: \"To bring my weight down to 120 pounds in three months and keep it down\", that is their Goal. The more heartfelt and personal, the more meaningful the goal is to the person and the more likely they will be to commit to and achieve the goal.\n\nThe GROW approach would then be to establish the Reality by stating what their weight is now. The coach would then ask awareness questions to deepen understanding of what is happening when the client tries to lose weight, thus identifying the Obstacles. These questions could include:\n\n When you have been able to lose weight—what made the difference?\n What is the difference between the times you are able to keep weight off and the times when you put it on again?\n What would have to change for you to be sure you could lose the weight and keep it off?\n\nIf the client genuinely answers these questions they will discover new information about what works and does not work for them in terms of weight loss, and create some potential for change. It then becomes possible to create some strategies or Options which get around the Obstacles. These could include looking at which diets or exercise regimes work best, or finding a specific type of support. Once the client knows the strategies that are likely to work they can establish a Way Forward which involves taking action steps. This is where they commit to what they will do in the short term to put the strategies into effect. For instance, one action might be asking a particular person for support, and another might be to buy a different selection of foods.\n\nGROW neatly highlights the nature of a problem for coaching purposes. In order for a problem to exist in coaching terms there has to be two elements present. Firstly there has to be something that the client is trying to achieve—the Goal. Then there has to be something stopping them achieve that goal—the Obstacle(s). Using GROW automatically breaks a problem down into these component parts.\n\nThe same principles can be applied whatever goal or problem the client has. GROW can be used on technical problems, issues regarding processes, strategy questions, interpersonal issues and many more. The model can also be used by a group who are all working on the same problem or goal.\n\nHistory\nIn a 2009 article, John Whitmore claimed that Max Landsberg coined the name GROW during a conversation with Graham Alexander and that Whitmore was the first to publish it in the 1992 first edition of his book Coaching for Performance. Landsberg also published it a few years later in the 1996 first edition of his book The Tao of Coaching. Elsewhere Whitmore said that the model had been in use for some time before it was given the name GROW. Alan Fine's 2010 book You Already Know How to Be Great claimed that Fine had codeveloped the model with Whitmore and Alexander. Other (later) similar models include collaborative helping maps in family therapy and Gabriele Oettingen's WOOP model.\n\nThe GROW principle and the Inner Game\nGROW was influenced by the Inner Game method developed by Timothy Gallwey. Gallwey was a tennis coach who noticed that he could often see what players were doing incorrectly but that simply telling them what they should be doing did not bring about lasting change.\n\nThe parallel between Gallwey's Inner Game method and the GROW method can be illustrated by the example of players who do not keep their eyes on the ball. Some coaches might give instructions such as: \"Keep your eye on the ball\" to try to correct this. The problem with this sort of instruction is that a player will be able to follow it for a short while but may be unable to keep it in mind in the long term. So one day, instead of giving an instruction, Gallwey asked players to say \"bounce\" out loud when the ball bounced and \"hit\" out loud when they hit the ball.\n\nThe result was that the players started to improve without a lot of effort because they were keeping their eyes on the ball. But because of the way the instruction was given they did not have a voice in their heads saying \"I must keep my eye on the ball.\" Instead they were playing a simple game while they were playing tennis. Once Gallwey saw how play could be improved in this way, he stopped giving instructions and started asking questions that would help players discover for themselves what worked and what needed to change.\n\nThe GROW method is similar. For example, the first stage in the learning process would be to set a target which a player wants to achieve. If a player wanted to improve their first serve Gallwey would ask how many first serves out of ten they would like to get in. This is the Goal. The Reality would be defined by asking the player to serve 10 balls and seeing how many first serves went in.\n\nGallwey would then ask awareness-raising questions such as \"What do you notice you are doing differently when the ball goes in or out?\" This question would enable players to discover for themselves what was changing about their mind and body when the serve went in or out. They had then defined their Obstacles and Options. They therefore learned for themselves what had to change in order to meet their serving targets and they had a clear Way Forward.\n\nThe originators of both the Inner Game method and the GROW method suggested that many individuals were struggling to achieve goals because they were not learning from experience and were not aware of the available knowledge that would help them.\n\nLimitations\nJonathan Passmore and Stefan Cantore suggested in 2012 that one \"argument against behavioural-based approaches such as GROW is that their goal nature excludes the potential to explore philosophical aspects of life. Thus GROW may be suited to working in goal-directed areas of sports or business, but may be less well suited to careers conversations, person–role fit or life-coaching conversations where other approaches such as the transpersonal or existential approaches may be more helpful.\" See also for a response to this criticism suggesting that GROW has evolved to include transpersonal goals.\n\nSee also\n Decision cycle other models of decision making\n Decisional balance sheet a matrix showing the costs and benefits of different options\n a model for teaching decision-making to adolescents\n Immunity to change a method of analyzing and overcoming psychological obstacles to goals\n SMART criteria criteria for composing goals\n SOAP note a tool for documenting a patient's progress in the health professions\n Transtheoretical model another model of intentional change\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n The 5th edition was published in 2017: . .\n\nFurther reading\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nLife coaching\nPersonal development",
"Qchex was a website that allowed people to create and send checks drawn on any bank so long as they provided the ABA routing transit number and account number and a valid email address. The \"Qchex\" could then be e-mailed and printed out by the recipients.\n\nOn September 25, 2006, United States District Judge William Q. Hayes, responding to a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit alleging that Qchex's practice of e-mailing personal checks without verifying the identity of the check-writers resulted in widespread fraud, ordered the practice halted. The FTC said it had received over 600 complaints from consumers who say the practice was used to fraudulently withdraw money from their accounts, including using federal agencies, like the FTC itself.\n\nQchex's website itself advised that people register with Qchex to ensure that \"no one else can set up or access your account numbers on the Qchex system.\"\n\nIn September 2005, the FTC had stated that Qchex's security practices had been haphazard and ineffective. Qchex continued to refuse to add verification procedures, and continued to offer their service despite the FTC's involvement and more than 600 complaints from consumers who reported their accounts as being illegally debited. Sept. 27, 2006 Qchex had suspended service until further notice in agreement and response to an FTC request. The defendants named in this case were Neovi Inc., doing business as Neovi Data Corp. and Qchex.com; G7 Productivity Systems Inc., doing business as Qchex.com; and their principals, James M. Danforth and Thomas Villwock. All the defendants were based in San Diego, Calif.\n\nSee also\n Internet fraud\n Fraud\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Qchex website\n What to do With Qchex Checks, Article by Justin Pritchard in About.com\n Easy check fraud technique draws scrutiny, Article by Bob Sullivan, MSNBC\n\nFinance websites\nInternet fraud"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm",
"What was Story Farm?",
"oil wells on the property sold profitably.",
"How much did they make from the oil?",
"the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends,",
"What other items were they making?",
"Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill,",
"What else were they producing?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works,",
"What else were they doing to grow the business?",
"He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
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What did he do after that?
| 8 |
What did Andrew Carnegie do after acquiring contracts for Keystone Bridge Company?
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Andrew Carnegie
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In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses,
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
1919 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
American Civil War industrialists
American company founders
American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
American philanthropists
American railway entrepreneurs
American spiritualists
American steel industry businesspeople
Bessemer Gold Medal
Lauder Greenway Family
Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Businesspeople from Pittsburgh
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carnegie Mellon University people
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Deaths from bronchopneumonia
English-language spelling reform advocates
Gilded Age
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees
Massachusetts Republicans
Non-interventionism
People associated with the University of Birmingham
People from Dunfermline
People from Lenox, Massachusetts
Progressive Era in the United States
Rectors of the University of St Andrews
Scottish billionaires
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Scottish spiritualists
U.S. Steel people
University and college founders
Presidents of the Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York
Carnegie family
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"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"Follow Me! is a series of television programmes produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk and the BBC in the late 1970s to provide a crash course in the English language. It became popular in many overseas countries as a first introduction to English; in 1983, one hundred million people watched the show in China alone, featuring Kathy Flower.\n\nThe British actor Francis Matthews hosted and narrated the series.\n\nThe course consists of sixty lessons. Each lesson lasts from 12 to 15 minutes and covers a specific lexis. The lessons follow a consistent group of actors, with the relationships between their characters developing during the course.\n\nFollow Me! actors\n Francis Matthews\n Raymond Mason\n David Savile\n Ian Bamforth\n Keith Alexander\n Diane Mercer\n Jane Argyle\n Diana King\n Veronica Leigh\n Elaine Wells\n Danielle Cohn\n Lashawnda Bell\n\nEpisodes \n \"What's your name\"\n \"How are you\"\n \"Can you help me\"\n \"Left, right, straight ahead\"\n \"Where are they\"\n \"What's the time\"\n \"What's this What's that\"\n \"I like it very much\"\n \"Have you got any wine\"\n \"What are they doing\"\n \"Can I have your name, please\"\n \"What does she look like\"\n \"No smoking\"\n \"It's on the first floor\"\n \"Where's he gone\"\n \"Going away\"\n \"Buying things\"\n \"Why do you like it\"\n \"What do you need\"\n \"I sometimes work late\"\n \"Welcome to Britain\"\n \"Who's that\"\n \"What would you like to do\"\n \"How can I get there?\"\n \"Where is it\"\n \"What's the date\"\n \"Whose is it\"\n \"I enjoy it\"\n \"How many and how much\"\n \"What have you done\"\n \"Haven't we met before\"\n \"What did you say\"\n \"Please stop\"\n \"How can I get to Brightly\"\n \"Where can I get it\"\n \"There's a concert on Wednesday\"\n \"What's it like\"\n \"What do you think of him\"\n \"I need someone\"\n \"What were you doing\"\n \"What do you do\"\n \"What do you know about him\"\n \"You shouldn't do that\"\n \"I hope you enjoy your holiday\"\n \"Where can I see a football match\"\n \"When will it be ready\"\n \"Where did you go\"\n \"I think it's awful\"\n \"A room with a view\"\n \"You'll be ill\"\n \"I don't believe in strikes\"\n \"They look tired\"\n \"Would you like to\"\n \"Holiday plans\"\n \"The second shelf on the left\"\n \"When you are ready\"\n \"Tell them about Britain\"\n \"I liked everything\"\n \"Classical or modern\"\n \"Finale\"\n\nReferences \n\n BBC article about the series in China\n\nExternal links \n Follow Me – Beginner level \n Follow Me – Elementary level\n Follow Me – Intermediate level\n Follow Me – Advanced level\n\nAdult education television series\nEnglish-language education television programming"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm",
"What was Story Farm?",
"oil wells on the property sold profitably.",
"How much did they make from the oil?",
"the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends,",
"What other items were they making?",
"Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill,",
"What else were they producing?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works,",
"What else were they doing to grow the business?",
"He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company",
"What did he do after that?",
"He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses,"
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
|
Did he do anything else from Scott or Thomson?
| 9 |
Besides giving stock to Scott and Thomson, did Andrew Carnegie do anything else from Scott or Thomson?
|
Andrew Carnegie
|
In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson.
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
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20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
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Bessemer Gold Medal
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Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
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Progressive Era in the United States
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University and college founders
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| true |
[
"Matthew the Scot (died 1229) was a 13th-century Scottish cleric.\n\nBiography\nMatthew had been the Chancellor of Scotland in the late reign of king Alexander II of Scotland. He was appointed in 1227 after the death of Thomas, Archdeacon of Lothian. His name indicates that he was a Gael or had some personal connection with Gaeldom, but we do not know anything else about his background, other than perhaps the fact that he supposedly had some kind of defect of birth. Matthew was postulated to the see of Aberdeen, before in turn being postulated to the higher-ranking See of Dunkeld. He was not consecrated as bishop of Aberdeen, and probably died before being consecrated for Dunkeld. He died in 1229.\n\nReferences\nDowden, John, The Bishops of Scotland, ed. J. Maitland Thomson, (Glasgow, 1912)\n\nBishops of Aberdeen\nBishops of Dunkeld (non consecrated, titular or doubtful)\n13th-century Scottish Roman Catholic bishops\nLord Chancellors of Scotland\nMedieval Gaels from Scotland\n12th-century births\n1229 deaths",
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles"
] |
[
"Andrew Carnegie",
"Keystone Bridge Company",
"How did this company come about?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works",
"What had he been doing previous?",
"Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm",
"What was Story Farm?",
"oil wells on the property sold profitably.",
"How much did they make from the oil?",
"the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends,",
"What other items were they making?",
"Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill,",
"What else were they producing?",
"Carnegie worked to develop several iron works,",
"What else were they doing to grow the business?",
"He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company",
"What did he do after that?",
"He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses,",
"Did he do anything else from Scott or Thomson?",
"When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson."
] |
C_06791ed1f19447efb856174f0ffb44a1_1
|
Is there anything else interesting?
| 10 |
Besides starting Keystone Bridge Comapny, is there anything else interesting?
|
Andrew Carnegie
|
In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war. After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage. Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education, making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes. Man must have no idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money! Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically! CANNOTANSWER
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He was invited to many important social functions--functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage.
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Andrew Carnegie (, English approximation: ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000; it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, and the Peace Palace and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
Biography
Early life
Andrew Carnegie was born to Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weaver's cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor, which was shared with the neighboring weaver's family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his paternal grandfather. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street (opposite Reid's Park), following the demand for more heavy damask, from which his father benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, a gift to the town from the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask.
Carnegie's maternal uncle, Scottish political leader George Lauder, Sr., deeply influenced him as a boy by introducing him to Robert Burns' writings and historical Scottish heroes such as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. Lauder's son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Carnegie and became his business partner. When Carnegie was 12, his father had fallen on very hard times as a handloom weaver; making matters worse, the country was in starvation. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother and by selling potted meats at her "sweetie shop", leaving her as the primary breadwinner. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to borrow money from George Lauder, Sr. and move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Carnegie's migration to America would be his second journey outside Dunfermline – the first being an outing to Edinburgh to see Queen Victoria.
In September 1848, Carnegie arrived with his family in Allegheny. Carnegie's father struggled to sell his product on his own. Eventually, the father and son both received job offers at the same Scottish-owned cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie's first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week ($ by inflation).
His father quit his position at the cotton mill soon after, returning to his loom and removing him as breadwinner once again. But Carnegie attracted the attention of John Hay, a Scottish manufacturer of bobbins, who offered him a job for $2.00 per week ($ by inflation). In his autobiography, Carnegie writes about the hardships he had to endure with this new job.
Telegraph
In 1849, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week ($ by inflation) following the recommendation of his uncle. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work and quickly learned to distinguish the different sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without using the paper slip, and within a year was promoted to an operator. Carnegie's education and passion for reading were given a boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a "self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. He was so grateful to Colonel Anderson for the use of his library that he "resolved, if ever wealth came to me, [to see to it] that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to the nobleman". His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance and his alertness soon brought him opportunities.
Railroads
Starting in 1853, when Carnegie was around 18 years old, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week ($ by inflation). Carnegie accepted the job with the railroad as he saw more prospects for career growth and experience there than with the telegraph company. At age 24, Scott asked Carnegie if he could handle being superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On December 1, 1859, Carnegie officially became superintendent of the Western Division. Carnegie then hired his sixteen-year-old brother, Tom, to be his personal secretary and telegraph operator. Not only did Carnegie hire his brother, but he also hired his cousin, Maria Hogan, who became the first female telegraph operator in the country. As superintendent Carnegie made a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year ($ by inflation). His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.
Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the president of Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo". In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by his mother's placing of a $600 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was available only because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.
1860–1865: The Civil War
Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a the sleeping car for first class travel, which facilitated business travel at distances over . The investment proved a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph wire.
The defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraph lines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to American success.
Keystone Bridge Company
In 1864, Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannons, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill, and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.
After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several ironworks, eventually forming the Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave the stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions, which Carnegie exploited to his advantage.
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.
Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote:
Industrialist
1875–1900: Steel empire
Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Steel prices dropped as a result, and Bessemer steel was rapidly adopted for rails; however, it was not suitable for buildings and bridges.
The second was in his vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In 1883, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a long railway, and a line of lake steamships. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie's success was also due to his convenient relationship with the railroad industries, which not only relied on steel for track, but were also making money from steel transport. The steel and railroad barons worked closely to negotiate prices instead of free-market competition determinations.
Besides Carnegie's market manipulation, United States trade tariffs were also working in favor of the steel industry. Carnegie spent energy and resources lobbying congress for a continuation of favorable tariffs from which he earned millions of dollars a year. Carnegie tried to keep this information concealed, but legal documents released in 1900, during proceedings with the ex-chairman of Carnegie Steel, Henry Clay Frick, revealed how favorable the tariffs had been.
1901: U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was 65 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation for this. John Pierpont Morgan was a banker and America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiently Carnegie produced profits. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cut costs, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To this end, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them into one company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on March 2, 1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was the largest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired from business. His steel enterprises were bought out for $303,450,000.
Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225.64 million (in , $), which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901. On March 2, the circular formally filed the organization and capitalization (at $1.4 billion – 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230 million worth of bonds.
Scholar and activist
1880–1900
Carnegie continued his business career; some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. He befriended the English poet Matthew Arnold, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, and the American humorist Mark Twain, as well as being in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents, statesmen, and notable writers.
Carnegie constructed commodious swimming-baths for the people of his hometown in Dunfermline in 1879. In the following year, Carnegie gave £8,000 for the establishment of a Dunfermline Carnegie Library in Scotland. In 1884, he gave $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College (now part of New York University Medical Center) to found a histological laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
In 1881, Carnegie took his family, including his 70-year-old mother, on a trip to the United Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en route. The highlight was a return to Dunfermline, where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of a Carnegie Library which he funded. Carnegie's criticism of British society did not mean dislike; on the contrary, one of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association between English-speaking peoples. To this end, in the early 1880s in partnership with Samuel Storey, he purchased numerous newspapers in England, all of which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of "the British Republic". Carnegie's charm, aided by his wealth, afforded him many British friends, including Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
In 1886, Carnegie's younger brother Thomas died at age 43. While owning steel works, Carnegie had purchased at low cost the most valuable of the iron ore fields around Lake Superior. The same year Carnegie became a figure of controversy. Following his tour of the UK, he wrote about his experiences in a book entitled An American Four-in-hand in Britain.
Although actively involved in running his many businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor to numerous magazines, most notably The Nineteenth Century, under the editorship of James Knowles, and the influential North American Review, led by the editor Lloyd Bryce.
In 1886, Carnegie wrote his most radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. Liberal in its use of statistics to make its arguments, the book argued his view that the American republican system of government was superior to the British monarchical system. It gave a highly favorable and idealized view of American progress and criticized the British royal family. The cover depicted an upended royal crown and a broken scepter. The book created considerable controversy in the UK. The book made many Americans appreciate their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies, mostly in the US.
In 1889, Carnegie published "Wealth" in the June issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone requested its publication in England, where it appeared as "The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. Carnegie argued that the life of a wealthy industrialist should comprise two parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth. The second part was for the subsequent distribution of this wealth to benevolent causes. Philanthropy was key to making life worthwhile.
Carnegie was a well-regarded writer. He published three books on travel.
Anti-imperialism
In the aftermath of the Spanish–American War, the United States seemed poised to annex Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Carnegie strongly opposed the idea of American colonies. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines almost to the point of supporting William Jennings Bryan against McKinley in 1900. In 1898, Carnegie tried to arrange independence for the Philippines. As the conclusion of the Spanish–American War neared, the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. To counter what he perceived as American imperialism, Carnegie personally offered $20 million to the Philippines so that the Filipino people could purchase their independence from the United States. However, nothing came of the offer. In 1898 Carnegie joined the American Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Its membership included former presidents of the United States Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and literary figures such as Mark Twain.
1901–1919: Philanthropist
Carnegie spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the shrewd business acumen which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic projects. He had written about his views on social subjects and the responsibilities of great wealth in Triumphant Democracy (1886) and Gospel of Wealth (1889). Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to providing capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement. He saved letters of appreciation from those he helped in a desk drawer labeled "Gratitude and Sweet Words."
He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. His organization, the Simplified Spelling Board, created the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, which was written wholly in reformed spelling.
3,000 public libraries
Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest of his, Carnegie was inspired by meetings with philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808–1896). The Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) of Baltimore, Maryland, impressed Carnegie deeply; he said, "Pratt was my guide and inspiration."
Carnegie turned over management of the library project by 1908 to his staff, led by James Bertram (1874–1934). The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to provide funds to build and equip the library, but only on the condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance.
To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899.
As Van Slyck (1991) showed, during the last years of the 19th century, there was the increasing adoption of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of such libraries was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two.
Investing in education, science, pensions, civil heroism, and world peace
In 1900, Carnegie gave $2 million to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C., for encourage research and discovery. He later contributed more to these and other schools. CIT is now known as Carnegie Mellon University after it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. Carnegie also served on the Boards of Cornell University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
In 1911, Carnegie became a sympathetic benefactor to George Ellery Hale, who was trying to build the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, and donated an additional ten million dollars to the Carnegie Institution with the following suggestion to expedite the construction of the telescope: "I hope the work at Mount Wilson will be vigorously pushed, because I am so anxious to hear the expected results from it. I should like to be satisfied before I depart, that we are going to repay to the old land some part of the debt we owe them by revealing more clearly than ever to them the new heavens." The telescope saw first light on November 2, 1917, with Carnegie still alive.
In 1901, in Scotland, he gave $10 million to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. It was created by a deed that he signed on June 7, 1901, and it was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The establishing gift of $10 million was then an unprecedented sum: at the time, total government assistance to all four Scottish universities was about £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and extend the opportunities for scientific research in the Scottish universities and to enable the deserving and qualified youth of Scotland to attend a university. He was subsequently elected Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews in December 1901, and formally installed as such in October 1902, serving until 1907. He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, the place of his birth. In addition to a library, Carnegie also bought the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public, establishing the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust to benefit the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later built between 1913-14 in the park as a commemoration for his creation of the park.
He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. He transferred to the trust the charge of all his existing and future benefactions, other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches.
In 1901, Carnegie also established large pension funds for his former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college professors. The latter fund evolved into TIAA-CREF. One critical requirement was that church-related schools had to sever their religious connections to get his money.
His interest in music led him to fund the construction of 7,000 church organs. He built and owned Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Carnegie was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute for African-American education under Booker T. Washington. He helped Washington create the National Negro Business League.
In 1904, he founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (a few years later also established in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany) for the recognition of deeds of heroism. Carnegie contributed $1,500,000 in 1903 for the erection of the Peace Palace at The Hague; and he donated $150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics.
When it became obvious that Carnegie could not give away his entire fortune within his lifetime, he established the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" and continue his program of giving.
Carnegie was honored for his philanthropy and support of the arts by initiation as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity on October 14, 1917, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The fraternity's mission reflects Carnegie's values by developing young men to share their talents to create harmony in the world.
By the standards of 19th-century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man but a humanitarian with enough acquisitiveness to go in the ruthless pursuit of money. "Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."
To some, Carnegie represents the idea of the American dream. He was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America and became successful. He is not only known for his successes but his huge amounts of philanthropic works, not only for charities but also to promote democracy and independence to colonized countries.
Death
Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at his Shadow Brook estate, of bronchial pneumonia. He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately US$ (in dollars) of his wealth. After his death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The grave site is located on the Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie is buried only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure of industry in the Gilded Age.
Controversies
1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which has been blamed for the Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.
The dam was high and long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three cast iron discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a labor dispute between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie." Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
Personal life
Family
Carnegie did not want to marry during his mother's lifetime, instead choosing to take care of her in her illness towards the end of her life. After she died in 1886, the 51-year-old Carnegie married Louise Whitfield, who was 21 years his junior. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Carnegie's mother, Margaret.
Residence
Carnegie bought Skibo Castle in Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in his New York mansion located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue. The building was completed in late 1902, and he lived there until his death in 1919. His wife Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now used as the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
Philosophy
Politics
Carnegie gave "formal allegiance" to the Republican Party, though he was said to be "a violent opponent of some of the most sacred doctrines" of the party.
Andrew Carnegie Dictum
In his final days, Carnegie suffered from pneumonia. Before his death on August 11, 1919, Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
To spend the next third making all the money one can.
To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Carnegie was involved in philanthropic causes, but he kept himself away from religious circles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a "positivist". He was highly influenced in public life by John Bright.
On wealth
As early as 1868, at age 33, he drafted a memo to himself. He wrote: "...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In order to avoid degrading himself, he wrote in the same memo he would retire at age 35 to pursue the practice of philanthropic giving for "... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." However, he did not begin his philanthropic work in all earnest until 1881, at age 46, with the gift of a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland.
Carnegie wrote "The Gospel of Wealth", an article in which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society. In that article, Carnegie also expressed sympathy for the ideas of progressive taxation and an estate tax:
The following is taken from one of Carnegie's memos to himself:
Intellectual influences
Carnegie claimed to be a champion of evolutionary thought – particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, even declaring Spencer his teacher. Although Carnegie claimed to be a disciple of Spencer, many of his actions went against the ideas he espoused.
Spencerian evolution was for individual rights and against government interference. Furthermore, Spencerian evolution held that those unfit to sustain themselves must be allowed to perish. Spencer believed that just as there were many varieties of beetles, respectively modified to existence in a particular place in nature, so too had human society "spontaneously fallen into division of labour". Individuals who survived to this, the latest and highest stage of evolutionary progress would be "those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—are the select of their generation." Moreover, Spencer perceived governmental authority as borrowed from the people to perform the transitory aims of establishing social cohesion, insurance of rights, and security. Spencerian 'survival of the fittest' firmly credits any provisions made to assist the weak, unskilled, poor and distressed to be an imprudent disservice to evolution. Spencer insisted people should resist for the benefit of collective humanity, as severe fate singles out the weak, debauched, and disabled.
Andrew Carnegie's political and economic focus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the defense of laissez-faire economics. Carnegie emphatically resisted government intrusion in commerce, as well as government-sponsored charities. Carnegie believed the concentration of capital was essential for societal progress and should be encouraged. Carnegie was an ardent supporter of commercial "survival of the fittest" and sought to attain immunity from business challenges by dominating all phases of the steel manufacturing procedure. Carnegie's determination to lower costs included cutting labor expenses as well. In a notably Spencerian manner, Carnegie argued that unions impeded the natural reduction of prices by pushing up costs, which blocked evolutionary progress. Carnegie felt that unions represented the narrow interest of the few while his actions benefited the entire community.
On the surface, Andrew Carnegie appears to be a strict laissez-faire capitalist and follower of Herbert Spencer, often referring to himself as a disciple of Spencer. Conversely, Carnegie, a titan of industry, seems to embody all of the qualities of Spencerian survival of the fittest. The two men enjoyed a mutual respect for one another and maintained a correspondence until Spencer's death in 1903. There are, however, some major discrepancies between Spencer's capitalist evolutionary conceptions and Andrew Carnegie's capitalist practices.
Spencer wrote that in production the advantages of the superior individual are comparatively minor, and thus acceptable, yet the benefit that dominance provides those who control a large segment of production might be hazardous to competition. Spencer feared that an absence of "sympathetic self-restraint" of those with too much power could lead to the ruin of their competitors. He did not think free-market competition necessitated competitive warfare. Furthermore, Spencer argued that individuals with superior resources who deliberately used investment schemes to put competitors out of business were committing acts of "commercial murder". Carnegie built his wealth in the steel industry by maintaining an extensively integrated operating system. Carnegie also bought out some regional competitors, and merged with others, usually maintaining the majority shares in the companies. Over the course of twenty years, Carnegie's steel properties grew to include the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Lucy Furnace Works, the Union Iron Mills, the Homestead Works, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines among many other industry-related assets.
Herbert Spencer absolutely was against government interference in business in the form of regulatory limitations, taxes, and tariffs as well. Spencer saw tariffs as a form of taxation that levied against the majority in service to "the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans".
Despite Carnegie's personal dedication to Herbert Spencer as a friend, his adherence to Spencer's political and economic ideas is more contentious. In particular, it appears Carnegie either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented some of Spencer's principal arguments. Spencer remarked upon his first visit to Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, which Carnegie saw as the manifestation of Spencer's philosophy, "Six months' residence here would justify suicide."
On the subject of charity Andrew Carnegie's actions diverged in the most significant and complex manner from Herbert Spencer's philosophies. In his 1854 essay "Manners and Fashion", Spencer referred to public education as "Old schemes". He went on to declare that public schools and colleges fill the heads of students with inept, useless knowledge and exclude useful knowledge. Spencer stated that he trusted no organization of any kind, "political, religious, literary, philanthropic", and believed that as they expanded in influence so too did their regulations expand. In addition, Spencer thought that as all institutions grow they become evermore corrupted by the influence of power and money. The institution eventually loses its "original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism". Spencer insisted that all forms of philanthropy that uplift the poor and downtrodden were reckless and incompetent. Spencer thought any attempt to prevent "the really salutary sufferings" of the less fortunate "bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse". Carnegie, a self-proclaimed devotee of Spencer, testified to Congress on February 5, 1915: "My business is to do as much good in the world as I can; I have retired from all other business."
Carnegie held that societal progress relied on individuals who maintained moral obligations to themselves and to society. Furthermore, he believed that charity supplied the means for those who wish to improve themselves to achieve their goals. Carnegie urged other wealthy people to contribute to society in the form of parks, works of art, libraries and other endeavors that improve the community and contribute to the "lasting good". Carnegie also held a strong opinion against inherited wealth. Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks of the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy because they receive greater attention from their parents and are taught better work ethics.
Religion and worldview
Carnegie and his family belonged to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, also known informally as the Northern Presbyterian Church. In his early life Carnegie was skeptical of Calvinism, and religion as a whole, but reconciled with it later in his life. In his autobiography, Carnegie describes his family as moderate Presbyterian believers, writing that "there was not one orthodox Presbyterian" in his family; various members of his family having somewhat distanced themselves from Calvinism, some of them leaning more towards Swedenborgianism. While a child, his family led vigorous theological and political disputes. His mother avoided the topic of religion. His father left the Presbyterian church after a sermon on infant damnation, while, according to Carnegie, still remaining very religious on his own.
Witnessing sectarianism and strife in 19th century Scotland regarding religion and philosophy, Carnegie kept his distance from organized religion and theism. Carnegie instead preferred to see things through naturalistic and scientific terms stating, "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution."
Later in life, Carnegie's firm opposition to religion softened. For many years he was a member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, pastored from 1905 to 1926 by Social Gospel exponent Henry Sloane Coffin, while his wife and daughter belonged to the Brick Presbyterian Church. He also prepared (but did not deliver) an address in which he professed a belief in "an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed". Records exist of a short period of correspondence around 1912–1913 between Carnegie and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith. In these letters, one of which was published in the New York Times in full text, Carnegie is extolled as a "lover of the world of humanity and one of the founders of Universal Peace".
World peace
Influenced by his "favorite living hero in public life" John Bright, Carnegie started his efforts in pursuit of world peace at a young age, and supported causes that opposed military intervention. His motto, "All is well since all grows better", served not only as a good rationalization of his successful business career, but also his view of international relations.
Despite his efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest. These dilemmas are often regarded as conflicts between his view on international relations and his other loyalties. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, for example, Carnegie allowed his steel works to fill large orders of armor plate for the building of an enlarged and modernized United States Navy, but he opposed American overseas expansion.
Despite that, Carnegie served as a major donor for the newly-established International Court of Arbitration's Peace Palace – brainchild of Russian Tsar Nicolas II.
His largest and in the long run most influential peace organization was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, formed in 1910 with a $10 million endowment. In 1913, at the dedication of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Carnegie predicted that the end of the war was as certain to come, and come soon, as day follows night.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carnegie founded the Church Peace Union (CPU), a group of leaders in religion, academia, and politics. Through the CPU, Carnegie hoped to mobilize the world's churches, religious organizations, and other spiritual and moral resources to join in promoting moral leadership to put an end to war forever. For its inaugural international event, the CPU sponsored a conference to be held on August 1, 1914, on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. As the delegates made their way to the conference by train, Germany was invading Belgium.
Despite its inauspicious beginning, the CPU thrived. Today its focus is on ethics and it is known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, whose mission is to be the voice for ethics in international affairs.
The outbreak of the First World War was clearly a shock to Carnegie and his optimistic view on world peace. Although his promotion of anti-imperialism and world peace had all failed, and the Carnegie Endowment had not fulfilled his expectations, his beliefs and ideas on international relations had helped build the foundation of the League of Nations after his death, which took world peace to another level.
United States colonial expansion
On the matter of American colonial expansion, Carnegie had always thought it is an unwise gesture for the United States. He did not oppose the annexation of the Hawaiian islands or Puerto Rico, but he opposed the annexation of the Philippines. Carnegie believed that it involved a denial of the fundamental democratic principle, and he also urged William McKinley to withdraw American troops and allow the Filipinos to live with their independence. This act strongly impressed the other American anti-imperialists, who soon elected him vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
After he sold his steel company in 1901, Carnegie was able to get fully involved in the peace cause, both financially and personally. He gave away much of his fortunes to various peace-keeping agencies in order to keep them growing. When his friend, the British writer William T. Stead, asked him to create a new organization for the goal of a peace and arbitration society, his reply was:
Carnegie believed that it is the effort and will of the people, that maintains the peace in international relations. Money is just a push for the act. If world peace depended solely on financial support, it would not seem a goal, but more like an act of pity.
Like Stead, he believed that the United States and the British Empire would merge into one nation, telling him "We are heading straight to the Re-United States". Carnegie believed that the combined country's power would maintain world peace and disarmament. The creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 was regarded as a milestone on the road to the ultimate goal of abolition of war. Beyond a gift of $10 million for peace promotion, Carnegie also encouraged the "scientific" investigation of the various causes of war, and the adoption of judicial methods that should eventually eliminate them. He believed that the Endowment exists to promote information on the nations' rights and responsibilities under existing international law and to encourage other conferences to codify this law.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886) and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote Our Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness (1882), An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business is the Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905) in the Famous Scots Series, Problems of Today (1907), and his posthumously published Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).
Legacy and honors
Carnegie received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, and received the Freedom of the City of Glasgow "in recognition of his munificence" later the same year. In July 1902 he received the Freedom of the city of St Andrews, "in testimony of his great zeal for the welfare of his fellow-men on both sides of the Atlantic", and in October 1902 the Freedom of the City of Perth "in testimony of his high personal worth and beneficial influence, and in recognition of widespread benefactions bestowed on this and other lands, and especially in gratitude for the endowment granted by him for the promotion of University education in Scotland" and the Freedom of the City of Dundee. Also in 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Aberdeen in 1906. In 1910, he received the Freedom of the City of Belfast and was made as well Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Carnegie was awarded as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on 25 August 1913. Carnegie received 1 July 1914 an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen the Netherlands.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher) was named for Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah. Carnegie was so proud of "Dippi" that he had casts made of the bones and plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in Europe and South America. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Spanish–American War, Carnegie offered to donate $20 million to the Philippines so they could buy their independence.
Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie, Oklahoma, were named in his honor.
The Saguaro cactus's scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after him.
The Carnegie Medal for the best children's literature published in the UK was established in his name.
The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is named after him.
The concert halls in Dunfermline and New York are named after him.
At the height of his career, Carnegie was the second-richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil.
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh was named after Carnegie, who founded the institution as the Carnegie Technical Schools.
Lauder College (named after his uncle George Lauder Sr.) in the Halbeath area of Dunfermline was renamed Carnegie College in 2007.
A street in Belgrade (Serbia), next to the Belgrade University Library which is one of the Carnegie libraries, is named in his honor.
An American high school, Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas, is named after him
Carnegie was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1903, prior to laying the foundation stone of Loanhead Public School.
Benefactions
According to biographer Burton J. Hendrick:
His benefactions amounted to $350,000,000 – for he gave away not only his annual income of something more than $12,500,000, but most of the principal as well. Of this sum, $62,000,000 was allotted to the British Empire and $288,000,000 to the United States, for Carnegie, in the main, confined his benefactions to the English-speaking nations. His largest gifts were $125,000,000 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (this same body also became his residuary legatee), $60,000,000 to public library buildings, $20,000,000 to colleges (usually the smaller ones), $6,000,000 to church organs, $29,000,000 to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $10,000,000 to Hero Funds, $10,000,000 to the Endowment for International Peace, $10,000,000 to the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000 to the United Kingdom Trust, and $3,750,000 to the Dunfermline Trust.
Hendrick argues that:
These gifts fairly picture Carnegie's conception of the best ways to improve the status of the common man. They represent all his personal tastes – his love of books, art, music, and nature – and the reforms which he regarded as most essential to human progress – scientific research, education both literary and technical, and, above all, the abolition of war. The expenditure the public most associates with Carnegie's name is that for public libraries. Carnegie himself frequently said that his favorite benefaction was the Hero Fund – among other reasons, because "it came up my ain back"; but probably deep in his own mind his library gifts took precedence over all others in importance. There was only one genuine remedy, he believed, for the ills that beset the human race, and that was enlightenment. "Let there be light" was the motto that, in the early days, he insisted on placing in all his library buildings. As to the greatest endowment of all, the Carnegie Corporation, that was merely Andrew Carnegie in permanently organized form; it was established to carry on, after Carnegie's death, the work to which he had given personal attention in his own lifetime.
Research sources
Carnegie's personal papers are at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
The Carnegie Collections of the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library consist of the archives of the following organizations founded by Carnegie: The Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY); The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT);The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (CCEIA). These collections deal primarily with Carnegie philanthropy and have very little personal material related to Carnegie. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh jointly administer the Andrew Carnegie Collection of digitized archives on Carnegie's life.
Works
Wall, Joseph Frazier, ed. The Andrew Carnegie reader (1992) online free
Round the World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884.
An American Four-in-Hand in Britain. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
Triumphant Democracy, or, Fifty Years' March of the Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886.
The Bugaboo of Trusts. Reprinted from North American Review, vol. 148, no. 377 (Feb. 1889).
"Wealth," North American Review, vol. 148, no. 381 (June 1889), pp. 653–64. – Original version of "The Gospel of Wealth."
The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. New York: The Century Co., 1901.
Industrial Peace: Address at the Annual Dinner of the National Civic Federation, New York City, December 15, 1904. [n.c.]: [National Civic Federation], [1904].
James Watt. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1905.
Edwin M. Stanton: An Address by Andrew Carnegie on Stanton Memorial Day at Kenyon College. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1906.
Problems of Today: Wealth – Labor – Socialism. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1908.
Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society, at the Guildhall, London, EC, May 24th, 1910. London: The Peace Society, 1910.
A League of Peace: A Rectorial Address Delivered to the Students in the University of St. Andrews, 17th October 1905. New York: New York Peace Society, 1911.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1920.
See also
Carnegie (disambiguation)
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
History of public library advocacy
List of Carnegie libraries in the United States
List of peace activists
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
List of universities named after people
Notes
References
Cited sources
Collections
Further reading
Bostaph, Samuel. (2015). Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD. ; 125pp online review
Ewing, Heather. (2014). Life of a Mansion: The Story of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.
Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Hendrick, Burton Jesse/ The life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vol. 1933) vol 2 online; scholarly biography
Josephson; Matthew. (1938). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901
Krass, Peter. (2002). Carnegie Wiley. , scholarly biography
Lester, Robert M. (1941). Forty Years of Carnegie Giving: A Summary of the Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie and of the Work of the Philanthropic Trusts Which He Created. C. Scribner's Sons, New York.
Livesay, Harold C. (1999). Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Edition. short biography by a scholar; online free
Patterson, David S. "Andrew Carnegie's quest for world peace." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 114#5 (1970): 371-383. online
Rees, Jonathan. (1997). "Homestead in Context: Andrew Carnegie and the Decline of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers." Pennsylvania History 64(4): 509–533.
VanSlyck, Abigail A. "'The Utmost Amount of Effective Accommodation': Andrew Carnegie and the Reform of the American Library." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1991 50(4): 359–383. (Fulltext: in Jstor)
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (1989). (Along with Nasaw the most detailed scholarly biography) online free
External links
Documentary: "Andrew Carnegie: Rags to Riches, Power to Peace"
Carnegie Birthplace Museum website
Booknotes interview with Peter Krass on Carnegie, November 24, 2002.
Marguerite Martyn, "Andrew Carnegie on Prosperity, Income Tax, and the Blessings of Poverty," May 1, 1914, City Desk Publishing
1835 births
1919 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
Activists from Massachusetts
American billionaires
American Civil War industrialists
American company founders
American industrialists
American librarianship and human rights
American philanthropists
American railway entrepreneurs
American spiritualists
American steel industry businesspeople
Bessemer Gold Medal
Lauder Greenway Family
Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Businesspeople from Pittsburgh
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carnegie Mellon University people
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Deaths from bronchopneumonia
English-language spelling reform advocates
Gilded Age
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees
Massachusetts Republicans
Non-interventionism
People associated with the University of Birmingham
People from Dunfermline
People from Lenox, Massachusetts
Progressive Era in the United States
Rectors of the University of St Andrews
Scottish billionaires
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Scottish spiritualists
U.S. Steel people
University and college founders
Presidents of the Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York
Carnegie family
| false |
[
"\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison",
"In baseball, a fair ball is a batted ball that entitles the batter to attempt to reach first base. By contrast, a foul ball is a batted ball that does not entitle the batter to attempt to reach first base. Whether a batted ball is fair or foul is determined by the location of the ball at the appropriate reference point, as follows:\n\n if the ball leaves the playing field without touching anything, the point where the ball leaves the field;\n else, if the ball first lands past first or third base without touching anything, the point where the ball lands;\n else, if the ball rolls or bounces past first or third base without touching anything other than the ground, the point where the ball passes the base;\n else, if the ball touches anything other than the ground (such as an umpire, a player, or any equipment left on the field) before any of the above happens, the point of such touching;\n else (the ball comes to a rest before reaching first or third base), the point where the ball comes to a rest.\n\nIf any part of the ball is on or above fair territory at the appropriate reference point, it is fair; else it is foul. Fair territory or fair ground is defined as the area of the playing field between the two foul lines, and includes the foul lines themselves and the foul poles. However, certain exceptions exist:\n\n A ball that touches first, second, or third base is always fair.\n Under Rule 5.09(a)(7)-(8), if a batted ball touches the batter or his bat while the batter is in the batter's box and not intentionally interfering with the course of the ball, the ball is foul.\n A ball that hits the foul pole without first having touched anything else off the bat is fair.\n Ground rules may provide whether a ball hitting specific objects (e.g. roof, overhead speaker) is fair or foul.\n\nOn a fair ball, the batter attempts to reach first base or any subsequent base, runners attempt to advance and fielders try to record outs. A fair ball is considered a live ball until the ball becomes dead by leaving the field or any other method.\n\nReferences\n\nBaseball rules"
] |
[
"Erich Honecker",
"Family"
] |
C_6c702e1bb7284a76990ddea57af53d50_0
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who were the members of Honecker's family?
| 1 |
Who were the members of Erich Honecker's family?
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Erich Honecker
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Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945 he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (nee Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death. By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thalmann Pioneer Organisation. In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist, however sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Erich and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons, however, his bodyguard Bernd Bruckner in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, refuted the claims. Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yanez Betancourt; Roberto, (b. 1974) Mariana, (b. 1985) who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Mrs. Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Gorlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Leonardo Mrs Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at 3 years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter. Honecker's daughter, (who divorced Leonardo in 1993) grandson and granddaughter still live in Santiago. CANNOTANSWER
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Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann,
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Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
Honecker's political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Following World War II, he was freed by the Soviet army and relaunched his political activities, founding the SED's youth organisation, the Free German Youth, in 1946 and serving as the group's chairman until 1955. As the Security Secretary of the SED Central Committee, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, in this function, bore administrative responsibility for the "order to fire" along the Wall and the larger inner German border.
In 1970, Honecker initiated a political power struggle that led, with support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to him replacing Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence Council. Under his command, the country adopted a programme of "consumer socialism" and moved towards the international community by normalizing relations with West Germany and also becoming a full member of the UN, in what is considered one of his greatest political successes.
As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s with the advent of perestroika and glasnost—the liberal reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes to the East German political system. He cited the continual hardliner attitudes of Kim Il-sung and Fidel Castro, whose respective countries of governance of North Korea and Cuba had been critical of reforms. As anti-government protests grew, Honecker begged Gorbachev to intervene with the Soviet army to suppress the protests to maintain communist rule in East Germany as Moscow had done with Czechoslovakia in the Prague Spring of 1968 and with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but Gorbachev refused. Honecker was forced to resign by the SED Politburo in October 1989 in a bid to improve the government's image in the eyes of the public; the effort was unsuccessful, and the regime would collapse entirely the following month.
Following German reunification in 1990, Honecker sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, but was extradited back to Germany in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, to stand trial for his role in the human rights abuses committed by the East German government. However, the proceedings were abandoned, as Honecker was suffering from terminal liver cancer. He was freed from custody to join his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994.
Childhood and youth
Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, in what is now Saarland, to Wilhelm Honecker (1881–1969), a coal miner and political activist, and his wife Caroline Catharine Weidenhof (1883–1963). The couple, married in 1905, had six children: Katharina (Käthe, 1906–1925), Wilhelm (Willi, 1907–1944), Frieda (1909–1974), Erich, Gertrud (1917–2010) and Karl-Robert (1923–1947). Erich, their fourth child, was born on 25 August 1912 during the period in which the family resided on Max-Braun-Straße, before later moving to Kuchenbergstraße 88 in the present-day Neunkirchen city district of Wiebelskirchen.
After World War I, the Territory of the Saar Basin was occupied by France. This change from the strict rule of to French military occupation provided the backdrop for what Wilhelm Honecker understood as proletarian exploitation, and introduced young Erich to communism. After his tenth birthday in 1922, Erich Honecker became a member of the Spartacus League's children's group in Wiebelskirchen. Aged 14 he entered the KJVD, the Young Communist League of Germany, for whom he later served the organisation's leader of Saarland from 1931.
Honecker did not find an apprenticeship immediately after leaving school, but instead worked for a farmer in Pomerania for almost two years. In 1928 he returned to Wiebelskirchen and began a traineeship as a roofer with his uncle, but quit to attend the International Lenin School in Moscow and Magnitogorsk after the KJVD handpicked him for a course of study there. There, sharing a room with Anton Ackermann, he studied under the cover name "Fritz Malter".
Opposition to the Nazis and imprisonment
In 1930, aged 18, Honecker entered the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. His political mentor was Otto Niebergall, who later represented the KPD in the Reichstag. After returning from Moscow in 1931 following his studies at the International Lenin School, he became the leader of the KJVD in the Saar region. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Communist activities within Germany were only possible undercover; the Saar region however still remained outside the German Reich under a League of Nations mandate. Honecker was arrested in Essen, Germany but soon released. Following this he fled to the Netherlands and from there oversaw KJVD's activities in Pfalz, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.
Honecker returned to the Saar in 1934 and worked alongside Johannes Hoffmann on the campaign against the region's re-incorporation into Germany. A referendum on the area's future in January 1935 however saw 90.73% vote in favour of reunifying with Germany. Like 4,000 to 8,000 others, Honecker then fled the region, initially relocating to Paris.
On 28 August 1935 he illegally travelled to Berlin under the alias "Marten Tjaden", with a printing press in his luggage. From there he worked closely together with KPD official Herbert Wehner in opposition/resistance to the Nazi state. On 4 December 1935 Honecker was detained by the Gestapo and until 1937 remanded in Berlin's Moabit detention centre. On 3 July 1937 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the "preparation of high treason alongside the severe falsification of documents".
Honecker spent the majority of his incarceration in the Brandenburg-Görden Prison, where he also carried out tasks as a handyman. In early 1945 he was moved to the Barnimstraße Women's Prison in Berlin due to good behaviour and to be put to work repairing the bomb-damaged building, as he was a skilled roofer. During an Allied bombing raid on 6 March 1945 he managed to escape and hid himself at the apartment of Lotte Grund, a female prison guard. After several days she persuaded him to turn himself in and his escape was then covered up by the guard. Honecker spent most of his time in prison under solitary confinement.
After the liberation of the prisons by advancing Soviet troops on 27 April 1945, Honecker remained in Berlin. His "escape" from prison and his relationships during his captivity later led to him experiencing difficulties within the Socialist Unity Party, as well as straining his relations with his former inmates. In later interviews and in his personal memoirs, Honecker falsified many of the details of his life during this period. Material from the East German State Security Service has been used to allege that, to be released from prison, Honecker offered the Gestapo evidence incriminating fellow imprisoned Communists, claimed he had renounced Communism "for good", and was willing to serve in the German army.
Post-war return to politics
In May 1945 Honecker was "picked up" by chance in Berlin by Hans Mahle and taken to the Ulbricht Group, a collective of exiled German communists that had returned from the Soviet Union to Germany after the end of the Nazi regime. Through Waldemar Schmidt, Honecker befriended Walter Ulbricht, who had not been aware of him at that point. Honecker's future role in the group was still undecided until well into the summer months, as he had yet to face a party process. This ended in a reprimand due to his "undisciplined conduct" in fleeing from prison at the start of the year, an action which was debated upon it jeopardizing the other (communist) inmates.
In 1946, Honecker became the co-founder of the Free German Youth (FDJ), whose chairmanship he also undertook. After the formation of the SED, the Socialist Unity Party, in April 1946 through a merger of the KPD and SPD, Honecker swiftly became a leading party member and took his place in the party's Central Committee.
On 7 October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was formed with the adoption of a new constitution, establishing a political system similar to that of the Soviet Union. Within the state's socialist single party government, Honecker determinedly resumed his political career and the following year was nominated as a candidate for the Politbüro of the SED's Central Committee. As President of the Free German Youth movement, he organised the inaugural "Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend" in East Berlin in May 1950 and the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in 1951, although the latter was beset with organisational problems.
During the internal party unrest following the suppressed uprising of June 1953, Honecker sided with First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, despite the majority of the Politburo attempting to depose Ulbricht in favour of Rudolf Herrnstadt. Honecker himself though faced questioning from party members about his inadequate qualifications for his position. On 27 May 1955 he handed the Presidency of the FDJ over to Karl Namokel, and departed for Moscow to study for two years at the School of the Soviet Communist Party at Ulbricht's request. During this period he witnessed the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in person, where its First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin.
After returning to East Germany in 1958, Honecker became a fully-fledged member of the Politburo, taking over responsibility for military and security issues. As the Party Security Secretary he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and also a proponent of the "order to fire" along the Inner German border.
Leadership of East Germany
While Ulbricht had replaced the state's command economy with, firstly the "New Economic System", then the Economic System of Socialism, as he sought to improve the country's failing economy, Honecker declared the main task to in fact be the "unity of economic and social politics", essentially through which living standards (with increased consumer goods) would be raised in exchange for political loyalty. Tensions had already led to his once-mentor Ulbricht removing Honecker from the position of Second Secretary in July 1970, only for the Soviet leadership to swiftly reinstate him. Honecker played up the thawing East-West German relationship as Ulbricht's strategy, to win the support of the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev. With this secured, Honecker was appointed First Secretary (from 1976 titled general secretary) of the Central Committee on 3 May 1971 after the Soviet leadership forced Ulbricht to step aside "for health reasons".
After also succeeding Ulbricht as Chairman of the National Defence Council in 1971, Honecker was eventually also elected Chairman of the State Council (a post equivalent to that of president) on 29 October 1976. With this, Honecker reached the height of power within East Germany. From there on, he, along with Economic Secretary Günter Mittag and Minister of State Security Erich Mielke, made all key government decisions. Until 1989 the "little strategic clique" composed of these three men was unchallenged as the top level of East Germany's ruling class. Honecker's closest colleague was , the SED's Agitation and Propaganda Secretary. Alongside him, Honecker held daily meetings concerning the party's media representation in which the layout of the party's own newspaper Neues Deutschland, as well as the sequencing of news items in the national news bulletin Aktuelle Kamera, were determined.
Under Honecker's leadership, East Germany adopted a programme of "consumer socialism", which resulted in a marked improvement in living standards already the highest among the Eastern bloc countries. More attention was placed on the availability of consumer goods, and the construction of new housing was accelerated, with Honecker promising to "settle the housing problem as an issue of social relevance". His policies were initially marked by a liberalisation toward culture and art, though this was less about the replacement of Ulbricht by Honecker and more for propaganda purposes. While 1973 brought the World Festival of Youth and Students to East Berlin, soon dissident artists such as Wolf Biermann were expelled and the Ministry for State Security raised its efforts to suppress political resistance. Honecker remained committed to the expansion of the Inner German border and the "order to fire" policy along it. During his time in office around 125 East German citizens were killed while trying to reach the West.
After the Federal Republic had secured an agreement with the Soviet Union on cooperation and a policy of non-violence, it became possible to reach a similar agreement with the GDR. The Basic Treaty between East and West Germany in 1972 sought to normalise contacts between the two governments.
East Germany also participated in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975, which attempted to improve relations between the West and the Eastern Bloc, and became a full member of the United Nations. These acts of diplomacy were considered Honecker’s greatest successes in foreign politics.
Honecker received additional high-profile personal recognitions including honorary doctorates of humane letters from North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung University in 1974, Cuba's University of Las Tunas in 1979 and Iraq's Saddam University in 1983, honorary doctorates of business administration from East Berlin's Humboldt University in 1976, Tokyo's Nihon University in 1981 and the London School of Economics in 1984 and the Olympic Order from the IOC in 1985. In September 1987, he became the first East German head of state to visit West Germany, where he was received with full state honours by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in an act that seemed to confirm West Germany's acceptance of East Germany's existence. During this trip he also journeyed to his birthplace in Saarland, where he held an emotional speech in which he spoke of a day when Germans would no longer be separated by borders, but unified under communist rule. This trip had been planned twice before, including September 1984, but was initially blocked by the Soviet leadership which mistrusted the special East-West German relationship, particularly efforts to expand East Germany's limited independence in the realm of foreign policy.
Illness, downfall and resignation
In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika, reforms to liberalise socialist planned economy. Frictions between him and Honecker had grown over these policies and numerous additional issues from 1985 onward. East Germany refused to implement similar reforms, with Honecker reportedly telling Gorbachev: "We have done our perestroika; we have nothing to restructure". Gorbachev grew to dislike Honecker, and by 1988 was lumping him in with Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu as a "Gang of Four": a group of inflexible hardliners unwilling to make reforms.
According to White House experts Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Gorbachev looked to Communist leaders in Eastern Europe to follow his example of perestroika and glasnost. They argue:
Gorbachev himself had no particular sympathy for Erich Honecker, chairman of the East German Communist Party, and his hard-line comrades and the government. As early as 1985... [Gorbachev] had told East German party officials that kindergarten was over; no one would lead them by the hand. They were responsible for their own people. The relations between Gorbachev and Honecker went downhill from there.
Western analysts, according to Zelikow and Rice, believed in 1989 that Communism was still secure in East Germany:
Bolstered by relatively greater affluence than his country's Eastern European neighbors enjoyed in a fantastically elaborate system of internal controls, East Germany's longtime leader Eric Honecker seemed secure in his position. His government had long dealt with dissent through a mixture of brutal repression, forced emigration, and the vent of allowing occasional, limited travel to the West for a substantial part of the population.
Honecker felt betrayed by Gorbachev in his German policy and ensured that official texts of the Soviet Union, especially those concerning perestroika, could no longer be published or sold in East Germany.
At the Warsaw Pact summit on 7–8 July 1989 in Bucharest, the Soviet Union reaffirmed its shift from the Brezhnev Doctrine of the limited sovereignty of its member states, and announced "freedom of choice". The Bucharest statement prescribed that its nations henceforth developed their "own political line, strategy and tactics without external intervention". This called into question the Soviet guarantee of existence for the Communist states in Europe. Already in May 1989 Hungary had begun dismantling its border with Austria, creating the first gap in the so-called Iron Curtain, through which later several thousand East Germans quickly fled in hopes of reaching West Germany by way of Austria. But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 (which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test Gorbachev's reaction to the opening of the border), the subsequent hesitant behaviour of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union opened the floodgates. Thus the united front of the Eastern Bloc was broken. The reaction to this from Erich Honecker in the Daily Mirror of August 19, 1989 was too late and showed the current loss of power: “Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West.” Later, after his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in connection with the summer of 1989: "That this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin." Now tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. A 1969 treaty required the Hungarian government to send the East Germans back home; however, starting on 11 September 1989, the Hungarians let them pass into Austria, telling their outraged East German counterparts that they were refugees and that international treaties on refugees took precedence.
At the time, Honecker was sidelined through illness, leaving his colleagues unable to act decisively. He had been taken ill with biliary colic during the Warsaw Pact summit. He was shortly afterwards flown home to East Berlin. After an initial stabilisation in his health, he underwent surgery on 18 August 1989 to remove his inflamed gallbladder and, due to a perforation, part of his colon. According to the urologist Peter Althaus, the surgeons left a suspected carcinogenic nodule in Honecker’s right kidney due to his weak condition, and also failed to inform the patient of the suspected cancer; other sources say the tumour was simply undetected. As a result of this operation, Honecker was away from his office until late September 1989.
Back in office, Honecker had to contend with the rising number and strength of demonstrations across East Germany that had first been sparked by reports in the West German media of fraudulent results in local elections on 7 May 1989, the same results he had labelled a "convincing reflection" of the populace's faith in his leadership. He also had to deal with a new refugee problem. Several thousand East Germans tried to go to West Germany by way of Czechoslovakia, only to have that government bar them from passing. Several thousands of them headed straight for the West German embassy in Prague and demanded safe passage to West Germany. With some reluctance, Honecker allowed them to go – but forced them to go back through East Germany on sealed trains and stripped them of their East German citizenship. Several members of the SED Politbüro realised this was a serious blunder and made plans to get rid of him.
As unrest visibly grew, large numbers began fleeing the country through the West German embassies in Prague and Budapest, as well as over the borders of the "socialist brother" states. Each month saw tens of thousands more exit. On 3 October 1989 East Germany closed its borders to its eastern neighbours and prevented visa-free travel to Czechoslovakia; a day later these measures were also extended to travel to Bulgaria and Romania. East Germany was now not only behind the Iron Curtain to the West, but also cordoned off from most other Eastern bloc states.
On 6–7 October 1989 the national celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the East German state took place with Gorbachev in attendance. To the surprise of Honecker and the other SED leaders in attendance, several hundred members of the Free German Youth — reckoned as the future vanguard of the party and nation — began chanting, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, save us!". In a private conversation between the two leaders Honecker praised the success of the nation, but Gorbachev knew that, in reality, it faced bankruptcy; East Germany had already accepted billions of dollars in loans from West Germany during the decade as it sought to stabilise its economy. Attempting to make Honecker accept a need for reforms, Gorbachev warned Honecker that "He who is too late is punished by life", yet Honecker maintained that "we will solve our problems ourselves with socialist means". Protests outside the reception at the Palace of the Republic led to hundreds of arrests in which many were brutally beaten by soldiers and police.
As the reform movement spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe, mass demonstrations against the East German government erupted, most prominently in Leipzig—the first of several demonstrations which took place on Monday nights across the country. In response, an elite paratroop unit was dispatched to Leipzig—almost certainly on Honecker's orders, since he was commander-in-chief of the Army. A bloodbath was averted only when local party officials themselves ordered the troops to pull back. In the following week, Honecker faced a torrent of criticism. This gave his Politburo comrades the impetus they needed to replace him.
After a crisis meeting of the Politburo on 10–11 October 1989, Honecker's planned state visit to Denmark was cancelled and, despite his resistance, at the insistence of the government's number-two-man, Egon Krenz, a public statement was issued that called for "suggestions for attractive socialism". Over the following days Krenz worked to secure himself the support of the military and the Stasi and arranged a meeting between Gorbachev and Politburo member Harry Tisch, who was in Moscow, to inform the Kremlin about the now-planned removal of Honecker; Gorbachev reportedly wished them good luck.
The sitting of the SED Central Committee planned for the end of November 1989 was pulled forward a week, with the most urgent item on the agenda now being the composition of the Politburo. Krenz and Mielke attempted by telephone on the night of 16 October to win other Politburo members over to remove Honecker. At the beginning of the session on 17 October, Honecker asked his routine question of "Are there any suggestions for the agenda?" Stoph replied, "Please, general secretary, Erich, I propose that a new item be placed on the agenda. It is the release of Erich Honecker as general secretary and the election of Egon Krenz in his place." Honecker reportedly calmly responded: "Well, then I open the debate".
All those present then spoke, in turn, but none in favour of Honecker. Günter Schabowski even extended the dismissal of Honecker to also include his posts in the State Council and as Chairman of the National Defence Council while childhood friend Günter Mittag moved away from Honecker. Mielke supposedly blamed Honecker for almost all the country's current ills and threatened to publish compromising information that he possessed, if Honecker refused to resign. A ZDF documentary on the matter claims this information was contained in a large red briefcase found in Mielke's possession in 1990. After three hours the Politburo voted to remove Honecker. In accordance with longstanding practice, Honecker voted for his own removal. When the public announcement was made, it was branded as a voluntary decision on Honecker's part, ostensibly "due to health reasons". Krenz was unanimously elected as his successor as General Secretary.
Start of prosecution and asylum attempts
Communist rule in East Germany survived Honecker's removal by only two months. Three weeks after Honecker's ousting the Berlin Wall fell, and the SED swiftly lost control of the country. On 1 December, its guaranteed right to rule was removed from the East German constitution. Two days later he was expelled from the SED along with other former officials. He went on to join the newly founded Communist Party of Germany in 1990, remaining a member until his death.
During November the People's Chamber had already set up a committee to investigate corruption and abuses of office, with Honecker being alleged to have received annual donations from the National Academy of Architecture of around 20,000 marks as an "honorary member". On 5 December 1989 the chief public prosecutor in East Germany formally launched a judicial inquiry against him on charges of high treason, abuses of confidence and embezzlement to the serious disadvantage of socialist property (the charge of high treason was dropped in March 1990). As a result, Honecker was placed under house arrest for a month.
Following the lifting of his house arrest, Honecker and his wife Margot were forced to vacate their apartment in the Waldsiedlung housing area in Wandlitz, exclusively used by senior SED party members, after the People's Chamber decided to put it to use as a sanatorium for the disabled. In any case, Honecker spent the majority of January 1990 in hospital after having the error of the tumour missed in 1989 corrected after the suspicion of cancer was confirmed. Upon leaving the hospital on 29 January he was re-arrested and held at the Berlin-Rummelsburg remand centre. However, on the evening of the following day, 30 January, Honecker was again released from custody: The district court had annulled the arrest warrant and, due to medical reports, certified him unfit for detention and interrogation.
Lacking a home, Honecker instructed his lawyer Wolfgang Vogel to ask the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg for help. Pastor Uwe Holmer, leader of the Hoffnungstal Institute in Lobetal, Bernau bei Berlin, offered the couple a home in his vicarage. This drew immediate condemnation and later demonstrations against the church for assisting the Honeckers, given they had both discriminated against Christians who did not conform with the SED leadership's ideology. Aside from a stay at a holiday home in Lindow in March 1990 that lasted only one day before protests swiftly brought it to an end, the couple resided at the Holmer residence until 3 April 1990.
The couple then moved into a three-room living quarters within the Soviet military hospital in Beelitz. Here, doctors diagnosed a malignant liver tumour following another re-examination. Following German reunification, prosecutors in Berlin issued a further arrest warrant for Honecker in November 1990 on charges that he gave the order to fire on escapees at the Inner German border in 1961 and had repeatedly reiterated that command (most specifically in 1974). However, this warrant was not enforceable because Honecker lay under the protection of Soviet authorities in Beelitz. On 13 March 1991 the Honeckers fled Germany from the Soviet-controlled Sperenberg Airfield to Moscow on a military jet with the aid of Soviet hardliners.
The German Chancellery had only been informed by Soviet diplomats about the Honeckers’ flight to Moscow one hour in advance. It limited its response to a public protest, claiming the existence of an arrest warrant meant the Soviet Union was breaching international law by admitting Honecker. The initial Soviet reaction was that Honecker was now too ill to travel and was receiving medical treatment after a deterioration of his health. He underwent further surgery the following month.
On 11 December 1991 the Honeckers sought refuge in the Chilean Embassy in Moscow, while also applying for political asylum in the Soviet Union. Despite an offer of help from North Korea, Honecker instead reached out to the Chilean government under Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin. Under Honecker's rule, East Germany had granted many Chileans exile following the military coup of 1973 by Augusto Pinochet. In addition his daughter Sonja was married to a Chilean. Chilean authorities, however, stated he could not enter their country without a valid German passport.
Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991 and gave all his powers to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Russian authorities had long been keen on expelling Honecker, against the wishes of Gorbachev, and the new government now demanded that he leave the country or else face deportation.
In June 1992, Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, leader of a center-left coalition, finally assured German Chancellor Helmut Kohl that Honecker would be leaving the embassy in Moscow. Reportedly against his will, Honecker was ejected from the embassy on 29 July 1992 and flown to Berlin's Tegel Airport, where he was arrested and detained in Moabit Prison. By contrast, his wife Margot travelled on a direct flight from Moscow to Santiago, Chile, where she initially stayed with her daughter Sonja. Honecker's lawyers unsuccessfully appealed for him to be released from detention in the period leading up to his trial.
Criminal trial and death
On 12 May 1992, while under protection in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, Honecker, along with several co-defendants, including Erich Mielke, Willi Stoph, Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht, was accused in a 783-page indictment of taking part in the "collective manslaughter" of 68 people as they attempted to flee East Germany. It was alleged that Honecker, in his role as Chairman of the National Defence Council, had both given the decisive order in 1961 for the construction of the Berlin Wall and also, at subsequent meetings, ordered the extensive expansion of the border fortifications around West Berlin and the barriers to the West so as to make any passing impossible. In addition, specifically at a May 1974 sitting of the National Defence Council, he had stated that the development of the border must continue, that lines of fire were warranted along the whole border and, as prior, the use of firearms was essential: "Comrades who have successfully used their firearms [are] to be praised". Honecker, in his role of chairman of the party, was responsible for the deaths of many more than the 68 mentioned above. As of 22 April 2015, well over 1,000 deaths have been discovered mainly through secret East German documentation: "It is still not known for sure how many people died on the inner German border or who they were, as the East German state treated such information as a closely guarded secret. But numbers have risen steadily since unification, as evidence has been gathered from East German records. Current unofficial estimates put the figure at up to 1,100 people." From the same article, "In 1974, Erich Honecker, as Chairman of the GDR's National Defence Council, ordered: 'Firearms are to be ruthlessly used in the event of attempts to break through the border, and the comrades who have successfully used their firearms are to be commended.'"
The charges were approved by the Berlin District Court on 19 October 1992 at the opening of the trial. On the same day, it was decided that the hearing of 56 charges would be postponed and the remaining twelve cases would be the subject of the trial to begin on 12 November 1992. The question of under which laws the former East German leader could be tried was highly controversial and, in the view of many jurists, the process had an uncertain outcome.
During his 70-minute-long statement to the court on 3 December 1992, Honecker said that he had political responsibility for the building of the Berlin Wall and subsequent deaths at the borders, but claimed he was "without juridical, legal or moral guilt". He blamed the escalation of the Cold War for the building of the Berlin Wall, saying the decision had not been taken solely by the East German leadership but all the Warsaw Pact nations that had collectively concluded in 1961 that a "Third World War with millions dead" would be unavoidable without this action. He quoted several West German politicians who had opined that the wall had indeed reduced and stabilised the two factions. He stated that he had always regretted every death, both from a human point of view and due to the political damage they caused.
Making reference to past trials in Germany against communists and socialists such as Karl Marx and August Bebel, he claimed that the legal process against him was politically motivated and a "show trial" against communism. He stated that no court lying in the territory of West Germany had the legal right to place him, his co-defendants or any East German citizen on trial, and that the portrayal of East Germany as an "Unrechtsstaat" was contradictory to its recognition by over one hundred other nations and the UN Security Council. Furthermore, he questioned how a German court could now legally judge his political decisions in the light of the lack of legal action taken over various military operations that had been carried out by Western nations with either overt support or absence of condemnation from (West) Germany. He dismissed public criticism of the Stasi, arguing that journalists in Western countries were praised for denouncing others. While accepting political responsibility for the deaths at the Wall, he believed he was free of any "legal or moral guilt", and thought that East Germany would go down in history as "a sign that socialism is possible and is better than capitalism."
By the time of the proceedings Honecker was already seriously ill. A new CT scan in August 1992 had confirmed an ultrasound examination made in Moscow and the existence of a malignant tumour in the right lobe of his liver. Based on these findings and additional medical testimonies, Honecker’s lawyers requested that the legal proceedings, as far as they were aimed against their client, be abandoned and the arrest warrant against him withdrawn; the cases against both Mielke and Stoph had already been postponed due to their ill health. Arguing that his life expectancy was estimated to be three to six months, while the legal process was forecast to take at least two years, his lawyers questioned whether it was humane to try a dying man. Their application was rejected on 21 December 1992 when the court concluded that, given the seriousness of the charges, no obstacle to the proceedings existed.
Honecker lodged a constitutional complaint to the recently created Berlin Constitutional Court, stating that the decision to proceed violated his fundamental right to human dignity, which was an overriding principle in the Constitution of Berlin, above even the state penal system and criminal justice. On 12 January 1993 Honecker's complaint was upheld and the Berlin District Court therefore abandoned the case and withdrew their arrest warrant. An application for a new arrest warrant was rejected on 13 January. The court also refused to commence with the trial related to the indictment of 12 November 1992, and withdrew the second arrest warrant related to these charges. After a total of 169 days Honecker was released from custody, drawing protests both from victims of the East German state as well as German political figures.
Honecker flew via Brazil to Santiago, Chile, to reunite with his wife and his daughter Sonja, who lived there with her son Roberto. Upon his arrival he was greeted by the leaders of the Chilean Communist and Socialist parties. In contrast, his co-defendants Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht were sentenced on 16 September 1993 to imprisonment of between four and seven-and-a-half years. On 13 April 1993 a final attempt to separate and continue the trial against Honecker in his absence was discontinued. Four days later, on the 66th birthday of his wife Margot, he gave a final public speech, ending with the words: "Socialism is the opposite of what we have now in Germany. For that I would like to say that our beautiful memories of the German Democratic Republic are testimony of a new and just society. And we want to always remain loyal to these things".
On 29 May 1994, Honecker died of liver cancer at the age of 81 in a terraced house in the La Reina district of Santiago. His funeral, arranged by the Communist Party of Chile, was conducted the following day at central cemetery in Santiago.
Family
Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945, he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (née Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death.
By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her, he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.
In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist. However, sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Honecker and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons; however, his bodyguard Bernd Brückner, in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, denied the claims.
Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yáñez Betancourt: Roberto (b. 1974), Mariana (b. 1985), who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Görlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Yáñez, Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at three years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter.
Honecker's daughter divorced Yáñez in 1993. She and her two surviving children still live in Santiago.
Honours and awards
:
Hero of the German Democratic Republic (twice)
Hero of Labour
Patriotic Order of Merit (Honor clasp, in Gold)
Order of Karl Marx (five times)
Order of the Banner of Labor
:
Hero of the Soviet Union
Order of Lenin (thrice)
Order of the October Revolution
Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Other countries:
Grand Star of the Order of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (Austria)
Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Order of José Martí (Cuba)
Order of Playa Girón (Cuba)
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia)
Grand Cross of the White Rose of Finland (Finland)
Order of Augusto Cesar Sandino, 1st class (Nicaragua)
Order of the "Victory of Socialism" (Romania)
Order of Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)
Olympic Order (International Olympic Committee)
In popular culture
Dmitri Vrubel's 1990 mural on the Berlin Wall My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, depicting a socialist "fraternal kiss" between Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev, became known around the world.
A traffic signal inspired by Honecker wearing a jaunty straw hat was used in parts of East Germany (Ost-Ampelmännchen) and has become a symbol of Ostalgie.
Notes
References
Further reading
Bryson, Phillip J., and Manfred Melzer eds. The end of the East German economy: from Honecker to reunification (Palgrave Macmillan, 1991).
Childs, David, ed. Honecker's Germany (London: Taylor & Francis, 1985).
Collier Jr, Irwin L. "GDR economic policy during the honecker era." Eastern European Economics 29.1 (1990): 5–29.
Dennis, Mike. Social and Economic Modernization in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (Burns & Oates, 1993).
Dennis, Mike. "The East German Ministry of State Security and East German Society During the Honecker Era, 1971–1989." in German Writers and the Politics of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 200)3. 3–24 on the STASI
Fulbrook, Mary. (2008) The people's state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker. Yale University Press.
Grix, Jonathan. "Competing approaches to the collapse of the GDR: ‘Top‐down’ vs ‘bottom‐up’," Journal of Area Studies 6#13:121–142, DOI: 10.1080/02613539808455836, Historiography.
Lippmann, Heinz. Honecker and the new politics of Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
McAdams, A. James. "The Honecker trial: the East German past and the German future." Review of Politics 58.1 (1996): 53–80. online
Weitz, Eric D. Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton UP, 1997).
Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp. 195–201.
Primary sources
Honecker, Erich. (1981) From My Life. New York: Pergamon, 1981. .
External links
Honecker im Internet (in German)
www.warheroes.ru – Erich Honecker (in Russian)
Welcoming Address to 1979 Session of the World Peace Council Erich Honecker's speech to the WPC
A Successful Policy Seared to the Needs of the People Volkskammer pamphlet including material by Honecker
1912 births
1994 deaths
People from Neunkirchen, Saarland
People from the Rhine Province
Communist Party of Germany politicians
Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Members of the Provisional Volkskammer
Members of the 1st Volkskammer
Members of the 2nd Volkskammer
Members of the 3rd Volkskammer
Members of the 4th Volkskammer
Members of the 5th Volkskammer
Members of the 6th Volkskammer
Members of the 7th Volkskammer
Members of the 8th Volkskammer
Members of the 9th Volkskammer
Free German Youth members
Communist rulers
Communists in the German Resistance
Collaborators with the Soviet Union
German atheists
German expatriates in Chile
German expatriates in the Soviet Union
Exiled politicians
International Lenin School alumni
People condemned by Nazi courts
People extradited from Russia
People extradited to Germany
German politicians convicted of crimes
Heads of government who were later imprisoned
Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit (honor clasp)
Recipients of the Banner of Labor
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Recipients of the Order of Ho Chi Minh
Recipients of the Grand Star of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria
Foreign Heroes of the Soviet Union
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Deaths from liver cancer
Deaths from cancer in Chile
People of the Cold War
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"Margot Honecker (née Feist; 17 April 1927 – 6 May 2016) was an East German politician who was an influential member of that country's Communist regime until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education (Ministerin für Volksbildung) of the GDR. She was married to Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 and concurrently from 1976 to 1989 the country's head of state.\n\nMargot Honecker was widely known as the \"Purple Witch\" for her tinted hair and hardline Stalinist views, and was described as \"the most hated person\" in East Germany next to Stasi chief Erich Mielke by former Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse. She was responsible for the enactment of the \"Uniform Socialist Education System\" in 1965 and mandatory military training in schools to prepare pupils for a future war with the west. She was alleged to have been responsible for the regime's forced adoption of children of jailed dissidents or people who attempted to desert from the GDR, and she is considered to have \"left a cruel legacy of separated families.\" She also established prison-like institutions for children, including a camp at Torgau known as \"Margot's concentration camp.\" She was one of the few spouses of a ruling Communist Party leader who held significant power in her own right, as her prominence in the regime predated her husband's ascension to the leadership of the SED.\n\nFollowing the downfall of the communist regime in 1990, Honecker fled to the Soviet Union with her husband to avoid criminal charges from the government of reunified Germany. Fearing extradition to Germany, they took refuge in the Chilean embassy in Moscow in 1991, but in 1992 her husband was extradited to Germany by Yeltsin's Russian government to face criminal trial, and was detained in the Moabit prison. Margot Honecker then fled from Moscow to Chile to avoid a similar fate. At the time of her death, she lived in Chile with her daughter Sonja. \n\nShe left the party in 1990, after her husband's expulsion, and both later became members of the small fringe party Communist Party of Germany, which is considered extremist by the German authorities. Formed in East Berlin in January 1990, the party claims to be the direct successor of the historical party formed in 1918 and is known for its open support for North Korea's totalitarian government, however it operates only in the territory of the former East Germany.\n\nEarly life\nHonecker was born Margot Feist in Halle on 17 April 1927, the daughter of a shoemaker, Gotthard Feist (1906–1993), and a factory worker, Helene Feist ( 1906–1940). Her parents were members of Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Her father was imprisoned in Lichtenburg concentration camp in the 1930s and from 1937 until 1939 in Buchenwald concentration camp. Gestapo agents searched their apartment for evidence of subversive activities on several occasions. After graduating from elementary school, she was a member of the Nazi Party's girls' organisation Bund Deutscher Mädel from 1938 to 1945, whose membership was obligatory. Her mother died in 1940 when Margot was 13 years old.\n\nHer brother, Manfred Feist, later became the leader of the Foreign Information department within the party's Central Committee.\n\nParty\n\nIn 1945 Margot Feist joined the KPD. After April 1946, with the contentious merger of the SPD and KPD, she became a member of East Germany's next ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands / SED), working in Halle as a shorthand typist with the FDGB (Trades Union Federation) regional executive for Saxony-Anhalt.\n\nIn 1946 she also joined the regional secretariat of the Free German Youth (FDJ)—effectively the youth wing of the ruling party—in Halle. She then began a meteoric rise through its various departments. In 1947 she became the leader of the culture and education department in the FDJ's regional executive and in 1948 secretary of the FDJ's central council as well as chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.\n\nBy 1949 Feist was a member of the GDR's precursor parliament (). In 1949 at the age of 22 she was elected as a representative in the newly founded People's Chamber ().\n\nMargot Feist met her future husband, Erich Honecker, at FDJ meetings when he was the chairman of the Freie Deutsche Jugend. Honecker was 15 years older and married. The relationship between them nevertheless moved on when Feist in her capacity as leader of the \"Ernst Thälmann young pioneers\", was a member of the delegation that traveled to Moscow for the celebration of Stalin's official birthday. The East German delegation was led by Erich Honecker. After she became pregnant and gave birth to their daughter Sonja in 1952, Honecker divorced his second wife Edith and married Margot.\n\nMinister of National Education\n\nIn 1963 Honecker became Minister of National Education (), after a period of occupying the office as Acting Minister. On 25 February 1965 she introduced the law that made \"the uniform socialist education system\" standard in all schools, colleges and universities throughout East Germany.\n\nFor her work as Minister of National Education, she was awarded the Order of Karl Marx, the nation's highest award, in 1977.\n\nIn 1978 Honecker introduced, against the opposition of the churches and many parents, military lessons () for 9th and 10th grade high school students (this included training on weapons such as aerial guns and the KK-MPi). Her tenure lasted until early November 1989.\n\nShe was, allegedly but never proven, responsible for the regime's kidnapping and forced adoption of children of jailed dissidents or people who attempted to desert from GDR, and she is considered to have \"left a cruel legacy of separated families.\" Margot dismissed the allegations that she had directed a program of forced adoptions: \"It didn’t exist\". She also established prison-like institutions for children, including a camp at Torgau known as \"Margot's concentration camp.\"\n\nIn 1990, charges were made against Honecker as Minister of Education. These included accusations that she had arranged politically motivated arrests, had separated children against their will from their parents and made compulsory adoptions of children from persons deemed unreliable by the state.\n\nLoss of power\n\nThroughout the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 Honecker briefly remained in office after her husband's ouster as leader of the Socialist Unity Party in October 1989, but was sacked from cabinet on 2 November. On 4 February 1990 she resigned from the Party of Democratic Socialism, successor of the SED; her husband had been expelled two months earlier. She later joined the newly refounded Communist Party of Germany (KPD).\n\nFlight to Moscow and Chile\nA new arrest warrant against Erich Honecker was issued in December 1990, but there was no immediate arrest. In March 1991, the couple were flown in a Soviet military jet to Moscow from the Sperenberg Airfield near Berlin. As soon as they arrived in Moscow, Margot's husband was taken directly to a Red Army hospital where his cancer was diagnosed. The two of them were then installed in a government dacha and treated as honoured guests, while one by one their Kremlin comrades fell from power. Boris Yeltsin was already busy building up his power base in Moscow, and Erich Honecker's desperate last letter to President Gorbachev went unanswered. \n\nAs the Soviet Union collapsed, and fearing that they might find themselves handed over to the German authorities, in August 1991 the Honeckers took refuge in the Chilean embassy, where for nearly a year they lived out of a suitcase in a small room. \n\nThey hoped to be able to fly directly from Moscow to a Chilean exile, but the German government had other ideas. The Russian leadership refused to become involved: it fell to the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and the Chilean President, Patricio Aylwin, to negotiate a future for the Honeckers. There was public and political pressure in Germany for the East German leadership to be held accountable for the killings of people attempting to escape over the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989, while Chile had itself only recently emerged from dictatorship: Margot's own son-in-law was one among several thousand Chilean political dissidents from the Pinochet years who had reason to be grateful to the old East German political establishment that had welcomed them as political exiles during the 1970s and 1980s. \n\nFormally, the negotiations between Kohl and Aylwin were defined by tensions between the Chilean determination to uphold the Honeckers' right to political asylum and Germany's legal agreements on extradition: for some months the discussions were characterised by mutual intransigence. In the end, on 29 July 1992, Erich Honecker was sent on a special flight to face trial in Berlin, but his wife did not accompany him. Margot Honecker instead flew to Santiago to join her daughter Sonja and her family, who had been living in Chile since 1990.\n\nPost-GDR exile\n\nAfter 1992, Margot Honecker lived in Santiago, Chile, with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson: Sonja Honecker de Yáñez, Leo Yáñez Betancourt, and Roberto Yáñez Honecker. \n\nIn January 1993, Erich Honecker's trial in Berlin, which some felt had by that stage already descended into farce, was cut short because of the rapidly deteriorating health of the accused. He left Berlin for the last time on 13 March 1993, bound for Chile. Honecker lived with his wife and daughter, whose own twenty year marriage ended in divorce the year after her parents moved in. \nHe died of liver cancer at the age of 81 on 29 May 1994 in Santiago. His body was cremated.\n\nIn 1999, Honecker failed in her legal attempt to sue the German government for €60,300 of property confiscated following reunification. In 2001, her appeal to ECtHR failed. She received a survivor's pension and the old-age pension of the German old-age pension insurance federation of about 1,500 euros, which she regarded as insolently sparse.\n\nIn 2000, Luis Corvalán, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, published the book The Other Germany – the GDR. Discussions with Margot Honecker, in which Honecker speaks about the history of the GDR from her perspective.\n\nOn 19 July 2008, on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, Honecker was awarded the order for cultural independence \"Rubén Dario\" from President Daniel Ortega. The award was in recognition of Honecker's untiring support of the national campaign against illiteracy in the 1980s. This honor was Honecker's first public appearance since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Honecker was reported to have said she was grateful for the honor; but said nothing publicly. The left-wing heads of state of Paraguay and Venezuela, Fernando Lugo and Hugo Chávez, also took part in the celebrations in Managua.\n\nTo the day she died, Honecker continued to defend the old East Germany and identified herself as a hardline Communist. In October 2009, Honecker celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the GDR with former Chilean exiles who had sought asylum in East Germany. She participated in singing a patriotic East German song and gave a short speech in which she stated that East Germans \"had a good life in the GDR\" and that many felt that capitalism has made their lives worse. In 2011, author Frank Schuhmann published a book entitled Letzte Aufzeichnungen – Für Margot (Final Notes – For Margot in English) based on the 400-page diary kept by Erich Honecker during his stay in Berlin's Moabit prison beginning in July 1992. The diary was given to the author by Margot Honecker.\n\nOn 2 April 2012, Honecker gave an interview where she defended the GDR, attacked those who helped to \"destroy\" it, and complained about her pension. She felt that there was no need for people to climb over the Berlin Wall and lose their lives. She suggested that the GDR was a good country and that the demonstrations were driven by the GDR's enemies. \"The GDR also had its foes. That's why we had the Stasi,\" she said.\n\nIn a 2012 interview with Das Erste she labelled Mikhail Gorbachev a \"traitor\" for his reforms and called the defectors of East Germany \"criminals and terrorists.\" She said that the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Union, and the United States will collapse. She also said that she supports Russian president Vladimir Putin.\n\nDeath\n\nMargot Honecker died in Santiago on 6 May 2016, at the age of 89. On her death the historian Hubertus Knabe, director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, said that \"she never critically reflected on what she had done. Up until her death she was an evil, unrepentant woman.\" Her funeral was described by German media as \"bizarre\" and featuring 50 \"diehard\" communists with East German flags. Victims associations and Roland Jahn, Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, criticised the funeral.\n\nGallery\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n1927 births\n2016 deaths\nPeople from Halle (Saale)\nPeople from the Province of Saxony\nCommunist Party of Germany politicians\nMembers of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany\nGovernment ministers of East Germany\nMembers of the Provisional Volkskammer\nMembers of the 1st Volkskammer\nMembers of the 5th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 6th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 7th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 8th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 9th Volkskammer\nFree German Youth members\nFirst Ladies of East Germany\nSpouses of German politicians\nWomen government ministers of East Germany\nFemale members of the Volkskammer\nPeople granted political asylum in the Soviet Union\nArticle 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights\nEuropean Court of Human Rights cases involving Germany\nGerman expatriates in Chile\nRecipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold",
"Wilhelm Stoph (9 July 1914 – 13 April 1999) was a German politician. He served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1964 to 1973, and again from 1976 until 1989. He also served as chairman of the State Council (head of state) from 1973 to 1976.\n\nBiography\nStoph was born in Berlin in 1914; his father died the following year in World War I. In 1928, Stoph joined the Communist Youth League of Germany (Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands; KJVD) and in 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Germany. He also served in the Wehrmacht from 1935 to 1937, and again during World War II from 1940 to 1945. He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class and rose to the rank of Unteroffizier. As the war ended, according to historian Harris Lentz, \"Stoph worked with the Communist-dominated Socialist Unity party and served on the party's executive committee from 1947.\"\n\nFollowing the establishment of the GDR in 1949, Stoph became a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and member of the Volkskammer in 1950. He was named to the Politbüro in 1953. He served as Interior Minister from 9 May 1952 to 1 July 1955, and as East Germany's first Defense Minister from 18 January 1956 to 14 July 1960. As defense minister, he was awarded the rank of Armeegeneral.\n\nAfter having served as first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers (first Deputy Prime Minister) from 1960 to 1964, he was named Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Ministerrat), or Prime Minister, in 1964 after the death of Otto Grotewohl. However, he had been serving as acting chairman of the council since October 1960 due to Grotewohl's poor health. He was initially thought to be the heir apparent to longtime party leader Walter Ulbricht, but his ascendancy was checked by Erich Honecker. After Ulbricht's death in 1973, Stoph became Chairman of the Council of State—a post equivalent in rank to president of the GDR. After Volkskammer elections in 1976, Honecker re-arranged the state and party leadership structure. Believing that Stoph's successor as prime minister, Horst Sindermann, was too liberal on economic matters, Honecker replaced him with Stoph.\n\nDuring his first stint as Prime Minister, Stoph began a series of negotiations with West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1970. It marked the first ever meeting between the leaders of East and West Germany.\n\nStoph was known as a man who could be trusted to carry out the directives of the SED's Politburo; indeed, Honecker tapped him for his second stint in the premiership for this reason. For the most part, Stoph was a loyal supporter of Honecker. Although he nominally held the highest state post in the GDR, in practice he was outranked by Honecker, who derived most of his power from his post as general secretary of the SED. \n\nHowever, Stoph joined the plot to remove Honecker in October 1989. At the Politburo meeting at which Honecker was voted out, Stoph made the motion to depose Honecker and replace him with Egon Krenz. A month later, on 13 November, Stoph and his entire 44-member cabinet resigned in response to public pressure. Stoph was subsequently arrested for corruption in December 1989. As part of an attempt to distance itself from its communist roots, the SED's successor, the Party of Democratic Socialism, expelled Stoph in January 1990. He was later spared detention on grounds of ill health. In 1994, a court in Berlin decided that his seized savings of 200,000 Deutsche Mark would not be returned to him.\n\nStoph died in Berlin at the age of 84 on 13 April 1999 as the last surviving leader of East Germany before Egon Krenz. He was buried in Wildau.\n\nReferences\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n1914 births\n1999 deaths\nPoliticians from Berlin\nCommunist Party of Germany politicians\nMembers of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany\nHeads of state of East Germany\nPrime Ministers of East Germany\nMinisters of National Defence (East Germany)\nGovernment ministers of East Germany\nMembers of the State Council of East Germany\nMembers of the Provisional Volkskammer\nMembers of the 1st Volkskammer\nMembers of the 2nd Volkskammer\nMembers of the 3rd Volkskammer\nMembers of the 4th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 5th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 6th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 7th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 8th Volkskammer\nMembers of the 9th Volkskammer\nGerman atheists\nRed Orchestra (espionage)\nArmy generals of the National People's Army\nGerman Army soldiers of World War II\nGerman prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union\nRecipients of the Scharnhorst Order\nRecipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit (honor clasp)\nHeads of government who were later imprisoned\nRecipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 2nd class"
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"Erich Honecker",
"Family",
"who were the members of Honecker's family?",
"Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann,"
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C_6c702e1bb7284a76990ddea57af53d50_0
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what did this romance lead to?
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What did Erich Honecker and Edith Baumann romance lead to?
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Erich Honecker
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Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945 he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (nee Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death. By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thalmann Pioneer Organisation. In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist, however sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Erich and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons, however, his bodyguard Bernd Bruckner in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, refuted the claims. Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yanez Betancourt; Roberto, (b. 1974) Mariana, (b. 1985) who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Mrs. Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Gorlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Leonardo Mrs Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at 3 years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter. Honecker's daughter, (who divorced Leonardo in 1993) grandson and granddaughter still live in Santiago. CANNOTANSWER
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With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke.
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Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
Honecker's political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Following World War II, he was freed by the Soviet army and relaunched his political activities, founding the SED's youth organisation, the Free German Youth, in 1946 and serving as the group's chairman until 1955. As the Security Secretary of the SED Central Committee, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, in this function, bore administrative responsibility for the "order to fire" along the Wall and the larger inner German border.
In 1970, Honecker initiated a political power struggle that led, with support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to him replacing Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence Council. Under his command, the country adopted a programme of "consumer socialism" and moved towards the international community by normalizing relations with West Germany and also becoming a full member of the UN, in what is considered one of his greatest political successes.
As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s with the advent of perestroika and glasnost—the liberal reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes to the East German political system. He cited the continual hardliner attitudes of Kim Il-sung and Fidel Castro, whose respective countries of governance of North Korea and Cuba had been critical of reforms. As anti-government protests grew, Honecker begged Gorbachev to intervene with the Soviet army to suppress the protests to maintain communist rule in East Germany as Moscow had done with Czechoslovakia in the Prague Spring of 1968 and with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but Gorbachev refused. Honecker was forced to resign by the SED Politburo in October 1989 in a bid to improve the government's image in the eyes of the public; the effort was unsuccessful, and the regime would collapse entirely the following month.
Following German reunification in 1990, Honecker sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, but was extradited back to Germany in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, to stand trial for his role in the human rights abuses committed by the East German government. However, the proceedings were abandoned, as Honecker was suffering from terminal liver cancer. He was freed from custody to join his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994.
Childhood and youth
Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, in what is now Saarland, to Wilhelm Honecker (1881–1969), a coal miner and political activist, and his wife Caroline Catharine Weidenhof (1883–1963). The couple, married in 1905, had six children: Katharina (Käthe, 1906–1925), Wilhelm (Willi, 1907–1944), Frieda (1909–1974), Erich, Gertrud (1917–2010) and Karl-Robert (1923–1947). Erich, their fourth child, was born on 25 August 1912 during the period in which the family resided on Max-Braun-Straße, before later moving to Kuchenbergstraße 88 in the present-day Neunkirchen city district of Wiebelskirchen.
After World War I, the Territory of the Saar Basin was occupied by France. This change from the strict rule of to French military occupation provided the backdrop for what Wilhelm Honecker understood as proletarian exploitation, and introduced young Erich to communism. After his tenth birthday in 1922, Erich Honecker became a member of the Spartacus League's children's group in Wiebelskirchen. Aged 14 he entered the KJVD, the Young Communist League of Germany, for whom he later served the organisation's leader of Saarland from 1931.
Honecker did not find an apprenticeship immediately after leaving school, but instead worked for a farmer in Pomerania for almost two years. In 1928 he returned to Wiebelskirchen and began a traineeship as a roofer with his uncle, but quit to attend the International Lenin School in Moscow and Magnitogorsk after the KJVD handpicked him for a course of study there. There, sharing a room with Anton Ackermann, he studied under the cover name "Fritz Malter".
Opposition to the Nazis and imprisonment
In 1930, aged 18, Honecker entered the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. His political mentor was Otto Niebergall, who later represented the KPD in the Reichstag. After returning from Moscow in 1931 following his studies at the International Lenin School, he became the leader of the KJVD in the Saar region. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Communist activities within Germany were only possible undercover; the Saar region however still remained outside the German Reich under a League of Nations mandate. Honecker was arrested in Essen, Germany but soon released. Following this he fled to the Netherlands and from there oversaw KJVD's activities in Pfalz, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.
Honecker returned to the Saar in 1934 and worked alongside Johannes Hoffmann on the campaign against the region's re-incorporation into Germany. A referendum on the area's future in January 1935 however saw 90.73% vote in favour of reunifying with Germany. Like 4,000 to 8,000 others, Honecker then fled the region, initially relocating to Paris.
On 28 August 1935 he illegally travelled to Berlin under the alias "Marten Tjaden", with a printing press in his luggage. From there he worked closely together with KPD official Herbert Wehner in opposition/resistance to the Nazi state. On 4 December 1935 Honecker was detained by the Gestapo and until 1937 remanded in Berlin's Moabit detention centre. On 3 July 1937 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the "preparation of high treason alongside the severe falsification of documents".
Honecker spent the majority of his incarceration in the Brandenburg-Görden Prison, where he also carried out tasks as a handyman. In early 1945 he was moved to the Barnimstraße Women's Prison in Berlin due to good behaviour and to be put to work repairing the bomb-damaged building, as he was a skilled roofer. During an Allied bombing raid on 6 March 1945 he managed to escape and hid himself at the apartment of Lotte Grund, a female prison guard. After several days she persuaded him to turn himself in and his escape was then covered up by the guard. Honecker spent most of his time in prison under solitary confinement.
After the liberation of the prisons by advancing Soviet troops on 27 April 1945, Honecker remained in Berlin. His "escape" from prison and his relationships during his captivity later led to him experiencing difficulties within the Socialist Unity Party, as well as straining his relations with his former inmates. In later interviews and in his personal memoirs, Honecker falsified many of the details of his life during this period. Material from the East German State Security Service has been used to allege that, to be released from prison, Honecker offered the Gestapo evidence incriminating fellow imprisoned Communists, claimed he had renounced Communism "for good", and was willing to serve in the German army.
Post-war return to politics
In May 1945 Honecker was "picked up" by chance in Berlin by Hans Mahle and taken to the Ulbricht Group, a collective of exiled German communists that had returned from the Soviet Union to Germany after the end of the Nazi regime. Through Waldemar Schmidt, Honecker befriended Walter Ulbricht, who had not been aware of him at that point. Honecker's future role in the group was still undecided until well into the summer months, as he had yet to face a party process. This ended in a reprimand due to his "undisciplined conduct" in fleeing from prison at the start of the year, an action which was debated upon it jeopardizing the other (communist) inmates.
In 1946, Honecker became the co-founder of the Free German Youth (FDJ), whose chairmanship he also undertook. After the formation of the SED, the Socialist Unity Party, in April 1946 through a merger of the KPD and SPD, Honecker swiftly became a leading party member and took his place in the party's Central Committee.
On 7 October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was formed with the adoption of a new constitution, establishing a political system similar to that of the Soviet Union. Within the state's socialist single party government, Honecker determinedly resumed his political career and the following year was nominated as a candidate for the Politbüro of the SED's Central Committee. As President of the Free German Youth movement, he organised the inaugural "Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend" in East Berlin in May 1950 and the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in 1951, although the latter was beset with organisational problems.
During the internal party unrest following the suppressed uprising of June 1953, Honecker sided with First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, despite the majority of the Politburo attempting to depose Ulbricht in favour of Rudolf Herrnstadt. Honecker himself though faced questioning from party members about his inadequate qualifications for his position. On 27 May 1955 he handed the Presidency of the FDJ over to Karl Namokel, and departed for Moscow to study for two years at the School of the Soviet Communist Party at Ulbricht's request. During this period he witnessed the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in person, where its First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin.
After returning to East Germany in 1958, Honecker became a fully-fledged member of the Politburo, taking over responsibility for military and security issues. As the Party Security Secretary he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and also a proponent of the "order to fire" along the Inner German border.
Leadership of East Germany
While Ulbricht had replaced the state's command economy with, firstly the "New Economic System", then the Economic System of Socialism, as he sought to improve the country's failing economy, Honecker declared the main task to in fact be the "unity of economic and social politics", essentially through which living standards (with increased consumer goods) would be raised in exchange for political loyalty. Tensions had already led to his once-mentor Ulbricht removing Honecker from the position of Second Secretary in July 1970, only for the Soviet leadership to swiftly reinstate him. Honecker played up the thawing East-West German relationship as Ulbricht's strategy, to win the support of the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev. With this secured, Honecker was appointed First Secretary (from 1976 titled general secretary) of the Central Committee on 3 May 1971 after the Soviet leadership forced Ulbricht to step aside "for health reasons".
After also succeeding Ulbricht as Chairman of the National Defence Council in 1971, Honecker was eventually also elected Chairman of the State Council (a post equivalent to that of president) on 29 October 1976. With this, Honecker reached the height of power within East Germany. From there on, he, along with Economic Secretary Günter Mittag and Minister of State Security Erich Mielke, made all key government decisions. Until 1989 the "little strategic clique" composed of these three men was unchallenged as the top level of East Germany's ruling class. Honecker's closest colleague was , the SED's Agitation and Propaganda Secretary. Alongside him, Honecker held daily meetings concerning the party's media representation in which the layout of the party's own newspaper Neues Deutschland, as well as the sequencing of news items in the national news bulletin Aktuelle Kamera, were determined.
Under Honecker's leadership, East Germany adopted a programme of "consumer socialism", which resulted in a marked improvement in living standards already the highest among the Eastern bloc countries. More attention was placed on the availability of consumer goods, and the construction of new housing was accelerated, with Honecker promising to "settle the housing problem as an issue of social relevance". His policies were initially marked by a liberalisation toward culture and art, though this was less about the replacement of Ulbricht by Honecker and more for propaganda purposes. While 1973 brought the World Festival of Youth and Students to East Berlin, soon dissident artists such as Wolf Biermann were expelled and the Ministry for State Security raised its efforts to suppress political resistance. Honecker remained committed to the expansion of the Inner German border and the "order to fire" policy along it. During his time in office around 125 East German citizens were killed while trying to reach the West.
After the Federal Republic had secured an agreement with the Soviet Union on cooperation and a policy of non-violence, it became possible to reach a similar agreement with the GDR. The Basic Treaty between East and West Germany in 1972 sought to normalise contacts between the two governments.
East Germany also participated in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975, which attempted to improve relations between the West and the Eastern Bloc, and became a full member of the United Nations. These acts of diplomacy were considered Honecker’s greatest successes in foreign politics.
Honecker received additional high-profile personal recognitions including honorary doctorates of humane letters from North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung University in 1974, Cuba's University of Las Tunas in 1979 and Iraq's Saddam University in 1983, honorary doctorates of business administration from East Berlin's Humboldt University in 1976, Tokyo's Nihon University in 1981 and the London School of Economics in 1984 and the Olympic Order from the IOC in 1985. In September 1987, he became the first East German head of state to visit West Germany, where he was received with full state honours by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in an act that seemed to confirm West Germany's acceptance of East Germany's existence. During this trip he also journeyed to his birthplace in Saarland, where he held an emotional speech in which he spoke of a day when Germans would no longer be separated by borders, but unified under communist rule. This trip had been planned twice before, including September 1984, but was initially blocked by the Soviet leadership which mistrusted the special East-West German relationship, particularly efforts to expand East Germany's limited independence in the realm of foreign policy.
Illness, downfall and resignation
In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika, reforms to liberalise socialist planned economy. Frictions between him and Honecker had grown over these policies and numerous additional issues from 1985 onward. East Germany refused to implement similar reforms, with Honecker reportedly telling Gorbachev: "We have done our perestroika; we have nothing to restructure". Gorbachev grew to dislike Honecker, and by 1988 was lumping him in with Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu as a "Gang of Four": a group of inflexible hardliners unwilling to make reforms.
According to White House experts Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Gorbachev looked to Communist leaders in Eastern Europe to follow his example of perestroika and glasnost. They argue:
Gorbachev himself had no particular sympathy for Erich Honecker, chairman of the East German Communist Party, and his hard-line comrades and the government. As early as 1985... [Gorbachev] had told East German party officials that kindergarten was over; no one would lead them by the hand. They were responsible for their own people. The relations between Gorbachev and Honecker went downhill from there.
Western analysts, according to Zelikow and Rice, believed in 1989 that Communism was still secure in East Germany:
Bolstered by relatively greater affluence than his country's Eastern European neighbors enjoyed in a fantastically elaborate system of internal controls, East Germany's longtime leader Eric Honecker seemed secure in his position. His government had long dealt with dissent through a mixture of brutal repression, forced emigration, and the vent of allowing occasional, limited travel to the West for a substantial part of the population.
Honecker felt betrayed by Gorbachev in his German policy and ensured that official texts of the Soviet Union, especially those concerning perestroika, could no longer be published or sold in East Germany.
At the Warsaw Pact summit on 7–8 July 1989 in Bucharest, the Soviet Union reaffirmed its shift from the Brezhnev Doctrine of the limited sovereignty of its member states, and announced "freedom of choice". The Bucharest statement prescribed that its nations henceforth developed their "own political line, strategy and tactics without external intervention". This called into question the Soviet guarantee of existence for the Communist states in Europe. Already in May 1989 Hungary had begun dismantling its border with Austria, creating the first gap in the so-called Iron Curtain, through which later several thousand East Germans quickly fled in hopes of reaching West Germany by way of Austria. But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 (which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test Gorbachev's reaction to the opening of the border), the subsequent hesitant behaviour of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union opened the floodgates. Thus the united front of the Eastern Bloc was broken. The reaction to this from Erich Honecker in the Daily Mirror of August 19, 1989 was too late and showed the current loss of power: “Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West.” Later, after his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in connection with the summer of 1989: "That this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin." Now tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. A 1969 treaty required the Hungarian government to send the East Germans back home; however, starting on 11 September 1989, the Hungarians let them pass into Austria, telling their outraged East German counterparts that they were refugees and that international treaties on refugees took precedence.
At the time, Honecker was sidelined through illness, leaving his colleagues unable to act decisively. He had been taken ill with biliary colic during the Warsaw Pact summit. He was shortly afterwards flown home to East Berlin. After an initial stabilisation in his health, he underwent surgery on 18 August 1989 to remove his inflamed gallbladder and, due to a perforation, part of his colon. According to the urologist Peter Althaus, the surgeons left a suspected carcinogenic nodule in Honecker’s right kidney due to his weak condition, and also failed to inform the patient of the suspected cancer; other sources say the tumour was simply undetected. As a result of this operation, Honecker was away from his office until late September 1989.
Back in office, Honecker had to contend with the rising number and strength of demonstrations across East Germany that had first been sparked by reports in the West German media of fraudulent results in local elections on 7 May 1989, the same results he had labelled a "convincing reflection" of the populace's faith in his leadership. He also had to deal with a new refugee problem. Several thousand East Germans tried to go to West Germany by way of Czechoslovakia, only to have that government bar them from passing. Several thousands of them headed straight for the West German embassy in Prague and demanded safe passage to West Germany. With some reluctance, Honecker allowed them to go – but forced them to go back through East Germany on sealed trains and stripped them of their East German citizenship. Several members of the SED Politbüro realised this was a serious blunder and made plans to get rid of him.
As unrest visibly grew, large numbers began fleeing the country through the West German embassies in Prague and Budapest, as well as over the borders of the "socialist brother" states. Each month saw tens of thousands more exit. On 3 October 1989 East Germany closed its borders to its eastern neighbours and prevented visa-free travel to Czechoslovakia; a day later these measures were also extended to travel to Bulgaria and Romania. East Germany was now not only behind the Iron Curtain to the West, but also cordoned off from most other Eastern bloc states.
On 6–7 October 1989 the national celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the East German state took place with Gorbachev in attendance. To the surprise of Honecker and the other SED leaders in attendance, several hundred members of the Free German Youth — reckoned as the future vanguard of the party and nation — began chanting, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, save us!". In a private conversation between the two leaders Honecker praised the success of the nation, but Gorbachev knew that, in reality, it faced bankruptcy; East Germany had already accepted billions of dollars in loans from West Germany during the decade as it sought to stabilise its economy. Attempting to make Honecker accept a need for reforms, Gorbachev warned Honecker that "He who is too late is punished by life", yet Honecker maintained that "we will solve our problems ourselves with socialist means". Protests outside the reception at the Palace of the Republic led to hundreds of arrests in which many were brutally beaten by soldiers and police.
As the reform movement spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe, mass demonstrations against the East German government erupted, most prominently in Leipzig—the first of several demonstrations which took place on Monday nights across the country. In response, an elite paratroop unit was dispatched to Leipzig—almost certainly on Honecker's orders, since he was commander-in-chief of the Army. A bloodbath was averted only when local party officials themselves ordered the troops to pull back. In the following week, Honecker faced a torrent of criticism. This gave his Politburo comrades the impetus they needed to replace him.
After a crisis meeting of the Politburo on 10–11 October 1989, Honecker's planned state visit to Denmark was cancelled and, despite his resistance, at the insistence of the government's number-two-man, Egon Krenz, a public statement was issued that called for "suggestions for attractive socialism". Over the following days Krenz worked to secure himself the support of the military and the Stasi and arranged a meeting between Gorbachev and Politburo member Harry Tisch, who was in Moscow, to inform the Kremlin about the now-planned removal of Honecker; Gorbachev reportedly wished them good luck.
The sitting of the SED Central Committee planned for the end of November 1989 was pulled forward a week, with the most urgent item on the agenda now being the composition of the Politburo. Krenz and Mielke attempted by telephone on the night of 16 October to win other Politburo members over to remove Honecker. At the beginning of the session on 17 October, Honecker asked his routine question of "Are there any suggestions for the agenda?" Stoph replied, "Please, general secretary, Erich, I propose that a new item be placed on the agenda. It is the release of Erich Honecker as general secretary and the election of Egon Krenz in his place." Honecker reportedly calmly responded: "Well, then I open the debate".
All those present then spoke, in turn, but none in favour of Honecker. Günter Schabowski even extended the dismissal of Honecker to also include his posts in the State Council and as Chairman of the National Defence Council while childhood friend Günter Mittag moved away from Honecker. Mielke supposedly blamed Honecker for almost all the country's current ills and threatened to publish compromising information that he possessed, if Honecker refused to resign. A ZDF documentary on the matter claims this information was contained in a large red briefcase found in Mielke's possession in 1990. After three hours the Politburo voted to remove Honecker. In accordance with longstanding practice, Honecker voted for his own removal. When the public announcement was made, it was branded as a voluntary decision on Honecker's part, ostensibly "due to health reasons". Krenz was unanimously elected as his successor as General Secretary.
Start of prosecution and asylum attempts
Communist rule in East Germany survived Honecker's removal by only two months. Three weeks after Honecker's ousting the Berlin Wall fell, and the SED swiftly lost control of the country. On 1 December, its guaranteed right to rule was removed from the East German constitution. Two days later he was expelled from the SED along with other former officials. He went on to join the newly founded Communist Party of Germany in 1990, remaining a member until his death.
During November the People's Chamber had already set up a committee to investigate corruption and abuses of office, with Honecker being alleged to have received annual donations from the National Academy of Architecture of around 20,000 marks as an "honorary member". On 5 December 1989 the chief public prosecutor in East Germany formally launched a judicial inquiry against him on charges of high treason, abuses of confidence and embezzlement to the serious disadvantage of socialist property (the charge of high treason was dropped in March 1990). As a result, Honecker was placed under house arrest for a month.
Following the lifting of his house arrest, Honecker and his wife Margot were forced to vacate their apartment in the Waldsiedlung housing area in Wandlitz, exclusively used by senior SED party members, after the People's Chamber decided to put it to use as a sanatorium for the disabled. In any case, Honecker spent the majority of January 1990 in hospital after having the error of the tumour missed in 1989 corrected after the suspicion of cancer was confirmed. Upon leaving the hospital on 29 January he was re-arrested and held at the Berlin-Rummelsburg remand centre. However, on the evening of the following day, 30 January, Honecker was again released from custody: The district court had annulled the arrest warrant and, due to medical reports, certified him unfit for detention and interrogation.
Lacking a home, Honecker instructed his lawyer Wolfgang Vogel to ask the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg for help. Pastor Uwe Holmer, leader of the Hoffnungstal Institute in Lobetal, Bernau bei Berlin, offered the couple a home in his vicarage. This drew immediate condemnation and later demonstrations against the church for assisting the Honeckers, given they had both discriminated against Christians who did not conform with the SED leadership's ideology. Aside from a stay at a holiday home in Lindow in March 1990 that lasted only one day before protests swiftly brought it to an end, the couple resided at the Holmer residence until 3 April 1990.
The couple then moved into a three-room living quarters within the Soviet military hospital in Beelitz. Here, doctors diagnosed a malignant liver tumour following another re-examination. Following German reunification, prosecutors in Berlin issued a further arrest warrant for Honecker in November 1990 on charges that he gave the order to fire on escapees at the Inner German border in 1961 and had repeatedly reiterated that command (most specifically in 1974). However, this warrant was not enforceable because Honecker lay under the protection of Soviet authorities in Beelitz. On 13 March 1991 the Honeckers fled Germany from the Soviet-controlled Sperenberg Airfield to Moscow on a military jet with the aid of Soviet hardliners.
The German Chancellery had only been informed by Soviet diplomats about the Honeckers’ flight to Moscow one hour in advance. It limited its response to a public protest, claiming the existence of an arrest warrant meant the Soviet Union was breaching international law by admitting Honecker. The initial Soviet reaction was that Honecker was now too ill to travel and was receiving medical treatment after a deterioration of his health. He underwent further surgery the following month.
On 11 December 1991 the Honeckers sought refuge in the Chilean Embassy in Moscow, while also applying for political asylum in the Soviet Union. Despite an offer of help from North Korea, Honecker instead reached out to the Chilean government under Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin. Under Honecker's rule, East Germany had granted many Chileans exile following the military coup of 1973 by Augusto Pinochet. In addition his daughter Sonja was married to a Chilean. Chilean authorities, however, stated he could not enter their country without a valid German passport.
Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991 and gave all his powers to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Russian authorities had long been keen on expelling Honecker, against the wishes of Gorbachev, and the new government now demanded that he leave the country or else face deportation.
In June 1992, Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, leader of a center-left coalition, finally assured German Chancellor Helmut Kohl that Honecker would be leaving the embassy in Moscow. Reportedly against his will, Honecker was ejected from the embassy on 29 July 1992 and flown to Berlin's Tegel Airport, where he was arrested and detained in Moabit Prison. By contrast, his wife Margot travelled on a direct flight from Moscow to Santiago, Chile, where she initially stayed with her daughter Sonja. Honecker's lawyers unsuccessfully appealed for him to be released from detention in the period leading up to his trial.
Criminal trial and death
On 12 May 1992, while under protection in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, Honecker, along with several co-defendants, including Erich Mielke, Willi Stoph, Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht, was accused in a 783-page indictment of taking part in the "collective manslaughter" of 68 people as they attempted to flee East Germany. It was alleged that Honecker, in his role as Chairman of the National Defence Council, had both given the decisive order in 1961 for the construction of the Berlin Wall and also, at subsequent meetings, ordered the extensive expansion of the border fortifications around West Berlin and the barriers to the West so as to make any passing impossible. In addition, specifically at a May 1974 sitting of the National Defence Council, he had stated that the development of the border must continue, that lines of fire were warranted along the whole border and, as prior, the use of firearms was essential: "Comrades who have successfully used their firearms [are] to be praised". Honecker, in his role of chairman of the party, was responsible for the deaths of many more than the 68 mentioned above. As of 22 April 2015, well over 1,000 deaths have been discovered mainly through secret East German documentation: "It is still not known for sure how many people died on the inner German border or who they were, as the East German state treated such information as a closely guarded secret. But numbers have risen steadily since unification, as evidence has been gathered from East German records. Current unofficial estimates put the figure at up to 1,100 people." From the same article, "In 1974, Erich Honecker, as Chairman of the GDR's National Defence Council, ordered: 'Firearms are to be ruthlessly used in the event of attempts to break through the border, and the comrades who have successfully used their firearms are to be commended.'"
The charges were approved by the Berlin District Court on 19 October 1992 at the opening of the trial. On the same day, it was decided that the hearing of 56 charges would be postponed and the remaining twelve cases would be the subject of the trial to begin on 12 November 1992. The question of under which laws the former East German leader could be tried was highly controversial and, in the view of many jurists, the process had an uncertain outcome.
During his 70-minute-long statement to the court on 3 December 1992, Honecker said that he had political responsibility for the building of the Berlin Wall and subsequent deaths at the borders, but claimed he was "without juridical, legal or moral guilt". He blamed the escalation of the Cold War for the building of the Berlin Wall, saying the decision had not been taken solely by the East German leadership but all the Warsaw Pact nations that had collectively concluded in 1961 that a "Third World War with millions dead" would be unavoidable without this action. He quoted several West German politicians who had opined that the wall had indeed reduced and stabilised the two factions. He stated that he had always regretted every death, both from a human point of view and due to the political damage they caused.
Making reference to past trials in Germany against communists and socialists such as Karl Marx and August Bebel, he claimed that the legal process against him was politically motivated and a "show trial" against communism. He stated that no court lying in the territory of West Germany had the legal right to place him, his co-defendants or any East German citizen on trial, and that the portrayal of East Germany as an "Unrechtsstaat" was contradictory to its recognition by over one hundred other nations and the UN Security Council. Furthermore, he questioned how a German court could now legally judge his political decisions in the light of the lack of legal action taken over various military operations that had been carried out by Western nations with either overt support or absence of condemnation from (West) Germany. He dismissed public criticism of the Stasi, arguing that journalists in Western countries were praised for denouncing others. While accepting political responsibility for the deaths at the Wall, he believed he was free of any "legal or moral guilt", and thought that East Germany would go down in history as "a sign that socialism is possible and is better than capitalism."
By the time of the proceedings Honecker was already seriously ill. A new CT scan in August 1992 had confirmed an ultrasound examination made in Moscow and the existence of a malignant tumour in the right lobe of his liver. Based on these findings and additional medical testimonies, Honecker’s lawyers requested that the legal proceedings, as far as they were aimed against their client, be abandoned and the arrest warrant against him withdrawn; the cases against both Mielke and Stoph had already been postponed due to their ill health. Arguing that his life expectancy was estimated to be three to six months, while the legal process was forecast to take at least two years, his lawyers questioned whether it was humane to try a dying man. Their application was rejected on 21 December 1992 when the court concluded that, given the seriousness of the charges, no obstacle to the proceedings existed.
Honecker lodged a constitutional complaint to the recently created Berlin Constitutional Court, stating that the decision to proceed violated his fundamental right to human dignity, which was an overriding principle in the Constitution of Berlin, above even the state penal system and criminal justice. On 12 January 1993 Honecker's complaint was upheld and the Berlin District Court therefore abandoned the case and withdrew their arrest warrant. An application for a new arrest warrant was rejected on 13 January. The court also refused to commence with the trial related to the indictment of 12 November 1992, and withdrew the second arrest warrant related to these charges. After a total of 169 days Honecker was released from custody, drawing protests both from victims of the East German state as well as German political figures.
Honecker flew via Brazil to Santiago, Chile, to reunite with his wife and his daughter Sonja, who lived there with her son Roberto. Upon his arrival he was greeted by the leaders of the Chilean Communist and Socialist parties. In contrast, his co-defendants Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht were sentenced on 16 September 1993 to imprisonment of between four and seven-and-a-half years. On 13 April 1993 a final attempt to separate and continue the trial against Honecker in his absence was discontinued. Four days later, on the 66th birthday of his wife Margot, he gave a final public speech, ending with the words: "Socialism is the opposite of what we have now in Germany. For that I would like to say that our beautiful memories of the German Democratic Republic are testimony of a new and just society. And we want to always remain loyal to these things".
On 29 May 1994, Honecker died of liver cancer at the age of 81 in a terraced house in the La Reina district of Santiago. His funeral, arranged by the Communist Party of Chile, was conducted the following day at central cemetery in Santiago.
Family
Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945, he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (née Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death.
By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her, he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.
In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist. However, sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Honecker and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons; however, his bodyguard Bernd Brückner, in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, denied the claims.
Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yáñez Betancourt: Roberto (b. 1974), Mariana (b. 1985), who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Görlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Yáñez, Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at three years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter.
Honecker's daughter divorced Yáñez in 1993. She and her two surviving children still live in Santiago.
Honours and awards
:
Hero of the German Democratic Republic (twice)
Hero of Labour
Patriotic Order of Merit (Honor clasp, in Gold)
Order of Karl Marx (five times)
Order of the Banner of Labor
:
Hero of the Soviet Union
Order of Lenin (thrice)
Order of the October Revolution
Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Other countries:
Grand Star of the Order of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (Austria)
Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Order of José Martí (Cuba)
Order of Playa Girón (Cuba)
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia)
Grand Cross of the White Rose of Finland (Finland)
Order of Augusto Cesar Sandino, 1st class (Nicaragua)
Order of the "Victory of Socialism" (Romania)
Order of Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)
Olympic Order (International Olympic Committee)
In popular culture
Dmitri Vrubel's 1990 mural on the Berlin Wall My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, depicting a socialist "fraternal kiss" between Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev, became known around the world.
A traffic signal inspired by Honecker wearing a jaunty straw hat was used in parts of East Germany (Ost-Ampelmännchen) and has become a symbol of Ostalgie.
Notes
References
Further reading
Bryson, Phillip J., and Manfred Melzer eds. The end of the East German economy: from Honecker to reunification (Palgrave Macmillan, 1991).
Childs, David, ed. Honecker's Germany (London: Taylor & Francis, 1985).
Collier Jr, Irwin L. "GDR economic policy during the honecker era." Eastern European Economics 29.1 (1990): 5–29.
Dennis, Mike. Social and Economic Modernization in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (Burns & Oates, 1993).
Dennis, Mike. "The East German Ministry of State Security and East German Society During the Honecker Era, 1971–1989." in German Writers and the Politics of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 200)3. 3–24 on the STASI
Fulbrook, Mary. (2008) The people's state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker. Yale University Press.
Grix, Jonathan. "Competing approaches to the collapse of the GDR: ‘Top‐down’ vs ‘bottom‐up’," Journal of Area Studies 6#13:121–142, DOI: 10.1080/02613539808455836, Historiography.
Lippmann, Heinz. Honecker and the new politics of Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
McAdams, A. James. "The Honecker trial: the East German past and the German future." Review of Politics 58.1 (1996): 53–80. online
Weitz, Eric D. Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton UP, 1997).
Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp. 195–201.
Primary sources
Honecker, Erich. (1981) From My Life. New York: Pergamon, 1981. .
External links
Honecker im Internet (in German)
www.warheroes.ru – Erich Honecker (in Russian)
Welcoming Address to 1979 Session of the World Peace Council Erich Honecker's speech to the WPC
A Successful Policy Seared to the Needs of the People Volkskammer pamphlet including material by Honecker
1912 births
1994 deaths
People from Neunkirchen, Saarland
People from the Rhine Province
Communist Party of Germany politicians
Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Members of the Provisional Volkskammer
Members of the 1st Volkskammer
Members of the 2nd Volkskammer
Members of the 3rd Volkskammer
Members of the 4th Volkskammer
Members of the 5th Volkskammer
Members of the 6th Volkskammer
Members of the 7th Volkskammer
Members of the 8th Volkskammer
Members of the 9th Volkskammer
Free German Youth members
Communist rulers
Communists in the German Resistance
Collaborators with the Soviet Union
German atheists
German expatriates in Chile
German expatriates in the Soviet Union
Exiled politicians
International Lenin School alumni
People condemned by Nazi courts
People extradited from Russia
People extradited to Germany
German politicians convicted of crimes
Heads of government who were later imprisoned
Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit (honor clasp)
Recipients of the Banner of Labor
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Recipients of the Order of Ho Chi Minh
Recipients of the Grand Star of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria
Foreign Heroes of the Soviet Union
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Deaths from liver cancer
Deaths from cancer in Chile
People of the Cold War
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"Leathermouth (often typeset as LeATHERMØUTH) was an American hardcore punk band led by Frank Iero. The band formed in 2007, and in January 2009 released their first album XO.\n\nHistory\nLeathermouth was formed in 2007 by some friends of My Chemical Romance's rhythm guitarist Frank Iero. Iero had heard a few demo tracks from the band, and wanted to sign the band to his own independent label, Skeleton Crew. It was not until the previous lead singer had failed to write any lyrics that Iero became a member. He uses the band as a way to vent the frustrations he has with the current political and social climate; he has additionally stated that writing the lyrics was a way for him to cope with anxiety and depression he had felt during his life, with some of the songs written before the band had even formed. As a member of Leathermouth, this is the first project where he contributes lyrics and lead vocals since Pencey Prep (who broke up shortly after My Chemical Romance was formed). Leathermouth played their first shows in the summer of 2008 alongside Warship for the late 2008 Reggie and the Full Effect \"Farewell Tour\". Iero hoped to tour with Leathermouth when he was not working with My Chemical Romance.\n\nIn October 2008, Leathermouth signed to Epitaph Records. Retrieved on January 20, 2009. as opposed to Frank Iero's label as originally planned. Iero thought that it would be difficult to promote the album himself, if released through his own label, with his current obligations to My Chemical Romance and the other bands signed to his label. Epitaph Records president, Brett Gurewitz, was impressed with the band's \"intensity and songwriting of the music.\" Leathermouth released their first studio album on January 27, 2009, through Epitaph entitled XO. Although the album did not chart on the Billboard 200, it did reach No. 21 on the Top Heatseekers chart.\n\nIn a 2012 interview with Iero, he revealed that many of the other band members turned to religion and decided not to be a part of Leathermouth anymore. Iero also stated he would like to continue Leathermouth, but is unsure if it will actually happen. He said, \"There's still part of me that would hate not doing that band again. There's something brewing, but I don't know what it is. I really wanted that band to go on longer, but Jesus had other plans.\"\n\nOn May 19, 2013, Leathermouth performed at New Jersey's Skate and Surf Festival along with Glassjaw, Rx Bandits, A Day to Remember and others.\n\nOn September 13, 2018 Frank Iero announced the band would finally be releasing their debut album on vinyl via Epitaph Records on November 9, 2018.\n\nBand members\nFinal Line-Up\n Frank Iero – lead vocals (2007–2010, 2013)\n Rob Hughes – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–2010, 2013)\n Ed Auletta – rhythm guitar (2008–2010, 2013)\n John McGuire – bass, backing vocals (2008–2010, 2013)\n James Dewees – drums, percussion (2008–2010, 2013)\n\nFormer members\n Andrew Escobar – bass, backing vocals (2007)\n Vincent Averelli – rhythm guitar (2007)\n Steve Oyola – drums, percussion (2007)\n\nTimeline\n\nDiscography\nStudio albums\nXØ (2009)\n\nVideography\n \"Bodysnatchers 4 Ever\" (2008)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nEpitaph Records artists\nMusical groups reestablished in 2013\nHardcore punk groups from New Jersey",
"The Mad Gear and Missile Kid is an EP by American rock band My Chemical Romance. It is the first and only release by the band featuring Michael Pedicone.\n\nBackground\nGuitarist Frank Iero told MTV \"It's basically what the Killjoys are listening to in the car as they're having those gun battles\". In an interview with Alternative Press, Gerard Way stated a desire to create a Mad Gear and Missile Kid full-length album, but did not do so before the band's break-up in 2013. There has been no word from any of the members about it since.\n\nCover art\nThe EP's cover artwork showcases the Dead Pegasus logo featured in the Danger Days videos, specifically featured on Gerard Way's jacket.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by My Chemical Romance.\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe Mad Gear and Missile Kid has received positive reviews from music critics, with particular praise for both its fun nature and sound. Ian Walker of AbsolutePunk gave the EP a positive review, stating it \"clocks in at just under six minutes, but provides a quick injection of musical speed that gets the blood pumping and the body moving.\" Walker further went on to say, \"My Chemical Romance reminds us that music should, first and foremost, be fun. And I can't see them not having a good time as they put this tiny project together. It radiates through every second.\"\n\nPersonnel\nGerard Way - Lead vocals\nRay Toro - Lead guitar, backing vocals\nFrank Iero - Rhythm guitar, backing vocals\nMikey Way - Bass guitar\nMichael Pedicone - Drums\n\nReferences\n\n2010 EPs\nMy Chemical Romance EPs\nReprise Records EPs"
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Did Erich Honecker family get involved in politics?
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Erich Honecker
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Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945 he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (nee Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death. By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thalmann Pioneer Organisation. In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist, however sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Erich and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons, however, his bodyguard Bernd Bruckner in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, refuted the claims. Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yanez Betancourt; Roberto, (b. 1974) Mariana, (b. 1985) who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Mrs. Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Gorlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Leonardo Mrs Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at 3 years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter. Honecker's daughter, (who divorced Leonardo in 1993) grandson and granddaughter still live in Santiago. CANNOTANSWER
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For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports
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Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
Honecker's political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Following World War II, he was freed by the Soviet army and relaunched his political activities, founding the SED's youth organisation, the Free German Youth, in 1946 and serving as the group's chairman until 1955. As the Security Secretary of the SED Central Committee, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, in this function, bore administrative responsibility for the "order to fire" along the Wall and the larger inner German border.
In 1970, Honecker initiated a political power struggle that led, with support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to him replacing Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence Council. Under his command, the country adopted a programme of "consumer socialism" and moved towards the international community by normalizing relations with West Germany and also becoming a full member of the UN, in what is considered one of his greatest political successes.
As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s with the advent of perestroika and glasnost—the liberal reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes to the East German political system. He cited the continual hardliner attitudes of Kim Il-sung and Fidel Castro, whose respective countries of governance of North Korea and Cuba had been critical of reforms. As anti-government protests grew, Honecker begged Gorbachev to intervene with the Soviet army to suppress the protests to maintain communist rule in East Germany as Moscow had done with Czechoslovakia in the Prague Spring of 1968 and with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but Gorbachev refused. Honecker was forced to resign by the SED Politburo in October 1989 in a bid to improve the government's image in the eyes of the public; the effort was unsuccessful, and the regime would collapse entirely the following month.
Following German reunification in 1990, Honecker sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, but was extradited back to Germany in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, to stand trial for his role in the human rights abuses committed by the East German government. However, the proceedings were abandoned, as Honecker was suffering from terminal liver cancer. He was freed from custody to join his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994.
Childhood and youth
Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, in what is now Saarland, to Wilhelm Honecker (1881–1969), a coal miner and political activist, and his wife Caroline Catharine Weidenhof (1883–1963). The couple, married in 1905, had six children: Katharina (Käthe, 1906–1925), Wilhelm (Willi, 1907–1944), Frieda (1909–1974), Erich, Gertrud (1917–2010) and Karl-Robert (1923–1947). Erich, their fourth child, was born on 25 August 1912 during the period in which the family resided on Max-Braun-Straße, before later moving to Kuchenbergstraße 88 in the present-day Neunkirchen city district of Wiebelskirchen.
After World War I, the Territory of the Saar Basin was occupied by France. This change from the strict rule of to French military occupation provided the backdrop for what Wilhelm Honecker understood as proletarian exploitation, and introduced young Erich to communism. After his tenth birthday in 1922, Erich Honecker became a member of the Spartacus League's children's group in Wiebelskirchen. Aged 14 he entered the KJVD, the Young Communist League of Germany, for whom he later served the organisation's leader of Saarland from 1931.
Honecker did not find an apprenticeship immediately after leaving school, but instead worked for a farmer in Pomerania for almost two years. In 1928 he returned to Wiebelskirchen and began a traineeship as a roofer with his uncle, but quit to attend the International Lenin School in Moscow and Magnitogorsk after the KJVD handpicked him for a course of study there. There, sharing a room with Anton Ackermann, he studied under the cover name "Fritz Malter".
Opposition to the Nazis and imprisonment
In 1930, aged 18, Honecker entered the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. His political mentor was Otto Niebergall, who later represented the KPD in the Reichstag. After returning from Moscow in 1931 following his studies at the International Lenin School, he became the leader of the KJVD in the Saar region. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Communist activities within Germany were only possible undercover; the Saar region however still remained outside the German Reich under a League of Nations mandate. Honecker was arrested in Essen, Germany but soon released. Following this he fled to the Netherlands and from there oversaw KJVD's activities in Pfalz, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.
Honecker returned to the Saar in 1934 and worked alongside Johannes Hoffmann on the campaign against the region's re-incorporation into Germany. A referendum on the area's future in January 1935 however saw 90.73% vote in favour of reunifying with Germany. Like 4,000 to 8,000 others, Honecker then fled the region, initially relocating to Paris.
On 28 August 1935 he illegally travelled to Berlin under the alias "Marten Tjaden", with a printing press in his luggage. From there he worked closely together with KPD official Herbert Wehner in opposition/resistance to the Nazi state. On 4 December 1935 Honecker was detained by the Gestapo and until 1937 remanded in Berlin's Moabit detention centre. On 3 July 1937 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the "preparation of high treason alongside the severe falsification of documents".
Honecker spent the majority of his incarceration in the Brandenburg-Görden Prison, where he also carried out tasks as a handyman. In early 1945 he was moved to the Barnimstraße Women's Prison in Berlin due to good behaviour and to be put to work repairing the bomb-damaged building, as he was a skilled roofer. During an Allied bombing raid on 6 March 1945 he managed to escape and hid himself at the apartment of Lotte Grund, a female prison guard. After several days she persuaded him to turn himself in and his escape was then covered up by the guard. Honecker spent most of his time in prison under solitary confinement.
After the liberation of the prisons by advancing Soviet troops on 27 April 1945, Honecker remained in Berlin. His "escape" from prison and his relationships during his captivity later led to him experiencing difficulties within the Socialist Unity Party, as well as straining his relations with his former inmates. In later interviews and in his personal memoirs, Honecker falsified many of the details of his life during this period. Material from the East German State Security Service has been used to allege that, to be released from prison, Honecker offered the Gestapo evidence incriminating fellow imprisoned Communists, claimed he had renounced Communism "for good", and was willing to serve in the German army.
Post-war return to politics
In May 1945 Honecker was "picked up" by chance in Berlin by Hans Mahle and taken to the Ulbricht Group, a collective of exiled German communists that had returned from the Soviet Union to Germany after the end of the Nazi regime. Through Waldemar Schmidt, Honecker befriended Walter Ulbricht, who had not been aware of him at that point. Honecker's future role in the group was still undecided until well into the summer months, as he had yet to face a party process. This ended in a reprimand due to his "undisciplined conduct" in fleeing from prison at the start of the year, an action which was debated upon it jeopardizing the other (communist) inmates.
In 1946, Honecker became the co-founder of the Free German Youth (FDJ), whose chairmanship he also undertook. After the formation of the SED, the Socialist Unity Party, in April 1946 through a merger of the KPD and SPD, Honecker swiftly became a leading party member and took his place in the party's Central Committee.
On 7 October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was formed with the adoption of a new constitution, establishing a political system similar to that of the Soviet Union. Within the state's socialist single party government, Honecker determinedly resumed his political career and the following year was nominated as a candidate for the Politbüro of the SED's Central Committee. As President of the Free German Youth movement, he organised the inaugural "Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend" in East Berlin in May 1950 and the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in 1951, although the latter was beset with organisational problems.
During the internal party unrest following the suppressed uprising of June 1953, Honecker sided with First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, despite the majority of the Politburo attempting to depose Ulbricht in favour of Rudolf Herrnstadt. Honecker himself though faced questioning from party members about his inadequate qualifications for his position. On 27 May 1955 he handed the Presidency of the FDJ over to Karl Namokel, and departed for Moscow to study for two years at the School of the Soviet Communist Party at Ulbricht's request. During this period he witnessed the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in person, where its First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin.
After returning to East Germany in 1958, Honecker became a fully-fledged member of the Politburo, taking over responsibility for military and security issues. As the Party Security Secretary he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and also a proponent of the "order to fire" along the Inner German border.
Leadership of East Germany
While Ulbricht had replaced the state's command economy with, firstly the "New Economic System", then the Economic System of Socialism, as he sought to improve the country's failing economy, Honecker declared the main task to in fact be the "unity of economic and social politics", essentially through which living standards (with increased consumer goods) would be raised in exchange for political loyalty. Tensions had already led to his once-mentor Ulbricht removing Honecker from the position of Second Secretary in July 1970, only for the Soviet leadership to swiftly reinstate him. Honecker played up the thawing East-West German relationship as Ulbricht's strategy, to win the support of the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev. With this secured, Honecker was appointed First Secretary (from 1976 titled general secretary) of the Central Committee on 3 May 1971 after the Soviet leadership forced Ulbricht to step aside "for health reasons".
After also succeeding Ulbricht as Chairman of the National Defence Council in 1971, Honecker was eventually also elected Chairman of the State Council (a post equivalent to that of president) on 29 October 1976. With this, Honecker reached the height of power within East Germany. From there on, he, along with Economic Secretary Günter Mittag and Minister of State Security Erich Mielke, made all key government decisions. Until 1989 the "little strategic clique" composed of these three men was unchallenged as the top level of East Germany's ruling class. Honecker's closest colleague was , the SED's Agitation and Propaganda Secretary. Alongside him, Honecker held daily meetings concerning the party's media representation in which the layout of the party's own newspaper Neues Deutschland, as well as the sequencing of news items in the national news bulletin Aktuelle Kamera, were determined.
Under Honecker's leadership, East Germany adopted a programme of "consumer socialism", which resulted in a marked improvement in living standards already the highest among the Eastern bloc countries. More attention was placed on the availability of consumer goods, and the construction of new housing was accelerated, with Honecker promising to "settle the housing problem as an issue of social relevance". His policies were initially marked by a liberalisation toward culture and art, though this was less about the replacement of Ulbricht by Honecker and more for propaganda purposes. While 1973 brought the World Festival of Youth and Students to East Berlin, soon dissident artists such as Wolf Biermann were expelled and the Ministry for State Security raised its efforts to suppress political resistance. Honecker remained committed to the expansion of the Inner German border and the "order to fire" policy along it. During his time in office around 125 East German citizens were killed while trying to reach the West.
After the Federal Republic had secured an agreement with the Soviet Union on cooperation and a policy of non-violence, it became possible to reach a similar agreement with the GDR. The Basic Treaty between East and West Germany in 1972 sought to normalise contacts between the two governments.
East Germany also participated in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975, which attempted to improve relations between the West and the Eastern Bloc, and became a full member of the United Nations. These acts of diplomacy were considered Honecker’s greatest successes in foreign politics.
Honecker received additional high-profile personal recognitions including honorary doctorates of humane letters from North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung University in 1974, Cuba's University of Las Tunas in 1979 and Iraq's Saddam University in 1983, honorary doctorates of business administration from East Berlin's Humboldt University in 1976, Tokyo's Nihon University in 1981 and the London School of Economics in 1984 and the Olympic Order from the IOC in 1985. In September 1987, he became the first East German head of state to visit West Germany, where he was received with full state honours by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in an act that seemed to confirm West Germany's acceptance of East Germany's existence. During this trip he also journeyed to his birthplace in Saarland, where he held an emotional speech in which he spoke of a day when Germans would no longer be separated by borders, but unified under communist rule. This trip had been planned twice before, including September 1984, but was initially blocked by the Soviet leadership which mistrusted the special East-West German relationship, particularly efforts to expand East Germany's limited independence in the realm of foreign policy.
Illness, downfall and resignation
In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika, reforms to liberalise socialist planned economy. Frictions between him and Honecker had grown over these policies and numerous additional issues from 1985 onward. East Germany refused to implement similar reforms, with Honecker reportedly telling Gorbachev: "We have done our perestroika; we have nothing to restructure". Gorbachev grew to dislike Honecker, and by 1988 was lumping him in with Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu as a "Gang of Four": a group of inflexible hardliners unwilling to make reforms.
According to White House experts Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Gorbachev looked to Communist leaders in Eastern Europe to follow his example of perestroika and glasnost. They argue:
Gorbachev himself had no particular sympathy for Erich Honecker, chairman of the East German Communist Party, and his hard-line comrades and the government. As early as 1985... [Gorbachev] had told East German party officials that kindergarten was over; no one would lead them by the hand. They were responsible for their own people. The relations between Gorbachev and Honecker went downhill from there.
Western analysts, according to Zelikow and Rice, believed in 1989 that Communism was still secure in East Germany:
Bolstered by relatively greater affluence than his country's Eastern European neighbors enjoyed in a fantastically elaborate system of internal controls, East Germany's longtime leader Eric Honecker seemed secure in his position. His government had long dealt with dissent through a mixture of brutal repression, forced emigration, and the vent of allowing occasional, limited travel to the West for a substantial part of the population.
Honecker felt betrayed by Gorbachev in his German policy and ensured that official texts of the Soviet Union, especially those concerning perestroika, could no longer be published or sold in East Germany.
At the Warsaw Pact summit on 7–8 July 1989 in Bucharest, the Soviet Union reaffirmed its shift from the Brezhnev Doctrine of the limited sovereignty of its member states, and announced "freedom of choice". The Bucharest statement prescribed that its nations henceforth developed their "own political line, strategy and tactics without external intervention". This called into question the Soviet guarantee of existence for the Communist states in Europe. Already in May 1989 Hungary had begun dismantling its border with Austria, creating the first gap in the so-called Iron Curtain, through which later several thousand East Germans quickly fled in hopes of reaching West Germany by way of Austria. But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 (which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test Gorbachev's reaction to the opening of the border), the subsequent hesitant behaviour of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union opened the floodgates. Thus the united front of the Eastern Bloc was broken. The reaction to this from Erich Honecker in the Daily Mirror of August 19, 1989 was too late and showed the current loss of power: “Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West.” Later, after his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in connection with the summer of 1989: "That this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin." Now tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. A 1969 treaty required the Hungarian government to send the East Germans back home; however, starting on 11 September 1989, the Hungarians let them pass into Austria, telling their outraged East German counterparts that they were refugees and that international treaties on refugees took precedence.
At the time, Honecker was sidelined through illness, leaving his colleagues unable to act decisively. He had been taken ill with biliary colic during the Warsaw Pact summit. He was shortly afterwards flown home to East Berlin. After an initial stabilisation in his health, he underwent surgery on 18 August 1989 to remove his inflamed gallbladder and, due to a perforation, part of his colon. According to the urologist Peter Althaus, the surgeons left a suspected carcinogenic nodule in Honecker’s right kidney due to his weak condition, and also failed to inform the patient of the suspected cancer; other sources say the tumour was simply undetected. As a result of this operation, Honecker was away from his office until late September 1989.
Back in office, Honecker had to contend with the rising number and strength of demonstrations across East Germany that had first been sparked by reports in the West German media of fraudulent results in local elections on 7 May 1989, the same results he had labelled a "convincing reflection" of the populace's faith in his leadership. He also had to deal with a new refugee problem. Several thousand East Germans tried to go to West Germany by way of Czechoslovakia, only to have that government bar them from passing. Several thousands of them headed straight for the West German embassy in Prague and demanded safe passage to West Germany. With some reluctance, Honecker allowed them to go – but forced them to go back through East Germany on sealed trains and stripped them of their East German citizenship. Several members of the SED Politbüro realised this was a serious blunder and made plans to get rid of him.
As unrest visibly grew, large numbers began fleeing the country through the West German embassies in Prague and Budapest, as well as over the borders of the "socialist brother" states. Each month saw tens of thousands more exit. On 3 October 1989 East Germany closed its borders to its eastern neighbours and prevented visa-free travel to Czechoslovakia; a day later these measures were also extended to travel to Bulgaria and Romania. East Germany was now not only behind the Iron Curtain to the West, but also cordoned off from most other Eastern bloc states.
On 6–7 October 1989 the national celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the East German state took place with Gorbachev in attendance. To the surprise of Honecker and the other SED leaders in attendance, several hundred members of the Free German Youth — reckoned as the future vanguard of the party and nation — began chanting, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, save us!". In a private conversation between the two leaders Honecker praised the success of the nation, but Gorbachev knew that, in reality, it faced bankruptcy; East Germany had already accepted billions of dollars in loans from West Germany during the decade as it sought to stabilise its economy. Attempting to make Honecker accept a need for reforms, Gorbachev warned Honecker that "He who is too late is punished by life", yet Honecker maintained that "we will solve our problems ourselves with socialist means". Protests outside the reception at the Palace of the Republic led to hundreds of arrests in which many were brutally beaten by soldiers and police.
As the reform movement spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe, mass demonstrations against the East German government erupted, most prominently in Leipzig—the first of several demonstrations which took place on Monday nights across the country. In response, an elite paratroop unit was dispatched to Leipzig—almost certainly on Honecker's orders, since he was commander-in-chief of the Army. A bloodbath was averted only when local party officials themselves ordered the troops to pull back. In the following week, Honecker faced a torrent of criticism. This gave his Politburo comrades the impetus they needed to replace him.
After a crisis meeting of the Politburo on 10–11 October 1989, Honecker's planned state visit to Denmark was cancelled and, despite his resistance, at the insistence of the government's number-two-man, Egon Krenz, a public statement was issued that called for "suggestions for attractive socialism". Over the following days Krenz worked to secure himself the support of the military and the Stasi and arranged a meeting between Gorbachev and Politburo member Harry Tisch, who was in Moscow, to inform the Kremlin about the now-planned removal of Honecker; Gorbachev reportedly wished them good luck.
The sitting of the SED Central Committee planned for the end of November 1989 was pulled forward a week, with the most urgent item on the agenda now being the composition of the Politburo. Krenz and Mielke attempted by telephone on the night of 16 October to win other Politburo members over to remove Honecker. At the beginning of the session on 17 October, Honecker asked his routine question of "Are there any suggestions for the agenda?" Stoph replied, "Please, general secretary, Erich, I propose that a new item be placed on the agenda. It is the release of Erich Honecker as general secretary and the election of Egon Krenz in his place." Honecker reportedly calmly responded: "Well, then I open the debate".
All those present then spoke, in turn, but none in favour of Honecker. Günter Schabowski even extended the dismissal of Honecker to also include his posts in the State Council and as Chairman of the National Defence Council while childhood friend Günter Mittag moved away from Honecker. Mielke supposedly blamed Honecker for almost all the country's current ills and threatened to publish compromising information that he possessed, if Honecker refused to resign. A ZDF documentary on the matter claims this information was contained in a large red briefcase found in Mielke's possession in 1990. After three hours the Politburo voted to remove Honecker. In accordance with longstanding practice, Honecker voted for his own removal. When the public announcement was made, it was branded as a voluntary decision on Honecker's part, ostensibly "due to health reasons". Krenz was unanimously elected as his successor as General Secretary.
Start of prosecution and asylum attempts
Communist rule in East Germany survived Honecker's removal by only two months. Three weeks after Honecker's ousting the Berlin Wall fell, and the SED swiftly lost control of the country. On 1 December, its guaranteed right to rule was removed from the East German constitution. Two days later he was expelled from the SED along with other former officials. He went on to join the newly founded Communist Party of Germany in 1990, remaining a member until his death.
During November the People's Chamber had already set up a committee to investigate corruption and abuses of office, with Honecker being alleged to have received annual donations from the National Academy of Architecture of around 20,000 marks as an "honorary member". On 5 December 1989 the chief public prosecutor in East Germany formally launched a judicial inquiry against him on charges of high treason, abuses of confidence and embezzlement to the serious disadvantage of socialist property (the charge of high treason was dropped in March 1990). As a result, Honecker was placed under house arrest for a month.
Following the lifting of his house arrest, Honecker and his wife Margot were forced to vacate their apartment in the Waldsiedlung housing area in Wandlitz, exclusively used by senior SED party members, after the People's Chamber decided to put it to use as a sanatorium for the disabled. In any case, Honecker spent the majority of January 1990 in hospital after having the error of the tumour missed in 1989 corrected after the suspicion of cancer was confirmed. Upon leaving the hospital on 29 January he was re-arrested and held at the Berlin-Rummelsburg remand centre. However, on the evening of the following day, 30 January, Honecker was again released from custody: The district court had annulled the arrest warrant and, due to medical reports, certified him unfit for detention and interrogation.
Lacking a home, Honecker instructed his lawyer Wolfgang Vogel to ask the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg for help. Pastor Uwe Holmer, leader of the Hoffnungstal Institute in Lobetal, Bernau bei Berlin, offered the couple a home in his vicarage. This drew immediate condemnation and later demonstrations against the church for assisting the Honeckers, given they had both discriminated against Christians who did not conform with the SED leadership's ideology. Aside from a stay at a holiday home in Lindow in March 1990 that lasted only one day before protests swiftly brought it to an end, the couple resided at the Holmer residence until 3 April 1990.
The couple then moved into a three-room living quarters within the Soviet military hospital in Beelitz. Here, doctors diagnosed a malignant liver tumour following another re-examination. Following German reunification, prosecutors in Berlin issued a further arrest warrant for Honecker in November 1990 on charges that he gave the order to fire on escapees at the Inner German border in 1961 and had repeatedly reiterated that command (most specifically in 1974). However, this warrant was not enforceable because Honecker lay under the protection of Soviet authorities in Beelitz. On 13 March 1991 the Honeckers fled Germany from the Soviet-controlled Sperenberg Airfield to Moscow on a military jet with the aid of Soviet hardliners.
The German Chancellery had only been informed by Soviet diplomats about the Honeckers’ flight to Moscow one hour in advance. It limited its response to a public protest, claiming the existence of an arrest warrant meant the Soviet Union was breaching international law by admitting Honecker. The initial Soviet reaction was that Honecker was now too ill to travel and was receiving medical treatment after a deterioration of his health. He underwent further surgery the following month.
On 11 December 1991 the Honeckers sought refuge in the Chilean Embassy in Moscow, while also applying for political asylum in the Soviet Union. Despite an offer of help from North Korea, Honecker instead reached out to the Chilean government under Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin. Under Honecker's rule, East Germany had granted many Chileans exile following the military coup of 1973 by Augusto Pinochet. In addition his daughter Sonja was married to a Chilean. Chilean authorities, however, stated he could not enter their country without a valid German passport.
Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991 and gave all his powers to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Russian authorities had long been keen on expelling Honecker, against the wishes of Gorbachev, and the new government now demanded that he leave the country or else face deportation.
In June 1992, Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, leader of a center-left coalition, finally assured German Chancellor Helmut Kohl that Honecker would be leaving the embassy in Moscow. Reportedly against his will, Honecker was ejected from the embassy on 29 July 1992 and flown to Berlin's Tegel Airport, where he was arrested and detained in Moabit Prison. By contrast, his wife Margot travelled on a direct flight from Moscow to Santiago, Chile, where she initially stayed with her daughter Sonja. Honecker's lawyers unsuccessfully appealed for him to be released from detention in the period leading up to his trial.
Criminal trial and death
On 12 May 1992, while under protection in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, Honecker, along with several co-defendants, including Erich Mielke, Willi Stoph, Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht, was accused in a 783-page indictment of taking part in the "collective manslaughter" of 68 people as they attempted to flee East Germany. It was alleged that Honecker, in his role as Chairman of the National Defence Council, had both given the decisive order in 1961 for the construction of the Berlin Wall and also, at subsequent meetings, ordered the extensive expansion of the border fortifications around West Berlin and the barriers to the West so as to make any passing impossible. In addition, specifically at a May 1974 sitting of the National Defence Council, he had stated that the development of the border must continue, that lines of fire were warranted along the whole border and, as prior, the use of firearms was essential: "Comrades who have successfully used their firearms [are] to be praised". Honecker, in his role of chairman of the party, was responsible for the deaths of many more than the 68 mentioned above. As of 22 April 2015, well over 1,000 deaths have been discovered mainly through secret East German documentation: "It is still not known for sure how many people died on the inner German border or who they were, as the East German state treated such information as a closely guarded secret. But numbers have risen steadily since unification, as evidence has been gathered from East German records. Current unofficial estimates put the figure at up to 1,100 people." From the same article, "In 1974, Erich Honecker, as Chairman of the GDR's National Defence Council, ordered: 'Firearms are to be ruthlessly used in the event of attempts to break through the border, and the comrades who have successfully used their firearms are to be commended.'"
The charges were approved by the Berlin District Court on 19 October 1992 at the opening of the trial. On the same day, it was decided that the hearing of 56 charges would be postponed and the remaining twelve cases would be the subject of the trial to begin on 12 November 1992. The question of under which laws the former East German leader could be tried was highly controversial and, in the view of many jurists, the process had an uncertain outcome.
During his 70-minute-long statement to the court on 3 December 1992, Honecker said that he had political responsibility for the building of the Berlin Wall and subsequent deaths at the borders, but claimed he was "without juridical, legal or moral guilt". He blamed the escalation of the Cold War for the building of the Berlin Wall, saying the decision had not been taken solely by the East German leadership but all the Warsaw Pact nations that had collectively concluded in 1961 that a "Third World War with millions dead" would be unavoidable without this action. He quoted several West German politicians who had opined that the wall had indeed reduced and stabilised the two factions. He stated that he had always regretted every death, both from a human point of view and due to the political damage they caused.
Making reference to past trials in Germany against communists and socialists such as Karl Marx and August Bebel, he claimed that the legal process against him was politically motivated and a "show trial" against communism. He stated that no court lying in the territory of West Germany had the legal right to place him, his co-defendants or any East German citizen on trial, and that the portrayal of East Germany as an "Unrechtsstaat" was contradictory to its recognition by over one hundred other nations and the UN Security Council. Furthermore, he questioned how a German court could now legally judge his political decisions in the light of the lack of legal action taken over various military operations that had been carried out by Western nations with either overt support or absence of condemnation from (West) Germany. He dismissed public criticism of the Stasi, arguing that journalists in Western countries were praised for denouncing others. While accepting political responsibility for the deaths at the Wall, he believed he was free of any "legal or moral guilt", and thought that East Germany would go down in history as "a sign that socialism is possible and is better than capitalism."
By the time of the proceedings Honecker was already seriously ill. A new CT scan in August 1992 had confirmed an ultrasound examination made in Moscow and the existence of a malignant tumour in the right lobe of his liver. Based on these findings and additional medical testimonies, Honecker’s lawyers requested that the legal proceedings, as far as they were aimed against their client, be abandoned and the arrest warrant against him withdrawn; the cases against both Mielke and Stoph had already been postponed due to their ill health. Arguing that his life expectancy was estimated to be three to six months, while the legal process was forecast to take at least two years, his lawyers questioned whether it was humane to try a dying man. Their application was rejected on 21 December 1992 when the court concluded that, given the seriousness of the charges, no obstacle to the proceedings existed.
Honecker lodged a constitutional complaint to the recently created Berlin Constitutional Court, stating that the decision to proceed violated his fundamental right to human dignity, which was an overriding principle in the Constitution of Berlin, above even the state penal system and criminal justice. On 12 January 1993 Honecker's complaint was upheld and the Berlin District Court therefore abandoned the case and withdrew their arrest warrant. An application for a new arrest warrant was rejected on 13 January. The court also refused to commence with the trial related to the indictment of 12 November 1992, and withdrew the second arrest warrant related to these charges. After a total of 169 days Honecker was released from custody, drawing protests both from victims of the East German state as well as German political figures.
Honecker flew via Brazil to Santiago, Chile, to reunite with his wife and his daughter Sonja, who lived there with her son Roberto. Upon his arrival he was greeted by the leaders of the Chilean Communist and Socialist parties. In contrast, his co-defendants Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht were sentenced on 16 September 1993 to imprisonment of between four and seven-and-a-half years. On 13 April 1993 a final attempt to separate and continue the trial against Honecker in his absence was discontinued. Four days later, on the 66th birthday of his wife Margot, he gave a final public speech, ending with the words: "Socialism is the opposite of what we have now in Germany. For that I would like to say that our beautiful memories of the German Democratic Republic are testimony of a new and just society. And we want to always remain loyal to these things".
On 29 May 1994, Honecker died of liver cancer at the age of 81 in a terraced house in the La Reina district of Santiago. His funeral, arranged by the Communist Party of Chile, was conducted the following day at central cemetery in Santiago.
Family
Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945, he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (née Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death.
By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her, he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.
In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist. However, sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Honecker and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons; however, his bodyguard Bernd Brückner, in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, denied the claims.
Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yáñez Betancourt: Roberto (b. 1974), Mariana (b. 1985), who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Görlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Yáñez, Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at three years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter.
Honecker's daughter divorced Yáñez in 1993. She and her two surviving children still live in Santiago.
Honours and awards
:
Hero of the German Democratic Republic (twice)
Hero of Labour
Patriotic Order of Merit (Honor clasp, in Gold)
Order of Karl Marx (five times)
Order of the Banner of Labor
:
Hero of the Soviet Union
Order of Lenin (thrice)
Order of the October Revolution
Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Other countries:
Grand Star of the Order of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (Austria)
Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Order of José Martí (Cuba)
Order of Playa Girón (Cuba)
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia)
Grand Cross of the White Rose of Finland (Finland)
Order of Augusto Cesar Sandino, 1st class (Nicaragua)
Order of the "Victory of Socialism" (Romania)
Order of Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)
Olympic Order (International Olympic Committee)
In popular culture
Dmitri Vrubel's 1990 mural on the Berlin Wall My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, depicting a socialist "fraternal kiss" between Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev, became known around the world.
A traffic signal inspired by Honecker wearing a jaunty straw hat was used in parts of East Germany (Ost-Ampelmännchen) and has become a symbol of Ostalgie.
Notes
References
Further reading
Bryson, Phillip J., and Manfred Melzer eds. The end of the East German economy: from Honecker to reunification (Palgrave Macmillan, 1991).
Childs, David, ed. Honecker's Germany (London: Taylor & Francis, 1985).
Collier Jr, Irwin L. "GDR economic policy during the honecker era." Eastern European Economics 29.1 (1990): 5–29.
Dennis, Mike. Social and Economic Modernization in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (Burns & Oates, 1993).
Dennis, Mike. "The East German Ministry of State Security and East German Society During the Honecker Era, 1971–1989." in German Writers and the Politics of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 200)3. 3–24 on the STASI
Fulbrook, Mary. (2008) The people's state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker. Yale University Press.
Grix, Jonathan. "Competing approaches to the collapse of the GDR: ‘Top‐down’ vs ‘bottom‐up’," Journal of Area Studies 6#13:121–142, DOI: 10.1080/02613539808455836, Historiography.
Lippmann, Heinz. Honecker and the new politics of Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
McAdams, A. James. "The Honecker trial: the East German past and the German future." Review of Politics 58.1 (1996): 53–80. online
Weitz, Eric D. Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton UP, 1997).
Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp. 195–201.
Primary sources
Honecker, Erich. (1981) From My Life. New York: Pergamon, 1981. .
External links
Honecker im Internet (in German)
www.warheroes.ru – Erich Honecker (in Russian)
Welcoming Address to 1979 Session of the World Peace Council Erich Honecker's speech to the WPC
A Successful Policy Seared to the Needs of the People Volkskammer pamphlet including material by Honecker
1912 births
1994 deaths
People from Neunkirchen, Saarland
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Communist Party of Germany politicians
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"\"Get Involved\" is a song by the American singer Ginuwine from his sixth studio album A Man's Thoughts (2009). The song was co-written by Missy Elliott and produced by Timbaland and featured guest vocals from the pair. Although the song was originally scheduled to be released in summer 2009 as the second single from the album, it was pushed back to 2010 as an international single from the album because of a dispute between Ginuwine and Timbaland.\n\nBackground\nIn 2007, when asked about who he would like to work with that would surprise people, Timbaland told Billboard, \"For personal reasons I'd like to work with Ginuwine.\" In November 2008, Ginuwine confirmed to the press that Timbaland would be featured on A Man's Thoughts.\n\nRelease and promotion\nThe song was first performed on 23 July 2009 on The Late Show with David Letterman. Ginuwine and Missy were the only performers from the song to appear; Timbaland was exempted. The song was officially released overseas as early as 29 January 2010. On 29 June 2010, a promotional CD release for the single was given a limited released in the United States. In 2011, a twelve-track E–single of the song was released in Spain. On 12 March 2012, the record label Smash The House released a digital three-track remix sampler exclusively via the online store Amazon.\n\nControversy\nAn initial dispute between Timbaland and Ginuwine dates back to October 2009, when Timbaland expressed disinterest in appearing in the \"Get Involved\" music video. In April 2010, Ginuwine told Vibe: \"He really hasn’t been interested in working with me, so I can’t speak on the present [...] The reason I'm pissed off at him now is because of what he did. I would've been cool and not bothered him if he would've said, 'Nah, I'm too busy,' or gave me the lame excuse like he's been giving me. But don't do it and then not do what you're supposed to do [to promote the song].\" Ginuwine later disclosed to the Atlanta radio station WAMJ that a settlement of over $50,000 was made for Timbaland to appear in the video. However, because of Timbaland's persistent disinterest, the single was shelved in the United States and was instead released overseas with an animated music video. In July 2011, Timbaland responded to Ginuwine's comments via BET.com, \"I know how he might feel. He might think that we abandoned him [...] We never would abandon him. He’s like a brother. But when you get everybody else, mix different managers... it changes every dynamic.\" Timbaland also added that he wanted to work with Ginuwine for the sake of their friendship and brotherhood. That same month, Ginuwine told MTV UK that he and Timbaland were cool and that they would converse at times via Twitter. He also added that a song with him, Missy and Timbaland would \"hopefully\" develop to show the \"magic\" they once had.\n\nFormats and track listings\n\n Australian iTunes single\n \"Get Involved\" (feat. Timbaland & Missy Elliott) — 3:37\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit) — 3:00\n \"Get Involved\" (Marcus Knight Down South Remix) — 4:11\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & d'Aambrogio Remix) — 7:56\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vanelii Remix) — 8:26\n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:16\n \"Get Involved\" (Rico Bernasconi Remix) — 5:34\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n\n European CD single\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit) — 3:00\n \"Get Involved\" — 3:38\n\n Finnish Promo CDS\n \"Get Involved\" (Original Edit) — 3:41 \n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Video Edit) — 3:45 \n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit Mix) — 3:03 \n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Floor Mix) — 4:00 \n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:19 \n \"Get Involved\" (Rico Bernasconi Remix) — 5:36 \n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vannelli Remix) — 8:28 \n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & D'Ambrogio Remix) — 7:58 \n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:31\n\n Italian 12\" vinyl\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vannelli Remix) — 8:26\n \"Get Involved\" (Original Version) — 3:37\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & D'Ambrogio Remix) — 7:58\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n\n Italian CD single\n \"Get Involved\" (Original Version) — 3:40\n \"Get Involved\" (A-Class Video Mix) — 3:45\n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:19\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vannelli Remix) — 8:28\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & D'Ambrogio Remix) — 7:58\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n\n Italian digital download\n \"Get Involved\" (Molella & Jerma Remix) — 6:32\n \"Get Involved\" (DJs from Mars Remix) — 5:57\n \"Get Involved\" (Paolo Aliberti & Francesco Andreoli) — 6:17\n \"Get Involved\" (Shorty Simosun Remix) — 7:12\n \"Get Involved\" (Mark & Shark Remix) — 4:39 \n \"Get Involved\" (Da Brozz Remix) — 4:36\n \"Get Involved\" (Andres Diamond Remix) — 5:37 \n \"Get Involved\" (Remakeit Remix) — 4:30\n\n Spanish E–single\n \"Get Involved\" (Kylian Mash Edit Re-Mix) — 3:14\n \"Get Involved\" — 3:38\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Floor Mix) — 3:43\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Video Mix) — 3:58\n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:16\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit) — 3:00\n \"Get Involved\" (Dino Lenny & Taz Remix) — 6:13\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vanelii Remix) — 8:26\n \"Get Involved\" (Kylian Mash Extended Re-Mix) — 5:03\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & d'Aambrogio Remix) — 7:56\n \"Get Involved\" (Rico Bernasconi Remix) — 5:34\n\n UK Promo CDS\n \"Get Involved\" (Adam F & Herve's Stadium Kaos Vocal Remix)\n \"Get Involved\" (Adam F & Herve's Stadium Kaos Dub)\n\n US digital download\n \"Get Involved\" (Wolfpack Remix) — 5:15\n \"Get Involved\" (Yves V Remix) — 5:49\n \"Get Involved\" (Firebeatz Remix) — 6:35\n\nChart performance\n\"Get Involved\" was Ginuwine's first song in over six years to chart outside of the United States.\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2009 songs\n2010 singles\nGinuwine songs\nMissy Elliott songs\nTimbaland songs\nSong recordings produced by Timbaland\nSongs written by Missy Elliott\nSongs written by Jerome \"J-Roc\" Harmon\nSong recordings produced by Jerome \"J-Roc\" Harmon\nSongs written by Ezekiel Lewis\nSongs written by Ginuwine\nSongs written by Patrick \"J. Que\" Smith\nSongs written by Timbaland",
"John O'Brien (6 July 1866 – 8 October 1932) was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.\n\nEarly life\nO'Brien was born in Harlaxton, a suburb of Toowoomba, Queensland. The son of Patrick O'Brien and his wife Mary (née O'Neil), he took over the family farm in 1887 after the death of his father. He then became involved in road construction and was responsible for many public works in the Toowoomba area. O'Brien married Margaret Mary Fahy in 1899 and together they had four children.\n\nPolitics\nO'Brien was a member of the Highfields Divisional Board from 1896 to 1898. He then won the Labour Party endorsement for the seat of Aubigny, which he duly won in 1904. O'Brien served one term and did not stand for re-election in 1907.\n\nLater life\nLosing his farm after politics, he took up work as a yardman at a Hotel in Brisbane. O'Brien died in 1932 and was buried in the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery.\n\nReferences\n\nMembers of the Queensland Legislative Assembly\n1866 births\n1932 deaths\nBurials in Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery\nPeople from Toowoomba\nAustralian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Queensland"
] |
[
"Erich Honecker",
"Family",
"who were the members of Honecker's family?",
"Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann,",
"what did this romance lead to?",
"With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke.",
"did his family get involved in politics?",
"For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports"
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C_6c702e1bb7284a76990ddea57af53d50_0
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what there any other member of his family in politics?
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Besides Margot Honecker, are there any other member of Erich Honecker family in politics?
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Erich Honecker
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Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945 he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (nee Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death. By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thalmann Pioneer Organisation. In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist, however sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Erich and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons, however, his bodyguard Bernd Bruckner in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, refuted the claims. Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yanez Betancourt; Roberto, (b. 1974) Mariana, (b. 1985) who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Mrs. Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Gorlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Leonardo Mrs Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at 3 years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter. Honecker's daughter, (who divorced Leonardo in 1993) grandson and granddaughter still live in Santiago. CANNOTANSWER
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Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yanez Betancourt;
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Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
Honecker's political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Following World War II, he was freed by the Soviet army and relaunched his political activities, founding the SED's youth organisation, the Free German Youth, in 1946 and serving as the group's chairman until 1955. As the Security Secretary of the SED Central Committee, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, in this function, bore administrative responsibility for the "order to fire" along the Wall and the larger inner German border.
In 1970, Honecker initiated a political power struggle that led, with support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to him replacing Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence Council. Under his command, the country adopted a programme of "consumer socialism" and moved towards the international community by normalizing relations with West Germany and also becoming a full member of the UN, in what is considered one of his greatest political successes.
As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s with the advent of perestroika and glasnost—the liberal reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes to the East German political system. He cited the continual hardliner attitudes of Kim Il-sung and Fidel Castro, whose respective countries of governance of North Korea and Cuba had been critical of reforms. As anti-government protests grew, Honecker begged Gorbachev to intervene with the Soviet army to suppress the protests to maintain communist rule in East Germany as Moscow had done with Czechoslovakia in the Prague Spring of 1968 and with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but Gorbachev refused. Honecker was forced to resign by the SED Politburo in October 1989 in a bid to improve the government's image in the eyes of the public; the effort was unsuccessful, and the regime would collapse entirely the following month.
Following German reunification in 1990, Honecker sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, but was extradited back to Germany in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, to stand trial for his role in the human rights abuses committed by the East German government. However, the proceedings were abandoned, as Honecker was suffering from terminal liver cancer. He was freed from custody to join his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994.
Childhood and youth
Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, in what is now Saarland, to Wilhelm Honecker (1881–1969), a coal miner and political activist, and his wife Caroline Catharine Weidenhof (1883–1963). The couple, married in 1905, had six children: Katharina (Käthe, 1906–1925), Wilhelm (Willi, 1907–1944), Frieda (1909–1974), Erich, Gertrud (1917–2010) and Karl-Robert (1923–1947). Erich, their fourth child, was born on 25 August 1912 during the period in which the family resided on Max-Braun-Straße, before later moving to Kuchenbergstraße 88 in the present-day Neunkirchen city district of Wiebelskirchen.
After World War I, the Territory of the Saar Basin was occupied by France. This change from the strict rule of to French military occupation provided the backdrop for what Wilhelm Honecker understood as proletarian exploitation, and introduced young Erich to communism. After his tenth birthday in 1922, Erich Honecker became a member of the Spartacus League's children's group in Wiebelskirchen. Aged 14 he entered the KJVD, the Young Communist League of Germany, for whom he later served the organisation's leader of Saarland from 1931.
Honecker did not find an apprenticeship immediately after leaving school, but instead worked for a farmer in Pomerania for almost two years. In 1928 he returned to Wiebelskirchen and began a traineeship as a roofer with his uncle, but quit to attend the International Lenin School in Moscow and Magnitogorsk after the KJVD handpicked him for a course of study there. There, sharing a room with Anton Ackermann, he studied under the cover name "Fritz Malter".
Opposition to the Nazis and imprisonment
In 1930, aged 18, Honecker entered the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. His political mentor was Otto Niebergall, who later represented the KPD in the Reichstag. After returning from Moscow in 1931 following his studies at the International Lenin School, he became the leader of the KJVD in the Saar region. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Communist activities within Germany were only possible undercover; the Saar region however still remained outside the German Reich under a League of Nations mandate. Honecker was arrested in Essen, Germany but soon released. Following this he fled to the Netherlands and from there oversaw KJVD's activities in Pfalz, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.
Honecker returned to the Saar in 1934 and worked alongside Johannes Hoffmann on the campaign against the region's re-incorporation into Germany. A referendum on the area's future in January 1935 however saw 90.73% vote in favour of reunifying with Germany. Like 4,000 to 8,000 others, Honecker then fled the region, initially relocating to Paris.
On 28 August 1935 he illegally travelled to Berlin under the alias "Marten Tjaden", with a printing press in his luggage. From there he worked closely together with KPD official Herbert Wehner in opposition/resistance to the Nazi state. On 4 December 1935 Honecker was detained by the Gestapo and until 1937 remanded in Berlin's Moabit detention centre. On 3 July 1937 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the "preparation of high treason alongside the severe falsification of documents".
Honecker spent the majority of his incarceration in the Brandenburg-Görden Prison, where he also carried out tasks as a handyman. In early 1945 he was moved to the Barnimstraße Women's Prison in Berlin due to good behaviour and to be put to work repairing the bomb-damaged building, as he was a skilled roofer. During an Allied bombing raid on 6 March 1945 he managed to escape and hid himself at the apartment of Lotte Grund, a female prison guard. After several days she persuaded him to turn himself in and his escape was then covered up by the guard. Honecker spent most of his time in prison under solitary confinement.
After the liberation of the prisons by advancing Soviet troops on 27 April 1945, Honecker remained in Berlin. His "escape" from prison and his relationships during his captivity later led to him experiencing difficulties within the Socialist Unity Party, as well as straining his relations with his former inmates. In later interviews and in his personal memoirs, Honecker falsified many of the details of his life during this period. Material from the East German State Security Service has been used to allege that, to be released from prison, Honecker offered the Gestapo evidence incriminating fellow imprisoned Communists, claimed he had renounced Communism "for good", and was willing to serve in the German army.
Post-war return to politics
In May 1945 Honecker was "picked up" by chance in Berlin by Hans Mahle and taken to the Ulbricht Group, a collective of exiled German communists that had returned from the Soviet Union to Germany after the end of the Nazi regime. Through Waldemar Schmidt, Honecker befriended Walter Ulbricht, who had not been aware of him at that point. Honecker's future role in the group was still undecided until well into the summer months, as he had yet to face a party process. This ended in a reprimand due to his "undisciplined conduct" in fleeing from prison at the start of the year, an action which was debated upon it jeopardizing the other (communist) inmates.
In 1946, Honecker became the co-founder of the Free German Youth (FDJ), whose chairmanship he also undertook. After the formation of the SED, the Socialist Unity Party, in April 1946 through a merger of the KPD and SPD, Honecker swiftly became a leading party member and took his place in the party's Central Committee.
On 7 October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was formed with the adoption of a new constitution, establishing a political system similar to that of the Soviet Union. Within the state's socialist single party government, Honecker determinedly resumed his political career and the following year was nominated as a candidate for the Politbüro of the SED's Central Committee. As President of the Free German Youth movement, he organised the inaugural "Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend" in East Berlin in May 1950 and the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in 1951, although the latter was beset with organisational problems.
During the internal party unrest following the suppressed uprising of June 1953, Honecker sided with First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, despite the majority of the Politburo attempting to depose Ulbricht in favour of Rudolf Herrnstadt. Honecker himself though faced questioning from party members about his inadequate qualifications for his position. On 27 May 1955 he handed the Presidency of the FDJ over to Karl Namokel, and departed for Moscow to study for two years at the School of the Soviet Communist Party at Ulbricht's request. During this period he witnessed the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in person, where its First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin.
After returning to East Germany in 1958, Honecker became a fully-fledged member of the Politburo, taking over responsibility for military and security issues. As the Party Security Secretary he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and also a proponent of the "order to fire" along the Inner German border.
Leadership of East Germany
While Ulbricht had replaced the state's command economy with, firstly the "New Economic System", then the Economic System of Socialism, as he sought to improve the country's failing economy, Honecker declared the main task to in fact be the "unity of economic and social politics", essentially through which living standards (with increased consumer goods) would be raised in exchange for political loyalty. Tensions had already led to his once-mentor Ulbricht removing Honecker from the position of Second Secretary in July 1970, only for the Soviet leadership to swiftly reinstate him. Honecker played up the thawing East-West German relationship as Ulbricht's strategy, to win the support of the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev. With this secured, Honecker was appointed First Secretary (from 1976 titled general secretary) of the Central Committee on 3 May 1971 after the Soviet leadership forced Ulbricht to step aside "for health reasons".
After also succeeding Ulbricht as Chairman of the National Defence Council in 1971, Honecker was eventually also elected Chairman of the State Council (a post equivalent to that of president) on 29 October 1976. With this, Honecker reached the height of power within East Germany. From there on, he, along with Economic Secretary Günter Mittag and Minister of State Security Erich Mielke, made all key government decisions. Until 1989 the "little strategic clique" composed of these three men was unchallenged as the top level of East Germany's ruling class. Honecker's closest colleague was , the SED's Agitation and Propaganda Secretary. Alongside him, Honecker held daily meetings concerning the party's media representation in which the layout of the party's own newspaper Neues Deutschland, as well as the sequencing of news items in the national news bulletin Aktuelle Kamera, were determined.
Under Honecker's leadership, East Germany adopted a programme of "consumer socialism", which resulted in a marked improvement in living standards already the highest among the Eastern bloc countries. More attention was placed on the availability of consumer goods, and the construction of new housing was accelerated, with Honecker promising to "settle the housing problem as an issue of social relevance". His policies were initially marked by a liberalisation toward culture and art, though this was less about the replacement of Ulbricht by Honecker and more for propaganda purposes. While 1973 brought the World Festival of Youth and Students to East Berlin, soon dissident artists such as Wolf Biermann were expelled and the Ministry for State Security raised its efforts to suppress political resistance. Honecker remained committed to the expansion of the Inner German border and the "order to fire" policy along it. During his time in office around 125 East German citizens were killed while trying to reach the West.
After the Federal Republic had secured an agreement with the Soviet Union on cooperation and a policy of non-violence, it became possible to reach a similar agreement with the GDR. The Basic Treaty between East and West Germany in 1972 sought to normalise contacts between the two governments.
East Germany also participated in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975, which attempted to improve relations between the West and the Eastern Bloc, and became a full member of the United Nations. These acts of diplomacy were considered Honecker’s greatest successes in foreign politics.
Honecker received additional high-profile personal recognitions including honorary doctorates of humane letters from North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung University in 1974, Cuba's University of Las Tunas in 1979 and Iraq's Saddam University in 1983, honorary doctorates of business administration from East Berlin's Humboldt University in 1976, Tokyo's Nihon University in 1981 and the London School of Economics in 1984 and the Olympic Order from the IOC in 1985. In September 1987, he became the first East German head of state to visit West Germany, where he was received with full state honours by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in an act that seemed to confirm West Germany's acceptance of East Germany's existence. During this trip he also journeyed to his birthplace in Saarland, where he held an emotional speech in which he spoke of a day when Germans would no longer be separated by borders, but unified under communist rule. This trip had been planned twice before, including September 1984, but was initially blocked by the Soviet leadership which mistrusted the special East-West German relationship, particularly efforts to expand East Germany's limited independence in the realm of foreign policy.
Illness, downfall and resignation
In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika, reforms to liberalise socialist planned economy. Frictions between him and Honecker had grown over these policies and numerous additional issues from 1985 onward. East Germany refused to implement similar reforms, with Honecker reportedly telling Gorbachev: "We have done our perestroika; we have nothing to restructure". Gorbachev grew to dislike Honecker, and by 1988 was lumping him in with Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu as a "Gang of Four": a group of inflexible hardliners unwilling to make reforms.
According to White House experts Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Gorbachev looked to Communist leaders in Eastern Europe to follow his example of perestroika and glasnost. They argue:
Gorbachev himself had no particular sympathy for Erich Honecker, chairman of the East German Communist Party, and his hard-line comrades and the government. As early as 1985... [Gorbachev] had told East German party officials that kindergarten was over; no one would lead them by the hand. They were responsible for their own people. The relations between Gorbachev and Honecker went downhill from there.
Western analysts, according to Zelikow and Rice, believed in 1989 that Communism was still secure in East Germany:
Bolstered by relatively greater affluence than his country's Eastern European neighbors enjoyed in a fantastically elaborate system of internal controls, East Germany's longtime leader Eric Honecker seemed secure in his position. His government had long dealt with dissent through a mixture of brutal repression, forced emigration, and the vent of allowing occasional, limited travel to the West for a substantial part of the population.
Honecker felt betrayed by Gorbachev in his German policy and ensured that official texts of the Soviet Union, especially those concerning perestroika, could no longer be published or sold in East Germany.
At the Warsaw Pact summit on 7–8 July 1989 in Bucharest, the Soviet Union reaffirmed its shift from the Brezhnev Doctrine of the limited sovereignty of its member states, and announced "freedom of choice". The Bucharest statement prescribed that its nations henceforth developed their "own political line, strategy and tactics without external intervention". This called into question the Soviet guarantee of existence for the Communist states in Europe. Already in May 1989 Hungary had begun dismantling its border with Austria, creating the first gap in the so-called Iron Curtain, through which later several thousand East Germans quickly fled in hopes of reaching West Germany by way of Austria. But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 (which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test Gorbachev's reaction to the opening of the border), the subsequent hesitant behaviour of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union opened the floodgates. Thus the united front of the Eastern Bloc was broken. The reaction to this from Erich Honecker in the Daily Mirror of August 19, 1989 was too late and showed the current loss of power: “Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West.” Later, after his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in connection with the summer of 1989: "That this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin." Now tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. A 1969 treaty required the Hungarian government to send the East Germans back home; however, starting on 11 September 1989, the Hungarians let them pass into Austria, telling their outraged East German counterparts that they were refugees and that international treaties on refugees took precedence.
At the time, Honecker was sidelined through illness, leaving his colleagues unable to act decisively. He had been taken ill with biliary colic during the Warsaw Pact summit. He was shortly afterwards flown home to East Berlin. After an initial stabilisation in his health, he underwent surgery on 18 August 1989 to remove his inflamed gallbladder and, due to a perforation, part of his colon. According to the urologist Peter Althaus, the surgeons left a suspected carcinogenic nodule in Honecker’s right kidney due to his weak condition, and also failed to inform the patient of the suspected cancer; other sources say the tumour was simply undetected. As a result of this operation, Honecker was away from his office until late September 1989.
Back in office, Honecker had to contend with the rising number and strength of demonstrations across East Germany that had first been sparked by reports in the West German media of fraudulent results in local elections on 7 May 1989, the same results he had labelled a "convincing reflection" of the populace's faith in his leadership. He also had to deal with a new refugee problem. Several thousand East Germans tried to go to West Germany by way of Czechoslovakia, only to have that government bar them from passing. Several thousands of them headed straight for the West German embassy in Prague and demanded safe passage to West Germany. With some reluctance, Honecker allowed them to go – but forced them to go back through East Germany on sealed trains and stripped them of their East German citizenship. Several members of the SED Politbüro realised this was a serious blunder and made plans to get rid of him.
As unrest visibly grew, large numbers began fleeing the country through the West German embassies in Prague and Budapest, as well as over the borders of the "socialist brother" states. Each month saw tens of thousands more exit. On 3 October 1989 East Germany closed its borders to its eastern neighbours and prevented visa-free travel to Czechoslovakia; a day later these measures were also extended to travel to Bulgaria and Romania. East Germany was now not only behind the Iron Curtain to the West, but also cordoned off from most other Eastern bloc states.
On 6–7 October 1989 the national celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the East German state took place with Gorbachev in attendance. To the surprise of Honecker and the other SED leaders in attendance, several hundred members of the Free German Youth — reckoned as the future vanguard of the party and nation — began chanting, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, save us!". In a private conversation between the two leaders Honecker praised the success of the nation, but Gorbachev knew that, in reality, it faced bankruptcy; East Germany had already accepted billions of dollars in loans from West Germany during the decade as it sought to stabilise its economy. Attempting to make Honecker accept a need for reforms, Gorbachev warned Honecker that "He who is too late is punished by life", yet Honecker maintained that "we will solve our problems ourselves with socialist means". Protests outside the reception at the Palace of the Republic led to hundreds of arrests in which many were brutally beaten by soldiers and police.
As the reform movement spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe, mass demonstrations against the East German government erupted, most prominently in Leipzig—the first of several demonstrations which took place on Monday nights across the country. In response, an elite paratroop unit was dispatched to Leipzig—almost certainly on Honecker's orders, since he was commander-in-chief of the Army. A bloodbath was averted only when local party officials themselves ordered the troops to pull back. In the following week, Honecker faced a torrent of criticism. This gave his Politburo comrades the impetus they needed to replace him.
After a crisis meeting of the Politburo on 10–11 October 1989, Honecker's planned state visit to Denmark was cancelled and, despite his resistance, at the insistence of the government's number-two-man, Egon Krenz, a public statement was issued that called for "suggestions for attractive socialism". Over the following days Krenz worked to secure himself the support of the military and the Stasi and arranged a meeting between Gorbachev and Politburo member Harry Tisch, who was in Moscow, to inform the Kremlin about the now-planned removal of Honecker; Gorbachev reportedly wished them good luck.
The sitting of the SED Central Committee planned for the end of November 1989 was pulled forward a week, with the most urgent item on the agenda now being the composition of the Politburo. Krenz and Mielke attempted by telephone on the night of 16 October to win other Politburo members over to remove Honecker. At the beginning of the session on 17 October, Honecker asked his routine question of "Are there any suggestions for the agenda?" Stoph replied, "Please, general secretary, Erich, I propose that a new item be placed on the agenda. It is the release of Erich Honecker as general secretary and the election of Egon Krenz in his place." Honecker reportedly calmly responded: "Well, then I open the debate".
All those present then spoke, in turn, but none in favour of Honecker. Günter Schabowski even extended the dismissal of Honecker to also include his posts in the State Council and as Chairman of the National Defence Council while childhood friend Günter Mittag moved away from Honecker. Mielke supposedly blamed Honecker for almost all the country's current ills and threatened to publish compromising information that he possessed, if Honecker refused to resign. A ZDF documentary on the matter claims this information was contained in a large red briefcase found in Mielke's possession in 1990. After three hours the Politburo voted to remove Honecker. In accordance with longstanding practice, Honecker voted for his own removal. When the public announcement was made, it was branded as a voluntary decision on Honecker's part, ostensibly "due to health reasons". Krenz was unanimously elected as his successor as General Secretary.
Start of prosecution and asylum attempts
Communist rule in East Germany survived Honecker's removal by only two months. Three weeks after Honecker's ousting the Berlin Wall fell, and the SED swiftly lost control of the country. On 1 December, its guaranteed right to rule was removed from the East German constitution. Two days later he was expelled from the SED along with other former officials. He went on to join the newly founded Communist Party of Germany in 1990, remaining a member until his death.
During November the People's Chamber had already set up a committee to investigate corruption and abuses of office, with Honecker being alleged to have received annual donations from the National Academy of Architecture of around 20,000 marks as an "honorary member". On 5 December 1989 the chief public prosecutor in East Germany formally launched a judicial inquiry against him on charges of high treason, abuses of confidence and embezzlement to the serious disadvantage of socialist property (the charge of high treason was dropped in March 1990). As a result, Honecker was placed under house arrest for a month.
Following the lifting of his house arrest, Honecker and his wife Margot were forced to vacate their apartment in the Waldsiedlung housing area in Wandlitz, exclusively used by senior SED party members, after the People's Chamber decided to put it to use as a sanatorium for the disabled. In any case, Honecker spent the majority of January 1990 in hospital after having the error of the tumour missed in 1989 corrected after the suspicion of cancer was confirmed. Upon leaving the hospital on 29 January he was re-arrested and held at the Berlin-Rummelsburg remand centre. However, on the evening of the following day, 30 January, Honecker was again released from custody: The district court had annulled the arrest warrant and, due to medical reports, certified him unfit for detention and interrogation.
Lacking a home, Honecker instructed his lawyer Wolfgang Vogel to ask the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg for help. Pastor Uwe Holmer, leader of the Hoffnungstal Institute in Lobetal, Bernau bei Berlin, offered the couple a home in his vicarage. This drew immediate condemnation and later demonstrations against the church for assisting the Honeckers, given they had both discriminated against Christians who did not conform with the SED leadership's ideology. Aside from a stay at a holiday home in Lindow in March 1990 that lasted only one day before protests swiftly brought it to an end, the couple resided at the Holmer residence until 3 April 1990.
The couple then moved into a three-room living quarters within the Soviet military hospital in Beelitz. Here, doctors diagnosed a malignant liver tumour following another re-examination. Following German reunification, prosecutors in Berlin issued a further arrest warrant for Honecker in November 1990 on charges that he gave the order to fire on escapees at the Inner German border in 1961 and had repeatedly reiterated that command (most specifically in 1974). However, this warrant was not enforceable because Honecker lay under the protection of Soviet authorities in Beelitz. On 13 March 1991 the Honeckers fled Germany from the Soviet-controlled Sperenberg Airfield to Moscow on a military jet with the aid of Soviet hardliners.
The German Chancellery had only been informed by Soviet diplomats about the Honeckers’ flight to Moscow one hour in advance. It limited its response to a public protest, claiming the existence of an arrest warrant meant the Soviet Union was breaching international law by admitting Honecker. The initial Soviet reaction was that Honecker was now too ill to travel and was receiving medical treatment after a deterioration of his health. He underwent further surgery the following month.
On 11 December 1991 the Honeckers sought refuge in the Chilean Embassy in Moscow, while also applying for political asylum in the Soviet Union. Despite an offer of help from North Korea, Honecker instead reached out to the Chilean government under Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin. Under Honecker's rule, East Germany had granted many Chileans exile following the military coup of 1973 by Augusto Pinochet. In addition his daughter Sonja was married to a Chilean. Chilean authorities, however, stated he could not enter their country without a valid German passport.
Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991 and gave all his powers to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Russian authorities had long been keen on expelling Honecker, against the wishes of Gorbachev, and the new government now demanded that he leave the country or else face deportation.
In June 1992, Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, leader of a center-left coalition, finally assured German Chancellor Helmut Kohl that Honecker would be leaving the embassy in Moscow. Reportedly against his will, Honecker was ejected from the embassy on 29 July 1992 and flown to Berlin's Tegel Airport, where he was arrested and detained in Moabit Prison. By contrast, his wife Margot travelled on a direct flight from Moscow to Santiago, Chile, where she initially stayed with her daughter Sonja. Honecker's lawyers unsuccessfully appealed for him to be released from detention in the period leading up to his trial.
Criminal trial and death
On 12 May 1992, while under protection in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, Honecker, along with several co-defendants, including Erich Mielke, Willi Stoph, Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht, was accused in a 783-page indictment of taking part in the "collective manslaughter" of 68 people as they attempted to flee East Germany. It was alleged that Honecker, in his role as Chairman of the National Defence Council, had both given the decisive order in 1961 for the construction of the Berlin Wall and also, at subsequent meetings, ordered the extensive expansion of the border fortifications around West Berlin and the barriers to the West so as to make any passing impossible. In addition, specifically at a May 1974 sitting of the National Defence Council, he had stated that the development of the border must continue, that lines of fire were warranted along the whole border and, as prior, the use of firearms was essential: "Comrades who have successfully used their firearms [are] to be praised". Honecker, in his role of chairman of the party, was responsible for the deaths of many more than the 68 mentioned above. As of 22 April 2015, well over 1,000 deaths have been discovered mainly through secret East German documentation: "It is still not known for sure how many people died on the inner German border or who they were, as the East German state treated such information as a closely guarded secret. But numbers have risen steadily since unification, as evidence has been gathered from East German records. Current unofficial estimates put the figure at up to 1,100 people." From the same article, "In 1974, Erich Honecker, as Chairman of the GDR's National Defence Council, ordered: 'Firearms are to be ruthlessly used in the event of attempts to break through the border, and the comrades who have successfully used their firearms are to be commended.'"
The charges were approved by the Berlin District Court on 19 October 1992 at the opening of the trial. On the same day, it was decided that the hearing of 56 charges would be postponed and the remaining twelve cases would be the subject of the trial to begin on 12 November 1992. The question of under which laws the former East German leader could be tried was highly controversial and, in the view of many jurists, the process had an uncertain outcome.
During his 70-minute-long statement to the court on 3 December 1992, Honecker said that he had political responsibility for the building of the Berlin Wall and subsequent deaths at the borders, but claimed he was "without juridical, legal or moral guilt". He blamed the escalation of the Cold War for the building of the Berlin Wall, saying the decision had not been taken solely by the East German leadership but all the Warsaw Pact nations that had collectively concluded in 1961 that a "Third World War with millions dead" would be unavoidable without this action. He quoted several West German politicians who had opined that the wall had indeed reduced and stabilised the two factions. He stated that he had always regretted every death, both from a human point of view and due to the political damage they caused.
Making reference to past trials in Germany against communists and socialists such as Karl Marx and August Bebel, he claimed that the legal process against him was politically motivated and a "show trial" against communism. He stated that no court lying in the territory of West Germany had the legal right to place him, his co-defendants or any East German citizen on trial, and that the portrayal of East Germany as an "Unrechtsstaat" was contradictory to its recognition by over one hundred other nations and the UN Security Council. Furthermore, he questioned how a German court could now legally judge his political decisions in the light of the lack of legal action taken over various military operations that had been carried out by Western nations with either overt support or absence of condemnation from (West) Germany. He dismissed public criticism of the Stasi, arguing that journalists in Western countries were praised for denouncing others. While accepting political responsibility for the deaths at the Wall, he believed he was free of any "legal or moral guilt", and thought that East Germany would go down in history as "a sign that socialism is possible and is better than capitalism."
By the time of the proceedings Honecker was already seriously ill. A new CT scan in August 1992 had confirmed an ultrasound examination made in Moscow and the existence of a malignant tumour in the right lobe of his liver. Based on these findings and additional medical testimonies, Honecker’s lawyers requested that the legal proceedings, as far as they were aimed against their client, be abandoned and the arrest warrant against him withdrawn; the cases against both Mielke and Stoph had already been postponed due to their ill health. Arguing that his life expectancy was estimated to be three to six months, while the legal process was forecast to take at least two years, his lawyers questioned whether it was humane to try a dying man. Their application was rejected on 21 December 1992 when the court concluded that, given the seriousness of the charges, no obstacle to the proceedings existed.
Honecker lodged a constitutional complaint to the recently created Berlin Constitutional Court, stating that the decision to proceed violated his fundamental right to human dignity, which was an overriding principle in the Constitution of Berlin, above even the state penal system and criminal justice. On 12 January 1993 Honecker's complaint was upheld and the Berlin District Court therefore abandoned the case and withdrew their arrest warrant. An application for a new arrest warrant was rejected on 13 January. The court also refused to commence with the trial related to the indictment of 12 November 1992, and withdrew the second arrest warrant related to these charges. After a total of 169 days Honecker was released from custody, drawing protests both from victims of the East German state as well as German political figures.
Honecker flew via Brazil to Santiago, Chile, to reunite with his wife and his daughter Sonja, who lived there with her son Roberto. Upon his arrival he was greeted by the leaders of the Chilean Communist and Socialist parties. In contrast, his co-defendants Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht were sentenced on 16 September 1993 to imprisonment of between four and seven-and-a-half years. On 13 April 1993 a final attempt to separate and continue the trial against Honecker in his absence was discontinued. Four days later, on the 66th birthday of his wife Margot, he gave a final public speech, ending with the words: "Socialism is the opposite of what we have now in Germany. For that I would like to say that our beautiful memories of the German Democratic Republic are testimony of a new and just society. And we want to always remain loyal to these things".
On 29 May 1994, Honecker died of liver cancer at the age of 81 in a terraced house in the La Reina district of Santiago. His funeral, arranged by the Communist Party of Chile, was conducted the following day at central cemetery in Santiago.
Family
Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945, he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (née Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death.
By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her, he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.
In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist. However, sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Honecker and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons; however, his bodyguard Bernd Brückner, in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, denied the claims.
Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yáñez Betancourt: Roberto (b. 1974), Mariana (b. 1985), who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Görlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Yáñez, Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at three years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter.
Honecker's daughter divorced Yáñez in 1993. She and her two surviving children still live in Santiago.
Honours and awards
:
Hero of the German Democratic Republic (twice)
Hero of Labour
Patriotic Order of Merit (Honor clasp, in Gold)
Order of Karl Marx (five times)
Order of the Banner of Labor
:
Hero of the Soviet Union
Order of Lenin (thrice)
Order of the October Revolution
Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Other countries:
Grand Star of the Order of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (Austria)
Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Order of José Martí (Cuba)
Order of Playa Girón (Cuba)
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia)
Grand Cross of the White Rose of Finland (Finland)
Order of Augusto Cesar Sandino, 1st class (Nicaragua)
Order of the "Victory of Socialism" (Romania)
Order of Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)
Olympic Order (International Olympic Committee)
In popular culture
Dmitri Vrubel's 1990 mural on the Berlin Wall My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, depicting a socialist "fraternal kiss" between Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev, became known around the world.
A traffic signal inspired by Honecker wearing a jaunty straw hat was used in parts of East Germany (Ost-Ampelmännchen) and has become a symbol of Ostalgie.
Notes
References
Further reading
Bryson, Phillip J., and Manfred Melzer eds. The end of the East German economy: from Honecker to reunification (Palgrave Macmillan, 1991).
Childs, David, ed. Honecker's Germany (London: Taylor & Francis, 1985).
Collier Jr, Irwin L. "GDR economic policy during the honecker era." Eastern European Economics 29.1 (1990): 5–29.
Dennis, Mike. Social and Economic Modernization in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (Burns & Oates, 1993).
Dennis, Mike. "The East German Ministry of State Security and East German Society During the Honecker Era, 1971–1989." in German Writers and the Politics of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 200)3. 3–24 on the STASI
Fulbrook, Mary. (2008) The people's state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker. Yale University Press.
Grix, Jonathan. "Competing approaches to the collapse of the GDR: ‘Top‐down’ vs ‘bottom‐up’," Journal of Area Studies 6#13:121–142, DOI: 10.1080/02613539808455836, Historiography.
Lippmann, Heinz. Honecker and the new politics of Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
McAdams, A. James. "The Honecker trial: the East German past and the German future." Review of Politics 58.1 (1996): 53–80. online
Weitz, Eric D. Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton UP, 1997).
Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp. 195–201.
Primary sources
Honecker, Erich. (1981) From My Life. New York: Pergamon, 1981. .
External links
Honecker im Internet (in German)
www.warheroes.ru – Erich Honecker (in Russian)
Welcoming Address to 1979 Session of the World Peace Council Erich Honecker's speech to the WPC
A Successful Policy Seared to the Needs of the People Volkskammer pamphlet including material by Honecker
1912 births
1994 deaths
People from Neunkirchen, Saarland
People from the Rhine Province
Communist Party of Germany politicians
Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Members of the Provisional Volkskammer
Members of the 1st Volkskammer
Members of the 2nd Volkskammer
Members of the 3rd Volkskammer
Members of the 4th Volkskammer
Members of the 5th Volkskammer
Members of the 6th Volkskammer
Members of the 7th Volkskammer
Members of the 8th Volkskammer
Members of the 9th Volkskammer
Free German Youth members
Communist rulers
Communists in the German Resistance
Collaborators with the Soviet Union
German atheists
German expatriates in Chile
German expatriates in the Soviet Union
Exiled politicians
International Lenin School alumni
People condemned by Nazi courts
People extradited from Russia
People extradited to Germany
German politicians convicted of crimes
Heads of government who were later imprisoned
Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit (honor clasp)
Recipients of the Banner of Labor
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Recipients of the Order of Ho Chi Minh
Recipients of the Grand Star of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria
Foreign Heroes of the Soviet Union
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Deaths from liver cancer
Deaths from cancer in Chile
People of the Cold War
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[
"The Junto, also known as the Leather Apron Club, was a club for mutual improvement established in 1727 by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. The Leather Apron Club's purpose was to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy, and to exchange knowledge of business affairs.\n\nHistory\nFranklin organized a group of friends to provide a structured form of mutual improvement. The group, initially composed of twelve members, called itself the Junto (from the Spanish word junta, or assembly). The members of the Junto were drawn from diverse occupations and backgrounds, but they all shared a spirit of inquiry and a desire to improve themselves, their community, and to help others. Among the original members were printers, surveyors, a cabinetmaker, a clerk, and a bartender. Although most of the members were older than Benjamin Franklin, he was clearly their leader.\n\nAt just 21, he oversaw five men, including Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, who were soon to form the core of the Junto. Franklin was an outgoing, social individual and had become acquainted with these businessmen. This gathering included prominent merchants who met informally to drink and discuss the business of the day. Franklin's congenial ways attracted many unique and learned individuals, and from these, he selected the members for the Junto.\n\nAll members lived in Philadelphia and came from diverse areas of interest and business. Along with Meredith, Potts, and Webb, they included Joseph Breintnall, merchant and scrivener, who also loved poetry and natural history. Thomas Godfrey was a glazier, mathematician, and inventor; and Nicholas Scull II and William Parsons were both surveyors. Scull was also a bibliophile and Parsons a cobbler and astrologer. William Maugridge was a cabinetmaker, William Coleman a merchant's clerk, and Robert Grace a gentleman. Grace's wealth meant he did not have to work, but apparently he brought an intellectual element to the group and a fine library. The twelfth member of the Junto remained a mystery until 2007, when Professor George Boudreau of Penn State discovered a long-forgotten account of the club's refreshments and verified that shoemaker John Jones Jr. was an original member. Jones was a Philadelphia Quaker, a neighbor of Franklin's, and later a founding member of the Library Company of Philadelphia. The club met Friday nights, first in a tavern and later in a house, to discuss moral, political, and scientific topics of the day.\n\nFranklin describes the formation and purpose of the Junto in his autobiography:\n\nPrehistory\nFranklin was influenced by two predecessor organizations in particular.\n\nDry Club\nOne was an English group called the \"Dry Club,\" which had philosopher John Locke, William Popple, and Benjamin Furly among its members during the 1690s (and was itself partially inspired by Furly's \"heretics of the Lantern\" society). It met one evening a week for two hours at a time and required that its members reply affirmatively to the following questions:\n\n Whether he loves all Men, of what Profession or Religion soever?\n Whether he thinks no person ought to be harmed in his Body, Name, or Goods, for mere speculative Opinions, or his external way of Worship?\n Whether he loves and seeks Truth for Truth's sake; and will endeavour impartially to find and receive it himself, and to communicate it to others?\n\nEach member of the club would take turns proposing topics for discussion and moderating these discussions. The discussions were to be held in a spirit of open-minded tolerance:\n\nThat no Person or Opinion be unhandsomely reflected on; but every Member behave himself with all the temper, judgement, modesty, and discretion he is master of.\n\nNeighborhood benefit and reforming societies\nThe other important predecessors were the \"neighborhood benefit societies\" and \"reforming societies\" proposed in Massachusetts by Cotton Mather. Cotton Mather described the neighborhood societies as being composed of a dozen married couples who would meet at one another's homes in succession for prayer and other religious exercises, and also to consider questions like the following:\n\n Who are in any peculiar adversity; and what may be done to comfort them?\n What contention or variance may there be among our neighbours; and what may be done for healing it?\n In what open transgressions do any live? and who shall be desired to carry faithful admonitions to them?\n\nThe similar reforming societies would entertain questions like these:\n\n Can any further methods be devised that ignorance and wickedness may be more chased from our people in general; and that domestic piety, in particular, may flourish among them?\n Is there any instance of oppression or fraudulence in the dealings of any sort of people, which may call for our efforts to rectify it?\n Is there any matter to be humbly recommended to the legislative power, to be enacted into a law for the public benefit?\n Do we know of any person languishing under severe affliction, and is there any thing we can do for the succour of that afflicted neighbour?\n Has any person a proposal to make, for our further advantage and assistance, that we may be in a better and more regular capacity for prosecuting these intentions?\n\nQuestions\nThe Junto's Friday evening meetings were organized around a series of questions that Franklin devised, covering a range of intellectual, personal, business, and community topics. These questions were used as a springboard for discussion and community action. In fact, through the Junto, Franklin promoted such concepts as volunteer fire-fighting clubs, improved security (night watchmen), and a public hospital.\n\nList of questions\nThis is the list of questions Franklin devised to guide the discussions at Junto meetings (from Franklin's papers, dated 1728, and included in some editions of his autobiography):\n Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? Particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?\n What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?\n Has any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?\n Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving well, and by what means?\n Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?\n Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? Or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?\n What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? Of imprudence? Of passion? Or of any other vice or folly?\n What happy effects of temperance? Of prudence? Of moderation? Or of any other virtue?\n Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects?\n Who do you know that are shortly going [on] voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them?\n Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? To their country, to their friends, or to themselves?\n Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? and whether think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?\n Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?\n Have you lately observed any defect in the laws, of which it would be proper to move the legislature an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?\n Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?\n Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? And what can the Junto do towards securing it?\n Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you?\n Have you lately heard any member's character attacked, and how have you defended it?\n Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress?\n In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?\n Have you any weighty affair in hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?\n What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?\n Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?\n Do you see any thing amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?\n\nAny person to be qualified as a member was to stand up, lay his hand upon his chest, over his heart, and be asked the following questions, viz.\n Have you any particular disrespect to any present members? Answer. I have not.\n Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general, of what profession or religion soever? Answer. I do.\n Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Answer. No.\n Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others? Answer. Yes.\n\nSee also\n American Philosophical Society\n Bloomsbury Group\n Headstrong Club\n Invisible College\n Lunar Society\n Toastmasters International\n Whig Junto\n Wicht Club\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Junto Global\n History of the American Philosophical Society and the Junto\n Benjamin Franklin: A Documentary History -- J.A. Leo Lemay\n\n1727 establishments in Pennsylvania\nBenjamin Franklin\nHistory of Philadelphia\nHistory of philosophy\nPhilosophical societies in the United States",
"Sir William Phipson Beale, 1st Baronet, KC (29 October 1839 – 13 April 1922) was a British barrister and Liberal politician.\n\nFamily and education\n\nThe family of which William Phipson Beale was a member was a well-established merchant family in Birmingham by the late 18th century. They produced lawyers, businessmen and politicians. They had commercial interests in banking, railways and ironworks and were associated through business, marriage or politics to many other well-known Birmingham figures; his brother Charles, was uncle to Neville Chamberlain.\n\nBeale was the eldest son of William John Beale from Birmingham. His grandfather William Beale lived at Camp Hill. His mother was Martha Phipson. She too came from a Birmingham family, with a home in Edgbaston. Beale was born in Edgbaston and first educated at the Birmingham and Edgbaston Proprietary School. He later pursued his education at Heidelberg University and in Paris. In 1857, he became member of the Corps Rhenania Heidelberg. In 1869, he married Mary Thompson from Sydney, New South Wales. They never had children.\n\nCareer\n\nBeale first worked in the iron trade in what appears to be one of the family's many concerns, Samuel Beale and Co. of Park Gate, Rotherham. But Beale's father was a solicitor practising in Birmingham and the son too wished to go in for the law. He was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1867, became Queen's Counsel in 1888, in honour of which he was presented to the Prince of Wales, and a Bencher in 1892.\n\nPolitics\nA Liberal in politics, Beale tried hard to become a Member of Parliament. He first stood as a Parliamentary candidate at the 1885 general election at Tamworth. In 1889, he was selected to contest the by-election in Birmingham Central on the death of the sitting Liberal Unionist member John Bright but lost to Bright's son, John Albert Bright. In 1891, he was again chosen to fight a by-election, this time at Aston Manor but again he was unsuccessful.\n\nHe did not contest a seat at the general elections of 1895 or 1900 but he was selected as candidate for the marginal seat of South Ayrshire in time for the 1906 general election when he was finally elected to Parliament. Whilst an MP he voted in favour of the 1908 Women's Enfranchisement Bill. He held the seat until 1918 when he stood down.\n\nPolitics was in the Beale family DNA. Beale's uncle was Samuel Beale (1803–1874), Mayor of Birmingham in 1841 and Liberal MP for Derby from 1857 to 1865. His younger brother, Alderman Charles Gabriel Beale (1843–1912), was Lord Mayor of Birmingham three times in the period between 1897 and 1905.\n\nHonours and appointments\n\nIn 1912 Beale was created a baronet, of Drumlamford in the County of Ayr. In private life, Beale took a serious interest in chemistry and geology. He was a Fellow of the Chemical Society and a Fellow of the Geological Society. He specialised in crystallography and mineralogy and was sometime President of the Mineralogical Society. In 1915 he published An Amateur's Introduction to Crystallography.\n\nDeath\nOn Beale's death at Dorking in April 1922, aged 82, the baronetcy became extinct. His funeral took place at Golders Green Crematorium on 19 April 1922 attended by family members, politicians and representatives of scientific organisations.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1839 births\n1922 deaths\nPeople from Edgbaston\nBritish barristers\nPolitics of Birmingham, West Midlands\nPolitics of South Ayrshire\nScottish Liberal Party MPs\nUK MPs 1906–1910\nUK MPs 1910\nUK MPs 1910–1918\nBaronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom\nMembers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies\nQueen's Counsel 1801–1900"
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"Erich Honecker",
"Family",
"who were the members of Honecker's family?",
"Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann,",
"what did this romance lead to?",
"With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke.",
"did his family get involved in politics?",
"For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports",
"what there any other member of his family in politics?",
"Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yanez Betancourt;"
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what role hid daughter play in politics?
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What role Erich Honecker's daughter play in politics?
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Erich Honecker
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Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945 he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (nee Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death. By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thalmann Pioneer Organisation. In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist, however sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Erich and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons, however, his bodyguard Bernd Bruckner in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, refuted the claims. Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yanez Betancourt; Roberto, (b. 1974) Mariana, (b. 1985) who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Mrs. Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Gorlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Leonardo Mrs Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at 3 years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter. Honecker's daughter, (who divorced Leonardo in 1993) grandson and granddaughter still live in Santiago. CANNOTANSWER
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Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
Honecker's political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Following World War II, he was freed by the Soviet army and relaunched his political activities, founding the SED's youth organisation, the Free German Youth, in 1946 and serving as the group's chairman until 1955. As the Security Secretary of the SED Central Committee, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, in this function, bore administrative responsibility for the "order to fire" along the Wall and the larger inner German border.
In 1970, Honecker initiated a political power struggle that led, with support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to him replacing Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence Council. Under his command, the country adopted a programme of "consumer socialism" and moved towards the international community by normalizing relations with West Germany and also becoming a full member of the UN, in what is considered one of his greatest political successes.
As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s with the advent of perestroika and glasnost—the liberal reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes to the East German political system. He cited the continual hardliner attitudes of Kim Il-sung and Fidel Castro, whose respective countries of governance of North Korea and Cuba had been critical of reforms. As anti-government protests grew, Honecker begged Gorbachev to intervene with the Soviet army to suppress the protests to maintain communist rule in East Germany as Moscow had done with Czechoslovakia in the Prague Spring of 1968 and with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but Gorbachev refused. Honecker was forced to resign by the SED Politburo in October 1989 in a bid to improve the government's image in the eyes of the public; the effort was unsuccessful, and the regime would collapse entirely the following month.
Following German reunification in 1990, Honecker sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, but was extradited back to Germany in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, to stand trial for his role in the human rights abuses committed by the East German government. However, the proceedings were abandoned, as Honecker was suffering from terminal liver cancer. He was freed from custody to join his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994.
Childhood and youth
Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, in what is now Saarland, to Wilhelm Honecker (1881–1969), a coal miner and political activist, and his wife Caroline Catharine Weidenhof (1883–1963). The couple, married in 1905, had six children: Katharina (Käthe, 1906–1925), Wilhelm (Willi, 1907–1944), Frieda (1909–1974), Erich, Gertrud (1917–2010) and Karl-Robert (1923–1947). Erich, their fourth child, was born on 25 August 1912 during the period in which the family resided on Max-Braun-Straße, before later moving to Kuchenbergstraße 88 in the present-day Neunkirchen city district of Wiebelskirchen.
After World War I, the Territory of the Saar Basin was occupied by France. This change from the strict rule of to French military occupation provided the backdrop for what Wilhelm Honecker understood as proletarian exploitation, and introduced young Erich to communism. After his tenth birthday in 1922, Erich Honecker became a member of the Spartacus League's children's group in Wiebelskirchen. Aged 14 he entered the KJVD, the Young Communist League of Germany, for whom he later served the organisation's leader of Saarland from 1931.
Honecker did not find an apprenticeship immediately after leaving school, but instead worked for a farmer in Pomerania for almost two years. In 1928 he returned to Wiebelskirchen and began a traineeship as a roofer with his uncle, but quit to attend the International Lenin School in Moscow and Magnitogorsk after the KJVD handpicked him for a course of study there. There, sharing a room with Anton Ackermann, he studied under the cover name "Fritz Malter".
Opposition to the Nazis and imprisonment
In 1930, aged 18, Honecker entered the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. His political mentor was Otto Niebergall, who later represented the KPD in the Reichstag. After returning from Moscow in 1931 following his studies at the International Lenin School, he became the leader of the KJVD in the Saar region. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Communist activities within Germany were only possible undercover; the Saar region however still remained outside the German Reich under a League of Nations mandate. Honecker was arrested in Essen, Germany but soon released. Following this he fled to the Netherlands and from there oversaw KJVD's activities in Pfalz, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.
Honecker returned to the Saar in 1934 and worked alongside Johannes Hoffmann on the campaign against the region's re-incorporation into Germany. A referendum on the area's future in January 1935 however saw 90.73% vote in favour of reunifying with Germany. Like 4,000 to 8,000 others, Honecker then fled the region, initially relocating to Paris.
On 28 August 1935 he illegally travelled to Berlin under the alias "Marten Tjaden", with a printing press in his luggage. From there he worked closely together with KPD official Herbert Wehner in opposition/resistance to the Nazi state. On 4 December 1935 Honecker was detained by the Gestapo and until 1937 remanded in Berlin's Moabit detention centre. On 3 July 1937 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the "preparation of high treason alongside the severe falsification of documents".
Honecker spent the majority of his incarceration in the Brandenburg-Görden Prison, where he also carried out tasks as a handyman. In early 1945 he was moved to the Barnimstraße Women's Prison in Berlin due to good behaviour and to be put to work repairing the bomb-damaged building, as he was a skilled roofer. During an Allied bombing raid on 6 March 1945 he managed to escape and hid himself at the apartment of Lotte Grund, a female prison guard. After several days she persuaded him to turn himself in and his escape was then covered up by the guard. Honecker spent most of his time in prison under solitary confinement.
After the liberation of the prisons by advancing Soviet troops on 27 April 1945, Honecker remained in Berlin. His "escape" from prison and his relationships during his captivity later led to him experiencing difficulties within the Socialist Unity Party, as well as straining his relations with his former inmates. In later interviews and in his personal memoirs, Honecker falsified many of the details of his life during this period. Material from the East German State Security Service has been used to allege that, to be released from prison, Honecker offered the Gestapo evidence incriminating fellow imprisoned Communists, claimed he had renounced Communism "for good", and was willing to serve in the German army.
Post-war return to politics
In May 1945 Honecker was "picked up" by chance in Berlin by Hans Mahle and taken to the Ulbricht Group, a collective of exiled German communists that had returned from the Soviet Union to Germany after the end of the Nazi regime. Through Waldemar Schmidt, Honecker befriended Walter Ulbricht, who had not been aware of him at that point. Honecker's future role in the group was still undecided until well into the summer months, as he had yet to face a party process. This ended in a reprimand due to his "undisciplined conduct" in fleeing from prison at the start of the year, an action which was debated upon it jeopardizing the other (communist) inmates.
In 1946, Honecker became the co-founder of the Free German Youth (FDJ), whose chairmanship he also undertook. After the formation of the SED, the Socialist Unity Party, in April 1946 through a merger of the KPD and SPD, Honecker swiftly became a leading party member and took his place in the party's Central Committee.
On 7 October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was formed with the adoption of a new constitution, establishing a political system similar to that of the Soviet Union. Within the state's socialist single party government, Honecker determinedly resumed his political career and the following year was nominated as a candidate for the Politbüro of the SED's Central Committee. As President of the Free German Youth movement, he organised the inaugural "Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend" in East Berlin in May 1950 and the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in 1951, although the latter was beset with organisational problems.
During the internal party unrest following the suppressed uprising of June 1953, Honecker sided with First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, despite the majority of the Politburo attempting to depose Ulbricht in favour of Rudolf Herrnstadt. Honecker himself though faced questioning from party members about his inadequate qualifications for his position. On 27 May 1955 he handed the Presidency of the FDJ over to Karl Namokel, and departed for Moscow to study for two years at the School of the Soviet Communist Party at Ulbricht's request. During this period he witnessed the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in person, where its First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin.
After returning to East Germany in 1958, Honecker became a fully-fledged member of the Politburo, taking over responsibility for military and security issues. As the Party Security Secretary he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and also a proponent of the "order to fire" along the Inner German border.
Leadership of East Germany
While Ulbricht had replaced the state's command economy with, firstly the "New Economic System", then the Economic System of Socialism, as he sought to improve the country's failing economy, Honecker declared the main task to in fact be the "unity of economic and social politics", essentially through which living standards (with increased consumer goods) would be raised in exchange for political loyalty. Tensions had already led to his once-mentor Ulbricht removing Honecker from the position of Second Secretary in July 1970, only for the Soviet leadership to swiftly reinstate him. Honecker played up the thawing East-West German relationship as Ulbricht's strategy, to win the support of the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev. With this secured, Honecker was appointed First Secretary (from 1976 titled general secretary) of the Central Committee on 3 May 1971 after the Soviet leadership forced Ulbricht to step aside "for health reasons".
After also succeeding Ulbricht as Chairman of the National Defence Council in 1971, Honecker was eventually also elected Chairman of the State Council (a post equivalent to that of president) on 29 October 1976. With this, Honecker reached the height of power within East Germany. From there on, he, along with Economic Secretary Günter Mittag and Minister of State Security Erich Mielke, made all key government decisions. Until 1989 the "little strategic clique" composed of these three men was unchallenged as the top level of East Germany's ruling class. Honecker's closest colleague was , the SED's Agitation and Propaganda Secretary. Alongside him, Honecker held daily meetings concerning the party's media representation in which the layout of the party's own newspaper Neues Deutschland, as well as the sequencing of news items in the national news bulletin Aktuelle Kamera, were determined.
Under Honecker's leadership, East Germany adopted a programme of "consumer socialism", which resulted in a marked improvement in living standards already the highest among the Eastern bloc countries. More attention was placed on the availability of consumer goods, and the construction of new housing was accelerated, with Honecker promising to "settle the housing problem as an issue of social relevance". His policies were initially marked by a liberalisation toward culture and art, though this was less about the replacement of Ulbricht by Honecker and more for propaganda purposes. While 1973 brought the World Festival of Youth and Students to East Berlin, soon dissident artists such as Wolf Biermann were expelled and the Ministry for State Security raised its efforts to suppress political resistance. Honecker remained committed to the expansion of the Inner German border and the "order to fire" policy along it. During his time in office around 125 East German citizens were killed while trying to reach the West.
After the Federal Republic had secured an agreement with the Soviet Union on cooperation and a policy of non-violence, it became possible to reach a similar agreement with the GDR. The Basic Treaty between East and West Germany in 1972 sought to normalise contacts between the two governments.
East Germany also participated in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975, which attempted to improve relations between the West and the Eastern Bloc, and became a full member of the United Nations. These acts of diplomacy were considered Honecker’s greatest successes in foreign politics.
Honecker received additional high-profile personal recognitions including honorary doctorates of humane letters from North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung University in 1974, Cuba's University of Las Tunas in 1979 and Iraq's Saddam University in 1983, honorary doctorates of business administration from East Berlin's Humboldt University in 1976, Tokyo's Nihon University in 1981 and the London School of Economics in 1984 and the Olympic Order from the IOC in 1985. In September 1987, he became the first East German head of state to visit West Germany, where he was received with full state honours by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in an act that seemed to confirm West Germany's acceptance of East Germany's existence. During this trip he also journeyed to his birthplace in Saarland, where he held an emotional speech in which he spoke of a day when Germans would no longer be separated by borders, but unified under communist rule. This trip had been planned twice before, including September 1984, but was initially blocked by the Soviet leadership which mistrusted the special East-West German relationship, particularly efforts to expand East Germany's limited independence in the realm of foreign policy.
Illness, downfall and resignation
In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika, reforms to liberalise socialist planned economy. Frictions between him and Honecker had grown over these policies and numerous additional issues from 1985 onward. East Germany refused to implement similar reforms, with Honecker reportedly telling Gorbachev: "We have done our perestroika; we have nothing to restructure". Gorbachev grew to dislike Honecker, and by 1988 was lumping him in with Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Czechoslovakia's Gustáv Husák and Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu as a "Gang of Four": a group of inflexible hardliners unwilling to make reforms.
According to White House experts Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Gorbachev looked to Communist leaders in Eastern Europe to follow his example of perestroika and glasnost. They argue:
Gorbachev himself had no particular sympathy for Erich Honecker, chairman of the East German Communist Party, and his hard-line comrades and the government. As early as 1985... [Gorbachev] had told East German party officials that kindergarten was over; no one would lead them by the hand. They were responsible for their own people. The relations between Gorbachev and Honecker went downhill from there.
Western analysts, according to Zelikow and Rice, believed in 1989 that Communism was still secure in East Germany:
Bolstered by relatively greater affluence than his country's Eastern European neighbors enjoyed in a fantastically elaborate system of internal controls, East Germany's longtime leader Eric Honecker seemed secure in his position. His government had long dealt with dissent through a mixture of brutal repression, forced emigration, and the vent of allowing occasional, limited travel to the West for a substantial part of the population.
Honecker felt betrayed by Gorbachev in his German policy and ensured that official texts of the Soviet Union, especially those concerning perestroika, could no longer be published or sold in East Germany.
At the Warsaw Pact summit on 7–8 July 1989 in Bucharest, the Soviet Union reaffirmed its shift from the Brezhnev Doctrine of the limited sovereignty of its member states, and announced "freedom of choice". The Bucharest statement prescribed that its nations henceforth developed their "own political line, strategy and tactics without external intervention". This called into question the Soviet guarantee of existence for the Communist states in Europe. Already in May 1989 Hungary had begun dismantling its border with Austria, creating the first gap in the so-called Iron Curtain, through which later several thousand East Germans quickly fled in hopes of reaching West Germany by way of Austria. But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 (which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test Gorbachev's reaction to the opening of the border), the subsequent hesitant behaviour of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union opened the floodgates. Thus the united front of the Eastern Bloc was broken. The reaction to this from Erich Honecker in the Daily Mirror of August 19, 1989 was too late and showed the current loss of power: “Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West.” Later, after his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in connection with the summer of 1989: "That this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin." Now tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. A 1969 treaty required the Hungarian government to send the East Germans back home; however, starting on 11 September 1989, the Hungarians let them pass into Austria, telling their outraged East German counterparts that they were refugees and that international treaties on refugees took precedence.
At the time, Honecker was sidelined through illness, leaving his colleagues unable to act decisively. He had been taken ill with biliary colic during the Warsaw Pact summit. He was shortly afterwards flown home to East Berlin. After an initial stabilisation in his health, he underwent surgery on 18 August 1989 to remove his inflamed gallbladder and, due to a perforation, part of his colon. According to the urologist Peter Althaus, the surgeons left a suspected carcinogenic nodule in Honecker’s right kidney due to his weak condition, and also failed to inform the patient of the suspected cancer; other sources say the tumour was simply undetected. As a result of this operation, Honecker was away from his office until late September 1989.
Back in office, Honecker had to contend with the rising number and strength of demonstrations across East Germany that had first been sparked by reports in the West German media of fraudulent results in local elections on 7 May 1989, the same results he had labelled a "convincing reflection" of the populace's faith in his leadership. He also had to deal with a new refugee problem. Several thousand East Germans tried to go to West Germany by way of Czechoslovakia, only to have that government bar them from passing. Several thousands of them headed straight for the West German embassy in Prague and demanded safe passage to West Germany. With some reluctance, Honecker allowed them to go – but forced them to go back through East Germany on sealed trains and stripped them of their East German citizenship. Several members of the SED Politbüro realised this was a serious blunder and made plans to get rid of him.
As unrest visibly grew, large numbers began fleeing the country through the West German embassies in Prague and Budapest, as well as over the borders of the "socialist brother" states. Each month saw tens of thousands more exit. On 3 October 1989 East Germany closed its borders to its eastern neighbours and prevented visa-free travel to Czechoslovakia; a day later these measures were also extended to travel to Bulgaria and Romania. East Germany was now not only behind the Iron Curtain to the West, but also cordoned off from most other Eastern bloc states.
On 6–7 October 1989 the national celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the East German state took place with Gorbachev in attendance. To the surprise of Honecker and the other SED leaders in attendance, several hundred members of the Free German Youth — reckoned as the future vanguard of the party and nation — began chanting, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, save us!". In a private conversation between the two leaders Honecker praised the success of the nation, but Gorbachev knew that, in reality, it faced bankruptcy; East Germany had already accepted billions of dollars in loans from West Germany during the decade as it sought to stabilise its economy. Attempting to make Honecker accept a need for reforms, Gorbachev warned Honecker that "He who is too late is punished by life", yet Honecker maintained that "we will solve our problems ourselves with socialist means". Protests outside the reception at the Palace of the Republic led to hundreds of arrests in which many were brutally beaten by soldiers and police.
As the reform movement spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe, mass demonstrations against the East German government erupted, most prominently in Leipzig—the first of several demonstrations which took place on Monday nights across the country. In response, an elite paratroop unit was dispatched to Leipzig—almost certainly on Honecker's orders, since he was commander-in-chief of the Army. A bloodbath was averted only when local party officials themselves ordered the troops to pull back. In the following week, Honecker faced a torrent of criticism. This gave his Politburo comrades the impetus they needed to replace him.
After a crisis meeting of the Politburo on 10–11 October 1989, Honecker's planned state visit to Denmark was cancelled and, despite his resistance, at the insistence of the government's number-two-man, Egon Krenz, a public statement was issued that called for "suggestions for attractive socialism". Over the following days Krenz worked to secure himself the support of the military and the Stasi and arranged a meeting between Gorbachev and Politburo member Harry Tisch, who was in Moscow, to inform the Kremlin about the now-planned removal of Honecker; Gorbachev reportedly wished them good luck.
The sitting of the SED Central Committee planned for the end of November 1989 was pulled forward a week, with the most urgent item on the agenda now being the composition of the Politburo. Krenz and Mielke attempted by telephone on the night of 16 October to win other Politburo members over to remove Honecker. At the beginning of the session on 17 October, Honecker asked his routine question of "Are there any suggestions for the agenda?" Stoph replied, "Please, general secretary, Erich, I propose that a new item be placed on the agenda. It is the release of Erich Honecker as general secretary and the election of Egon Krenz in his place." Honecker reportedly calmly responded: "Well, then I open the debate".
All those present then spoke, in turn, but none in favour of Honecker. Günter Schabowski even extended the dismissal of Honecker to also include his posts in the State Council and as Chairman of the National Defence Council while childhood friend Günter Mittag moved away from Honecker. Mielke supposedly blamed Honecker for almost all the country's current ills and threatened to publish compromising information that he possessed, if Honecker refused to resign. A ZDF documentary on the matter claims this information was contained in a large red briefcase found in Mielke's possession in 1990. After three hours the Politburo voted to remove Honecker. In accordance with longstanding practice, Honecker voted for his own removal. When the public announcement was made, it was branded as a voluntary decision on Honecker's part, ostensibly "due to health reasons". Krenz was unanimously elected as his successor as General Secretary.
Start of prosecution and asylum attempts
Communist rule in East Germany survived Honecker's removal by only two months. Three weeks after Honecker's ousting the Berlin Wall fell, and the SED swiftly lost control of the country. On 1 December, its guaranteed right to rule was removed from the East German constitution. Two days later he was expelled from the SED along with other former officials. He went on to join the newly founded Communist Party of Germany in 1990, remaining a member until his death.
During November the People's Chamber had already set up a committee to investigate corruption and abuses of office, with Honecker being alleged to have received annual donations from the National Academy of Architecture of around 20,000 marks as an "honorary member". On 5 December 1989 the chief public prosecutor in East Germany formally launched a judicial inquiry against him on charges of high treason, abuses of confidence and embezzlement to the serious disadvantage of socialist property (the charge of high treason was dropped in March 1990). As a result, Honecker was placed under house arrest for a month.
Following the lifting of his house arrest, Honecker and his wife Margot were forced to vacate their apartment in the Waldsiedlung housing area in Wandlitz, exclusively used by senior SED party members, after the People's Chamber decided to put it to use as a sanatorium for the disabled. In any case, Honecker spent the majority of January 1990 in hospital after having the error of the tumour missed in 1989 corrected after the suspicion of cancer was confirmed. Upon leaving the hospital on 29 January he was re-arrested and held at the Berlin-Rummelsburg remand centre. However, on the evening of the following day, 30 January, Honecker was again released from custody: The district court had annulled the arrest warrant and, due to medical reports, certified him unfit for detention and interrogation.
Lacking a home, Honecker instructed his lawyer Wolfgang Vogel to ask the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg for help. Pastor Uwe Holmer, leader of the Hoffnungstal Institute in Lobetal, Bernau bei Berlin, offered the couple a home in his vicarage. This drew immediate condemnation and later demonstrations against the church for assisting the Honeckers, given they had both discriminated against Christians who did not conform with the SED leadership's ideology. Aside from a stay at a holiday home in Lindow in March 1990 that lasted only one day before protests swiftly brought it to an end, the couple resided at the Holmer residence until 3 April 1990.
The couple then moved into a three-room living quarters within the Soviet military hospital in Beelitz. Here, doctors diagnosed a malignant liver tumour following another re-examination. Following German reunification, prosecutors in Berlin issued a further arrest warrant for Honecker in November 1990 on charges that he gave the order to fire on escapees at the Inner German border in 1961 and had repeatedly reiterated that command (most specifically in 1974). However, this warrant was not enforceable because Honecker lay under the protection of Soviet authorities in Beelitz. On 13 March 1991 the Honeckers fled Germany from the Soviet-controlled Sperenberg Airfield to Moscow on a military jet with the aid of Soviet hardliners.
The German Chancellery had only been informed by Soviet diplomats about the Honeckers’ flight to Moscow one hour in advance. It limited its response to a public protest, claiming the existence of an arrest warrant meant the Soviet Union was breaching international law by admitting Honecker. The initial Soviet reaction was that Honecker was now too ill to travel and was receiving medical treatment after a deterioration of his health. He underwent further surgery the following month.
On 11 December 1991 the Honeckers sought refuge in the Chilean Embassy in Moscow, while also applying for political asylum in the Soviet Union. Despite an offer of help from North Korea, Honecker instead reached out to the Chilean government under Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin. Under Honecker's rule, East Germany had granted many Chileans exile following the military coup of 1973 by Augusto Pinochet. In addition his daughter Sonja was married to a Chilean. Chilean authorities, however, stated he could not enter their country without a valid German passport.
Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991 and gave all his powers to Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Russian authorities had long been keen on expelling Honecker, against the wishes of Gorbachev, and the new government now demanded that he leave the country or else face deportation.
In June 1992, Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, leader of a center-left coalition, finally assured German Chancellor Helmut Kohl that Honecker would be leaving the embassy in Moscow. Reportedly against his will, Honecker was ejected from the embassy on 29 July 1992 and flown to Berlin's Tegel Airport, where he was arrested and detained in Moabit Prison. By contrast, his wife Margot travelled on a direct flight from Moscow to Santiago, Chile, where she initially stayed with her daughter Sonja. Honecker's lawyers unsuccessfully appealed for him to be released from detention in the period leading up to his trial.
Criminal trial and death
On 12 May 1992, while under protection in the Chilean embassy in Moscow, Honecker, along with several co-defendants, including Erich Mielke, Willi Stoph, Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht, was accused in a 783-page indictment of taking part in the "collective manslaughter" of 68 people as they attempted to flee East Germany. It was alleged that Honecker, in his role as Chairman of the National Defence Council, had both given the decisive order in 1961 for the construction of the Berlin Wall and also, at subsequent meetings, ordered the extensive expansion of the border fortifications around West Berlin and the barriers to the West so as to make any passing impossible. In addition, specifically at a May 1974 sitting of the National Defence Council, he had stated that the development of the border must continue, that lines of fire were warranted along the whole border and, as prior, the use of firearms was essential: "Comrades who have successfully used their firearms [are] to be praised". Honecker, in his role of chairman of the party, was responsible for the deaths of many more than the 68 mentioned above. As of 22 April 2015, well over 1,000 deaths have been discovered mainly through secret East German documentation: "It is still not known for sure how many people died on the inner German border or who they were, as the East German state treated such information as a closely guarded secret. But numbers have risen steadily since unification, as evidence has been gathered from East German records. Current unofficial estimates put the figure at up to 1,100 people." From the same article, "In 1974, Erich Honecker, as Chairman of the GDR's National Defence Council, ordered: 'Firearms are to be ruthlessly used in the event of attempts to break through the border, and the comrades who have successfully used their firearms are to be commended.'"
The charges were approved by the Berlin District Court on 19 October 1992 at the opening of the trial. On the same day, it was decided that the hearing of 56 charges would be postponed and the remaining twelve cases would be the subject of the trial to begin on 12 November 1992. The question of under which laws the former East German leader could be tried was highly controversial and, in the view of many jurists, the process had an uncertain outcome.
During his 70-minute-long statement to the court on 3 December 1992, Honecker said that he had political responsibility for the building of the Berlin Wall and subsequent deaths at the borders, but claimed he was "without juridical, legal or moral guilt". He blamed the escalation of the Cold War for the building of the Berlin Wall, saying the decision had not been taken solely by the East German leadership but all the Warsaw Pact nations that had collectively concluded in 1961 that a "Third World War with millions dead" would be unavoidable without this action. He quoted several West German politicians who had opined that the wall had indeed reduced and stabilised the two factions. He stated that he had always regretted every death, both from a human point of view and due to the political damage they caused.
Making reference to past trials in Germany against communists and socialists such as Karl Marx and August Bebel, he claimed that the legal process against him was politically motivated and a "show trial" against communism. He stated that no court lying in the territory of West Germany had the legal right to place him, his co-defendants or any East German citizen on trial, and that the portrayal of East Germany as an "Unrechtsstaat" was contradictory to its recognition by over one hundred other nations and the UN Security Council. Furthermore, he questioned how a German court could now legally judge his political decisions in the light of the lack of legal action taken over various military operations that had been carried out by Western nations with either overt support or absence of condemnation from (West) Germany. He dismissed public criticism of the Stasi, arguing that journalists in Western countries were praised for denouncing others. While accepting political responsibility for the deaths at the Wall, he believed he was free of any "legal or moral guilt", and thought that East Germany would go down in history as "a sign that socialism is possible and is better than capitalism."
By the time of the proceedings Honecker was already seriously ill. A new CT scan in August 1992 had confirmed an ultrasound examination made in Moscow and the existence of a malignant tumour in the right lobe of his liver. Based on these findings and additional medical testimonies, Honecker’s lawyers requested that the legal proceedings, as far as they were aimed against their client, be abandoned and the arrest warrant against him withdrawn; the cases against both Mielke and Stoph had already been postponed due to their ill health. Arguing that his life expectancy was estimated to be three to six months, while the legal process was forecast to take at least two years, his lawyers questioned whether it was humane to try a dying man. Their application was rejected on 21 December 1992 when the court concluded that, given the seriousness of the charges, no obstacle to the proceedings existed.
Honecker lodged a constitutional complaint to the recently created Berlin Constitutional Court, stating that the decision to proceed violated his fundamental right to human dignity, which was an overriding principle in the Constitution of Berlin, above even the state penal system and criminal justice. On 12 January 1993 Honecker's complaint was upheld and the Berlin District Court therefore abandoned the case and withdrew their arrest warrant. An application for a new arrest warrant was rejected on 13 January. The court also refused to commence with the trial related to the indictment of 12 November 1992, and withdrew the second arrest warrant related to these charges. After a total of 169 days Honecker was released from custody, drawing protests both from victims of the East German state as well as German political figures.
Honecker flew via Brazil to Santiago, Chile, to reunite with his wife and his daughter Sonja, who lived there with her son Roberto. Upon his arrival he was greeted by the leaders of the Chilean Communist and Socialist parties. In contrast, his co-defendants Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht were sentenced on 16 September 1993 to imprisonment of between four and seven-and-a-half years. On 13 April 1993 a final attempt to separate and continue the trial against Honecker in his absence was discontinued. Four days later, on the 66th birthday of his wife Margot, he gave a final public speech, ending with the words: "Socialism is the opposite of what we have now in Germany. For that I would like to say that our beautiful memories of the German Democratic Republic are testimony of a new and just society. And we want to always remain loyal to these things".
On 29 May 1994, Honecker died of liver cancer at the age of 81 in a terraced house in the La Reina district of Santiago. His funeral, arranged by the Communist Party of Chile, was conducted the following day at central cemetery in Santiago.
Family
Honecker was married three times. After being liberated from prison in 1945, he married the prison warden Charlotte Schanuel (née Drost), nine years his senior, on 23 December 1946. She died suddenly from a brain tumour in June 1947. Details of this marriage were not revealed until 2003, well after his death.
By the time of her death, Honecker was already romantically involved with the Free German Youth official Edith Baumann, whom he met on a trip to Moscow. With her, he had a daughter, Erika (b. 1950), who later gave him his granddaughter Anke. Sources differ on whether Honecker and Baumann married in 1947 or 1949, but in 1952 he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Sonja (b. December 1952), with Margot Feist, a People's Chamber member and chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.
In September 1950, Baumann wrote directly to Walter Ulbricht to inform him of her husband's extramarital activity in the hope of him pressuring Honecker to end his relationship with Feist. Following his divorce and reportedly under pressure from the Politburo, he married Feist. However, sources again differ on both the year of his divorce from Baumann and of his marriage to Feist; depending on the source, the events took place either in 1953 or 1955. For more than twenty years, Margot Honecker served as Minister of National Education. In 2012 intelligence reports collated by West German spies alleged that both Honecker and his wife had secret affairs but did not divorce for political reasons; however, his bodyguard Bernd Brückner, in a book about his time spent in Honecker's service, denied the claims.
Honecker had three grandchildren from his daughter Sonja, who had married the Chilean-born exile Leonardo Yáñez Betancourt: Roberto (b. 1974), Mariana (b. 1985), who died in 1988 at the age of two leaving Honecker himself heartbroken, and Vivian (b. 1988). Roberto's origins are debated; he is claimed to be the illegally adopted son of Heidi Stein, Dirk Schiller, born on 13 June 1975 in Görlitz, who disappeared in March 1979, due to alleged physical similarities between Dirk and Yáñez, Stein suspecting that her son might have been kidnapped at three years old by Stasi agents for Honecker's younger daughter.
Honecker's daughter divorced Yáñez in 1993. She and her two surviving children still live in Santiago.
Honours and awards
:
Hero of the German Democratic Republic (twice)
Hero of Labour
Patriotic Order of Merit (Honor clasp, in Gold)
Order of Karl Marx (five times)
Order of the Banner of Labor
:
Hero of the Soviet Union
Order of Lenin (thrice)
Order of the October Revolution
Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Other countries:
Grand Star of the Order of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (Austria)
Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Order of José Martí (Cuba)
Order of Playa Girón (Cuba)
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia)
Grand Cross of the White Rose of Finland (Finland)
Order of Augusto Cesar Sandino, 1st class (Nicaragua)
Order of the "Victory of Socialism" (Romania)
Order of Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)
Olympic Order (International Olympic Committee)
In popular culture
Dmitri Vrubel's 1990 mural on the Berlin Wall My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, depicting a socialist "fraternal kiss" between Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev, became known around the world.
A traffic signal inspired by Honecker wearing a jaunty straw hat was used in parts of East Germany (Ost-Ampelmännchen) and has become a symbol of Ostalgie.
Notes
References
Further reading
Bryson, Phillip J., and Manfred Melzer eds. The end of the East German economy: from Honecker to reunification (Palgrave Macmillan, 1991).
Childs, David, ed. Honecker's Germany (London: Taylor & Francis, 1985).
Collier Jr, Irwin L. "GDR economic policy during the honecker era." Eastern European Economics 29.1 (1990): 5–29.
Dennis, Mike. Social and Economic Modernization in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (Burns & Oates, 1993).
Dennis, Mike. "The East German Ministry of State Security and East German Society During the Honecker Era, 1971–1989." in German Writers and the Politics of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 200)3. 3–24 on the STASI
Fulbrook, Mary. (2008) The people's state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker. Yale University Press.
Grix, Jonathan. "Competing approaches to the collapse of the GDR: ‘Top‐down’ vs ‘bottom‐up’," Journal of Area Studies 6#13:121–142, DOI: 10.1080/02613539808455836, Historiography.
Lippmann, Heinz. Honecker and the new politics of Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
McAdams, A. James. "The Honecker trial: the East German past and the German future." Review of Politics 58.1 (1996): 53–80. online
Weitz, Eric D. Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton UP, 1997).
Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp. 195–201.
Primary sources
Honecker, Erich. (1981) From My Life. New York: Pergamon, 1981. .
External links
Honecker im Internet (in German)
www.warheroes.ru – Erich Honecker (in Russian)
Welcoming Address to 1979 Session of the World Peace Council Erich Honecker's speech to the WPC
A Successful Policy Seared to the Needs of the People Volkskammer pamphlet including material by Honecker
1912 births
1994 deaths
People from Neunkirchen, Saarland
People from the Rhine Province
Communist Party of Germany politicians
Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Members of the Provisional Volkskammer
Members of the 1st Volkskammer
Members of the 2nd Volkskammer
Members of the 3rd Volkskammer
Members of the 4th Volkskammer
Members of the 5th Volkskammer
Members of the 6th Volkskammer
Members of the 7th Volkskammer
Members of the 8th Volkskammer
Members of the 9th Volkskammer
Free German Youth members
Communist rulers
Communists in the German Resistance
Collaborators with the Soviet Union
German atheists
German expatriates in Chile
German expatriates in the Soviet Union
Exiled politicians
International Lenin School alumni
People condemned by Nazi courts
People extradited from Russia
People extradited to Germany
German politicians convicted of crimes
Heads of government who were later imprisoned
Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit (honor clasp)
Recipients of the Banner of Labor
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Recipients of the Order of Ho Chi Minh
Recipients of the Grand Star of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria
Foreign Heroes of the Soviet Union
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Deaths from liver cancer
Deaths from cancer in Chile
People of the Cold War
| false |
[
"Madhavi is an Indian play written in Hindi by Bhisham Sahni. This is a play in three acts which recounts an ancient tale of Madhavi, daughter of king Yayati from Mahabharata.\n\nPlot\nThe play is based on the story of Madhavi, daughter of King Yayati.\n\nPerformances in theatre\nThe play has been staged in different forms over the years. It was first staged by director Rajendra Nath in 1982. In 2005, Rashi Bunny performed it as a solo play directed by Arvind Gaur.\n\nIn 2016,the play was staged in Shilpee theatre in Kathmandu. The play was staged and translated into Nepali by Tanka Chaulagain with Yuvraj Ghimire, Jeevan Baral, Archana Panthi, Pradip Regmi,etc. as actors.\n\nReferences\n\nBooks about politics of India\nRajkamal Prakashan books\nIndian plays\n1982 plays\nHindi theatre\nWorks based on the Mahabharata",
"A human interface device or HID is a type of computer device usually used by humans that takes input from humans and gives output to humans. \n\nThe term \"HID\" most commonly refers to the USB-HID specification. The term was coined by Mike Van Flandern of Microsoft when he proposed that the USB committee create a Human Input Device class working group. The working group was renamed as the Human Interface Device class at the suggestion of Tom Schmidt of DEC because the proposed standard supported bi-directional communication.\n\nHID standard \nThe HID standard was adopted primarily to enable innovation in PC input devices and to simplify the process of installing such devices. Prior to the introduction of the HID concept, devices usually conformed to strictly defined protocols for mouse, keyboards and joysticks; for example, the standard mouse protocol at the time supported relative X- and Y-axis data and binary input for up to two buttons, with no legacy support. All hardware innovations necessitated either overloading the use of data in an existing protocol or the creation of custom device drivers and the evangelization of a new protocol to developers. By contrast, all HID-defined devices deliver self-describing packages that may contain any number of data types and formats. A single HID driver on a computer parses data and enables dynamic association of data I/O with application functionality, which has enabled rapid innovation and development, and prolific diversification of new human-interface devices.\n\nA working committee with representatives from several prominent companies developed the HID standard. The list of participants appears in the \"Device Class Definition for Human Interface Devices (HID)\"\ndocument. The concept of a self-describing extensible protocol initially came from Mike Van Flandern and Manolito Adan while working on a project named \"Raptor\" at Microsoft, and independently from Steve McGowan, who worked on a device protocol for Access Bus while at Forte. After comparing notes at a Consumer Game Developer Conference, Steve and Mike agreed to collaborate on a new standard for the emerging Universal Serial Bus (USB).\n\nThe HID protocol has its limitations, but all modern mainstream operating systems will recognize standard USB HID devices, such as keyboards and mice, without needing a specialized driver. When installed, a message saying that \"A 'HID-compliant device' has been recognized\" generally appears on screen. In comparison, this message does not usually appear for devices connected via the PS/2 6-pin DIN connectors which preceded USB. PS/2 does not typically support plug-and-play, which means that connecting a PS/2 keyboard or mouse with the computer powered on does not always work and may pose a hazard to the computer's motherboard. Likewise, the PS/2 standard does not support the HID protocol. The USB human interface device class describes a USB HID.\n\nComponents of the HID protocol \nIn the HID protocol, there are 2 entities: the \"host\" and the \"device\". The device is the entity that directly interacts with a human, such as a keyboard or mouse. The host communicates with the device and receives input data from the device on actions performed by the human. Output data flows from the host to the device and then to the human. The most common example of a host is a PC but some cell phones and PDAs also can be hosts.\n\nThe HID protocol makes implementation of devices very simple. Devices define their data packets and then present a \"HID descriptor\" to the host. The HID descriptor is a hard coded array of bytes that describes the device's data packets. This includes: how many packets the device supports, the size of the packets, and the purpose of each byte and bit in the packet. For example, a keyboard with a calculator program button can tell the host that the button's pressed/released state is stored as the 2nd bit in the 6th byte in data packet number 4 (note: these locations are only illustrative and are device-specific). The device typically stores the HID descriptor in ROM and does not need to intrinsically understand or parse the HID descriptor. Some mouse and keyboard hardware in the market today is implemented using only an 8-bit CPU.\n\nThe host is expected to be a more complex entity than the device. The host needs to retrieve the HID descriptor from the device and parse it before it can fully communicate with the device. Parsing the HID descriptor can be complicated. Multiple operating systems are known to have shipped bugs in the device drivers responsible for parsing the HID descriptors years after the device drivers were originally released to the public. However, this complexity is the reason why rapid innovation with HID devices is possible.\n\nThe above mechanism describes what is known as HID \"report protocol\". Because it was understood that not all hosts would be capable of parsing HID descriptors, HID also defines \"boot protocol\". In boot protocol, only specific devices are supported with only specific features because fixed data packet formats are used. The HID descriptor is not used in this mode so innovation is limited. However, the benefit is that minimal functionality is still possible on hosts that otherwise would be unable to support HID. The only devices supported in boot protocol are\n Keyboard – Any of the first 256 key codes (\"Usages\") defined in the HID Usage Tables, Usage Page 7 can be reported by a keyboard using the boot protocol, but most systems only handle a subset of these keys. Most systems support all 104 keys on the IBM AT-101 layout, plus the three extra keys designed for Microsoft Windows 95 (the left and right Windows key, and the Menu key). Many systems also support additional keys on basic western European 105-, Korean 106-, Brazilian ABNT 107- and Japanese DOS/V 109-key layouts. Buttons, knobs and keys that are not reported on Usage Page 7 are not available. For example, a particular US keyboard's QWERTY keys will function but the Calculator and Logoff keys will not because they are defined on Usage Page 12 and cannot be reported in boot protocol.\n Mouse – Only the X-axis, Y-axis, and the first 3 buttons will be available. Any additional features on the mouse will not function.\nOne common usage of boot mode is during the first moments of a computer's boot up sequence. Directly configuring a computer's BIOS is often done using only boot mode.\nSometimes a message will appear informing the user that the device has installed the correct driver and is now usable.\n\nHID definition of a device \nAccording to the HID specification, a device is described, during the report mode, as a set of controls or group of controls.\nControls are matched by a field containing the data, and another containing a usage tag.\nEach usage tag is described in the spec as the constructor suggested use of the data described in the report mode.\n\nOther protocols using HID \nSince HID's original definition over USB, HID is now also used in other computer communication buses. This enables HID devices that traditionally were only found on USB to also be used on alternative buses. This is done since existing support for USB HID devices can typically be adapted much faster than having to invent an entirely new protocol to support mouse, touchpad, keyboards, and the like. Known buses that use HID are:\n Bluetooth HID – Used for mouse and keyboards that are connected via Bluetooth\n Serial HID – Used in Microsoft's Windows Media Center PC remote control receivers.\n ZigBee input device – ZigBee (RF4CE) supports HID devices through the ZigBee input device profile.\n HID over I²C – Used for embedded devices in Microsoft Windows 8\n HOGP (HID over GATT) – Used for HID devices connected using Bluetooth low energy technology\n\nSee also\n Human interface guidelines\n Human–computer interaction\n USB human interface device class\n Graphical user interface builder\n Linux on the desktop\n Peripheral\n Tangible user interface\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nHID developers forum, USB.org\n HID Device Class Definition 1.11 Specification, USB.org\n HID Usage Tables 1.12 Specification, USB.org\n\nHuman–computer interaction"
] |
[
"Bad Brains",
"Dr. Know and H.R.'s health issues and Mind Power (2015-present)"
] |
C_57ac13aef4134604bf11736835d6db78_0
|
What is Dr. Know?
| 1 |
What is Dr. Know?
|
Bad Brains
|
On November 3, 2015, Bad Brains announced on their Facebook page that Dr. Know (Gary Miller) was hospitalized and on life support, after many other musicians reported so. Bad Brains later announced, on November 10, that Dr. Know had come off life support and was "under close care" after a heart attack and subsequent organ failure. His bandmates were asking fans to help via a GoFundMe campaign to pay his expenses for rehabilitation. After nearly three months in the hospital, he was transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility for the physical therapy and other necessary treatment he needed to make a full recovery. On March 15, 2016, it was reported that Bad Brains frontman H.R. was diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and was seeking $15,000 to fight the "Suicide Syndrome" using methods not covered by health insurance; as a result, a GoFundMe page was created. According to the GoFundMe page, H.R. had dealt with "several health issues" in recent years that he had been able to overcome. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, where Dr. Know and bassist Darryl Jenifer talked about the band members' health issues and the status and future of Bad Brains, it was revealed that the band hopes they will record the follow-up to Into the Future, titled Mind Power. On June 8, the band played an unannounced short gig in Darryl Jenifer's art exhibition. They played three songs with H.R. on vocals, two songs with Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe on vocals and one song with Sid McCray singing with the band for the first time in 39 years. On April 2017, it was announced the Bad Brains would play an exclusive 40th anniversary set at Riot Fest in Chicago's Douglas Park. On September 16, 2017, they made that Riot Fest appearance, playing ten songs with H.R. on vocals and three songs with Randy Blythe on vocals. CANNOTANSWER
|
Dr. Know (Gary Miller)
|
Bad Brains are an American rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Originally a jazz fusion band under the name Mind Power, they are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of other genres like funk, heavy metal, hip hop, and soul. Bad Brains are followers of the Rastafari movement.
Bad Brains have released nine studio albums. They have broken up and reformed several times over their career, sometimes with different singers or drummers. Their classic lineup includes singer H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson. This lineup was intact until 1987 and has reunited periodically in the years since.
Many high-profile bands cite Bad Brains as musically influential to their music including Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses, The Roots, No Doubt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
History
Formation and early years (1976–1985)
The band's origins date to 1976, when the members first came together as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, in the mold of bands such as Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The group included lead guitarist Dr. Know (Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and brothers Paul Hudson (later known as H.R.) on rhythm guitar and Earl Hudson on drums.
In 1977, the band's friend Sid McCray introduced them to punk rock. Mind Power decided to switch their sound to hardcore punk and changed their name to Bad Brains, after the Ramones song "Bad Brain." Despite their burgeoning punk sound, after seeing Bob Marley in concert the band also became interested in reggae music and the Rastafari movement. McCray was briefly the singer for the new hardcore punk incarnation of the band, but he soon departed, and H.R. switched from guitar to lead vocals.
The band gained a fan base in Washington D.C. due to their high-energy performances and occasional reggae songs. In 1979 they were blacklisted from many Washington area clubs due to their destructive fans; this was later addressed in their song "Banned in D.C.". By 1980 the band relocated to New York City, where they would serve as a catalyst for that city's burgeoning hardcore scene.
By 1982, they were a regular act at the New York venue CBGB. Dr. Know recalled, "We played CB's every friggin' night. This whole 'Sunday matinee' thing is from us. When we first played, nobody was there. It's like, 'Who are these niggers?' And we're in their face, killing it. We got a weekend day, and by then a little buzz started happening." Their self-titled debut album was released on the ROIR label, originally on cassette only, in 1982, followed in 1983 by Rock for Light, produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars. In 1985, the Bad Brains song "Pay to Cum" was featured in Martin Scorsese's film After Hours.
Stylistic expansion and line-up changes (1986–1994)
In 1986, Bad Brains signed with SST Records and released I Against I. In addition to the band's hardcore punk and reggae sounds, this album added elements from heavy metal and funk. H.R. provided the vocals for the song "Sacred Love" over the phone from the Lorton Reformatory while serving time for a cannabis charge. H.R. gained additional critical notice for his expanded vocal style on I Against I; according to Rick Anderson of AllMusic, "[HR] digs deep into his bag of voices and pulls them all out, one by one: the frightening nasal falsetto that was his signature in the band's hardcore days, an almost bel canto baritone, and a declamatory speed-rap chatter that spews lyrics with the mechanical precision of a machine gun".
H.R. and Earl Hudson quit the band in 1987 to focus on reggae music. Touring for I Against I was completed with singer Taj Singleton and former Cro-Mags drummer Mackie Jayson. In 1988, Bad Brains signed with Caroline Records and began recording the album Quickness. The album was recorded with Singleton and Jayson, but the Hudson brothers returned to the band in 1989 and H.R. replaced Singleton's work with new lyrics and vocals.
During this period, the Hudson brothers, who wanted to steer the band toward reggae, often clashed with Dr. Know and Jenifer, who were increasingly interested in hard rock and heavy metal. H.R. often failed to turn up for scheduled concerts and recording sessions. After the tour supporting Quickness ended in 1989, the Hudson brothers again quit the band. Mackie Jayson again joined on drums. Former Faith No More member Chuck Mosley took over on lead vocals in 1990–91, and was then replaced by Israel Joseph I (Dexter Pinto). In 1990 the band collaborated with Henry Rollins on a cover of The MC5's "Kick Out the Jams", which appears on the soundtrack to the film Pump Up the Volume.
As bands influenced by Bad Brains (such as Living Colour and Fishbone) enjoyed commercial success, Epic Records approached Dr. Know in 1992 and offered the band their first major-label record deal. The album Rise was released by Epic in 1993. Jayson left the band in the middle of the ensuing tour and was temporarily replaced by Chuck Treece.
Original line-up reunions and name change (1994–2004)
The Hudson brothers again returned to the band in 1994, and they signed with Maverick Records for the 1995 album God of Love. In support of the album, Bad Brains opened for the Beastie Boys on the Ill Communication tour, and headlined a U.S. tour with the then-unknown Deftones. However, the reunion did not last for long, because of H.R.'s erratic behavior while performing and several violent incidents against the band's manager, fans, and venue employees. H.R. landed in jail and the band broke up once again.
In 1997 Bad Brains reconvened to remaster some early recordings, which were released as the EP The Omega Sessions. From 1998 to 2001, the original lineup toured under the name Soul Brains and released two live albums.
Build a Nation and Into the Future (2005–2015)
In 2005 the band, known once again as Bad Brains, announced that they were recording their first album of new material in ten years, with MCA of the Beastie Boys producing. They played their first shows in several years at CBGB in 2006. Build a Nation was released in 2007. The band toured extensively in 2007–08, with former singer Israel Joseph I filling in for H.R. on some dates. Daryl Jenifer released the solo album In Search of Black Judas in 2010. A short Bad Brains tour of Australia planned for 2010 was cancelled due to health reasons.
Bad Brains announced the recording of another new album in 2011. Into the Future was released in late 2012, and included a tribute to the recently deceased MCA. On the ensuing tour, the band added touring keyboardist Jamie Saft. In 2014 the band hinted at another new album, though no such album has yet been released. Also in 2014, author Greg Prato released the book Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains! which recounted the band's history. In 2015 the band recorded the live EP The Woodstock Sessions; H.R. did not participate for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Jamaican singer Jesse Royal. H.R.'s status at the band remained unclear throughout that year.
Recent developments (2015–present)
In November 2015, Dr. Know suffered a heart attack and was placed on life support due to the risk of organ failure. He spent three months in the hospital but made a full recovery, thanks in part to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his bandmates. In March 2016, H.R. announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and received treatment for this condition and other ongoing health issues thanks to another GoFundMe campaign.
In October 2016, Bad Brains were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but were not inducted. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Dr. Know and Darryl Jenifer discussed the band members' health issues and the future of the band. They announced that they hoped to record a new album titled Mind Power, after the band's short-lived original moniker. In June 2017 the band played a show featuring guest appearances by Randy Blythe and original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray, who sang with the band for the first time in 39 years.
Singer Chuck Mosley, who had played with Bad Brains in the early 1990s, died in November 2017. Sid McCray died in September 2020.
Band members
Current members
Dr. Know – lead guitar (1976–1995, 1998–present)
Darryl Jenifer – bass (1976–1995, 1998–present)
H.R. – vocals, occasional rhythm guitar (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Earl Hudson – drums (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Former members
Sid McCray – vocals (1977–1978; died 2020)
Mackie Jayson – drums (1988–1989, 1990–1993)
Taj Singleton – vocals (1988–1989)
Chuck Mosley – vocals (1990–1991; died 2017)
Israel Joseph I – vocals (1991–1994, 2008)
Chuck Treece – drums (1994)
Jesse Royal – vocals (2015)
Timeline
Discography
Bad Brains (1982)
Rock for Light (1983)
I Against I (1986)
Quickness (1989)
Rise (1993)
God of Love (1995)
I & I Survived (2002)
Build a Nation (2007)
Into the Future (2012)
References
External links
Bad Brains' Myspace
Official website
Bad Brains at ROIR
African-American heavy metal musical groups
African-American hard rock musical groups
Alternative Tentacles artists
American Rastafarians
Caroline Records artists
Hardcore punk groups from Washington, D.C.
Heavy metal musical groups from Washington, D.C.
Maverick Records artists
Megaforce Records artists
Musical groups established in 1977
Musical groups disestablished in 1995
Musical groups reestablished in 1998
Musical quartets
ROIR artists
Reggae metal musical groups
Reggae rock groups
Sibling musical groups
SST Records artists
Victory Records artists
African-American rock musical groups
| true |
[
"Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? is a 1963 children's book published by Beginner Books and written by Helen Palmer Geisel, the first wife of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). Unlike most of the Beginner Books, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? did not follow the format of text with inline drawings, being illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Lynn Fayman, featuring a boy named Rawli Davis. It is sometimes misattributed to Dr. Seuss himself. The book's cover features a photograph of a young boy sitting at a breakfast table with a huge pile of pancakes.\n\nActivities mentioned in the book include bowling, water skiing, marching, boxing, and shooting guns with the United States Marines, and eating more spaghetti \"than anyone else has eaten before.\n\nHelen Palmer's photograph-based children's books did not prove to be as popular as the more traditional text-and-illustrations format; however, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday received positive reviews and was listed by The New York Times as one of the best children's books of 1963. The book is currently out of print.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 children's books\nAmerican picture books",
"\"You Know What It Is\" is a song by American hip hop recording artist T.I., released July 10, 2007, as the second single from his fifth studio album T.I. vs. T.I.P. (2007). The song was produced by Jerry \"Wonda\" Duplessis and Wyclef Jean, the latter of whom contributes vocals throughout the hip hop track. The single peaked at number 34 on the US Billboard Hot 100.\n\nMusic video\nThe song's music video was filmed in Miami, by director and friend Chris Robinson. On June 12, the video was made available on iTunes. The video premiered MTV's TRL on June 14, 2007. The video features cameo appearances from B.G., Kymani Marley, and P$C.\n\nChart performance\n\"You Know What It Is\" debuted at number 73 on the US Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs on the chart dated June 28, 2007. The song later managed to peak at number 11. On the chart dated July 21, 2007, the single debuted at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song eventually peaked at number 34 on the chart and spent a total of 18 weeks.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPromo CD single\n \"You Know What It Is\" (Clean Version)\n \"You Know What It Is\" (Dirty Version)\n \"You Know What It Is\" (Instrumental)\n\nVinyl single\n\"You Know What It Is\" (Radio Version)\n\"You Know What It Is\" (Amended Version)\n\"You Know What It Is\" (Instrumental)\n\"You Know What It Is\" (Explicit version)\n\"You Know What It Is\" (Acapella)\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nVideo shooting in Miami.\n\"You Know What It Is\" on VH1 confirmed by T.I.\nSneak Peek from video \"You Know What It Is\".\n\"You Know What It Is\" Lyrics\n\n2007 singles\nGrand Hustle Records singles\nMusic videos directed by Chris Robinson (director)\nT.I. songs\nWyclef Jean songs\nSongs written by Wyclef Jean\nSongs written by Jerry Duplessis\nSong recordings produced by Jerry Duplessis\nSongs written by T.I.\nSong recordings produced by Wyclef Jean\n2007 songs\nAtlantic Records singles"
] |
[
"Bad Brains",
"Dr. Know and H.R.'s health issues and Mind Power (2015-present)",
"What is Dr. Know?",
"Dr. Know (Gary Miller)"
] |
C_57ac13aef4134604bf11736835d6db78_0
|
What was Gary Millers role in the band?
| 2 |
What was Gary Millers role in the band Bad Brains?
|
Bad Brains
|
On November 3, 2015, Bad Brains announced on their Facebook page that Dr. Know (Gary Miller) was hospitalized and on life support, after many other musicians reported so. Bad Brains later announced, on November 10, that Dr. Know had come off life support and was "under close care" after a heart attack and subsequent organ failure. His bandmates were asking fans to help via a GoFundMe campaign to pay his expenses for rehabilitation. After nearly three months in the hospital, he was transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility for the physical therapy and other necessary treatment he needed to make a full recovery. On March 15, 2016, it was reported that Bad Brains frontman H.R. was diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and was seeking $15,000 to fight the "Suicide Syndrome" using methods not covered by health insurance; as a result, a GoFundMe page was created. According to the GoFundMe page, H.R. had dealt with "several health issues" in recent years that he had been able to overcome. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, where Dr. Know and bassist Darryl Jenifer talked about the band members' health issues and the status and future of Bad Brains, it was revealed that the band hopes they will record the follow-up to Into the Future, titled Mind Power. On June 8, the band played an unannounced short gig in Darryl Jenifer's art exhibition. They played three songs with H.R. on vocals, two songs with Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe on vocals and one song with Sid McCray singing with the band for the first time in 39 years. On April 2017, it was announced the Bad Brains would play an exclusive 40th anniversary set at Riot Fest in Chicago's Douglas Park. On September 16, 2017, they made that Riot Fest appearance, playing ten songs with H.R. on vocals and three songs with Randy Blythe on vocals. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Bad Brains are an American rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Originally a jazz fusion band under the name Mind Power, they are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of other genres like funk, heavy metal, hip hop, and soul. Bad Brains are followers of the Rastafari movement.
Bad Brains have released nine studio albums. They have broken up and reformed several times over their career, sometimes with different singers or drummers. Their classic lineup includes singer H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson. This lineup was intact until 1987 and has reunited periodically in the years since.
Many high-profile bands cite Bad Brains as musically influential to their music including Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses, The Roots, No Doubt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
History
Formation and early years (1976–1985)
The band's origins date to 1976, when the members first came together as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, in the mold of bands such as Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The group included lead guitarist Dr. Know (Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and brothers Paul Hudson (later known as H.R.) on rhythm guitar and Earl Hudson on drums.
In 1977, the band's friend Sid McCray introduced them to punk rock. Mind Power decided to switch their sound to hardcore punk and changed their name to Bad Brains, after the Ramones song "Bad Brain." Despite their burgeoning punk sound, after seeing Bob Marley in concert the band also became interested in reggae music and the Rastafari movement. McCray was briefly the singer for the new hardcore punk incarnation of the band, but he soon departed, and H.R. switched from guitar to lead vocals.
The band gained a fan base in Washington D.C. due to their high-energy performances and occasional reggae songs. In 1979 they were blacklisted from many Washington area clubs due to their destructive fans; this was later addressed in their song "Banned in D.C.". By 1980 the band relocated to New York City, where they would serve as a catalyst for that city's burgeoning hardcore scene.
By 1982, they were a regular act at the New York venue CBGB. Dr. Know recalled, "We played CB's every friggin' night. This whole 'Sunday matinee' thing is from us. When we first played, nobody was there. It's like, 'Who are these niggers?' And we're in their face, killing it. We got a weekend day, and by then a little buzz started happening." Their self-titled debut album was released on the ROIR label, originally on cassette only, in 1982, followed in 1983 by Rock for Light, produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars. In 1985, the Bad Brains song "Pay to Cum" was featured in Martin Scorsese's film After Hours.
Stylistic expansion and line-up changes (1986–1994)
In 1986, Bad Brains signed with SST Records and released I Against I. In addition to the band's hardcore punk and reggae sounds, this album added elements from heavy metal and funk. H.R. provided the vocals for the song "Sacred Love" over the phone from the Lorton Reformatory while serving time for a cannabis charge. H.R. gained additional critical notice for his expanded vocal style on I Against I; according to Rick Anderson of AllMusic, "[HR] digs deep into his bag of voices and pulls them all out, one by one: the frightening nasal falsetto that was his signature in the band's hardcore days, an almost bel canto baritone, and a declamatory speed-rap chatter that spews lyrics with the mechanical precision of a machine gun".
H.R. and Earl Hudson quit the band in 1987 to focus on reggae music. Touring for I Against I was completed with singer Taj Singleton and former Cro-Mags drummer Mackie Jayson. In 1988, Bad Brains signed with Caroline Records and began recording the album Quickness. The album was recorded with Singleton and Jayson, but the Hudson brothers returned to the band in 1989 and H.R. replaced Singleton's work with new lyrics and vocals.
During this period, the Hudson brothers, who wanted to steer the band toward reggae, often clashed with Dr. Know and Jenifer, who were increasingly interested in hard rock and heavy metal. H.R. often failed to turn up for scheduled concerts and recording sessions. After the tour supporting Quickness ended in 1989, the Hudson brothers again quit the band. Mackie Jayson again joined on drums. Former Faith No More member Chuck Mosley took over on lead vocals in 1990–91, and was then replaced by Israel Joseph I (Dexter Pinto). In 1990 the band collaborated with Henry Rollins on a cover of The MC5's "Kick Out the Jams", which appears on the soundtrack to the film Pump Up the Volume.
As bands influenced by Bad Brains (such as Living Colour and Fishbone) enjoyed commercial success, Epic Records approached Dr. Know in 1992 and offered the band their first major-label record deal. The album Rise was released by Epic in 1993. Jayson left the band in the middle of the ensuing tour and was temporarily replaced by Chuck Treece.
Original line-up reunions and name change (1994–2004)
The Hudson brothers again returned to the band in 1994, and they signed with Maverick Records for the 1995 album God of Love. In support of the album, Bad Brains opened for the Beastie Boys on the Ill Communication tour, and headlined a U.S. tour with the then-unknown Deftones. However, the reunion did not last for long, because of H.R.'s erratic behavior while performing and several violent incidents against the band's manager, fans, and venue employees. H.R. landed in jail and the band broke up once again.
In 1997 Bad Brains reconvened to remaster some early recordings, which were released as the EP The Omega Sessions. From 1998 to 2001, the original lineup toured under the name Soul Brains and released two live albums.
Build a Nation and Into the Future (2005–2015)
In 2005 the band, known once again as Bad Brains, announced that they were recording their first album of new material in ten years, with MCA of the Beastie Boys producing. They played their first shows in several years at CBGB in 2006. Build a Nation was released in 2007. The band toured extensively in 2007–08, with former singer Israel Joseph I filling in for H.R. on some dates. Daryl Jenifer released the solo album In Search of Black Judas in 2010. A short Bad Brains tour of Australia planned for 2010 was cancelled due to health reasons.
Bad Brains announced the recording of another new album in 2011. Into the Future was released in late 2012, and included a tribute to the recently deceased MCA. On the ensuing tour, the band added touring keyboardist Jamie Saft. In 2014 the band hinted at another new album, though no such album has yet been released. Also in 2014, author Greg Prato released the book Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains! which recounted the band's history. In 2015 the band recorded the live EP The Woodstock Sessions; H.R. did not participate for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Jamaican singer Jesse Royal. H.R.'s status at the band remained unclear throughout that year.
Recent developments (2015–present)
In November 2015, Dr. Know suffered a heart attack and was placed on life support due to the risk of organ failure. He spent three months in the hospital but made a full recovery, thanks in part to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his bandmates. In March 2016, H.R. announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and received treatment for this condition and other ongoing health issues thanks to another GoFundMe campaign.
In October 2016, Bad Brains were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but were not inducted. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Dr. Know and Darryl Jenifer discussed the band members' health issues and the future of the band. They announced that they hoped to record a new album titled Mind Power, after the band's short-lived original moniker. In June 2017 the band played a show featuring guest appearances by Randy Blythe and original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray, who sang with the band for the first time in 39 years.
Singer Chuck Mosley, who had played with Bad Brains in the early 1990s, died in November 2017. Sid McCray died in September 2020.
Band members
Current members
Dr. Know – lead guitar (1976–1995, 1998–present)
Darryl Jenifer – bass (1976–1995, 1998–present)
H.R. – vocals, occasional rhythm guitar (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Earl Hudson – drums (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Former members
Sid McCray – vocals (1977–1978; died 2020)
Mackie Jayson – drums (1988–1989, 1990–1993)
Taj Singleton – vocals (1988–1989)
Chuck Mosley – vocals (1990–1991; died 2017)
Israel Joseph I – vocals (1991–1994, 2008)
Chuck Treece – drums (1994)
Jesse Royal – vocals (2015)
Timeline
Discography
Bad Brains (1982)
Rock for Light (1983)
I Against I (1986)
Quickness (1989)
Rise (1993)
God of Love (1995)
I & I Survived (2002)
Build a Nation (2007)
Into the Future (2012)
References
External links
Bad Brains' Myspace
Official website
Bad Brains at ROIR
African-American heavy metal musical groups
African-American hard rock musical groups
Alternative Tentacles artists
American Rastafarians
Caroline Records artists
Hardcore punk groups from Washington, D.C.
Heavy metal musical groups from Washington, D.C.
Maverick Records artists
Megaforce Records artists
Musical groups established in 1977
Musical groups disestablished in 1995
Musical groups reestablished in 1998
Musical quartets
ROIR artists
Reggae metal musical groups
Reggae rock groups
Sibling musical groups
SST Records artists
Victory Records artists
African-American rock musical groups
| false |
[
"Millers (also spelled Miller's) is a ghost town located in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Deserted today, Millers sprang up as a mining boomtown after the Tonopah boom began.\n\nHistory\nMillers came to life as a result of the furor in Tonopah. In 1901 the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad was constructed and by 1904 Millers was founded as a station and watering stop along the rail line. The name of the town honors Charles R. Miller, a director of the railroad who was also once the Governor of Delaware. Miller also worked as vice president of the Tonopah Mining Company and played a key role in bringing that company's 100-stamp cyanide mill built in Millers in 1906. The Post Office at Millers was in operation from January 1906 until September 1919 and then from February 1921 until December 1931. In 1907 the railroad company constructed repair shops in Millers and another large mill went up. By 1910 Millers had a business district and a population of 274. A year later, in 1911, the railroad shops and mill had moved and the town began a slow decline. By 1941, Millers had 28 inhabitants. When the railroad went under in 1947 the town of Millers followed suit and became a ghost town.\n\nReferences\n\nGhost towns in Esmeralda County, Nevada\nGhost towns in Nevada\nNevada historical markers\nMining communities in Nevada\nPopulated places established in 1904",
"Gary, formerly Miller, was a train station in the Miller Beach neighborhood of Gary, Indiana.\n\nHistory\nThe station site was established when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad arrived here in 1874. It was referred to as Millers or Miller after the original settlement. The railroad's main passenger station in the area was Gary Union Station.\n\nAmtrak began stopping trains here in 1982 when the Cardinal was reactivated. The Cardinal was rerouted through Indianapolis on April 27, 1986, ending service to the station. Gary would continue see Amtrak service via the daily Calumet at the train station at 5th and Chase until 1991.\n\nLocation\n\nThe station was north of the South Shore Line Miller station.\n\nReferences\n\nFormer Amtrak stations in Indiana\nFormer Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stations\nTransportation in Gary, Indiana\nRailway stations in Lake County, Indiana\nRailway stations in the United States opened in 1982\nRailway stations closed in 1986\nRepurposed railway stations in the United States"
] |
[
"Bad Brains",
"Dr. Know and H.R.'s health issues and Mind Power (2015-present)",
"What is Dr. Know?",
"Dr. Know (Gary Miller)",
"What was Gary Millers role in the band?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_57ac13aef4134604bf11736835d6db78_0
|
What is the significance of Dr Know?
| 3 |
What is the significance of Dr Know?
|
Bad Brains
|
On November 3, 2015, Bad Brains announced on their Facebook page that Dr. Know (Gary Miller) was hospitalized and on life support, after many other musicians reported so. Bad Brains later announced, on November 10, that Dr. Know had come off life support and was "under close care" after a heart attack and subsequent organ failure. His bandmates were asking fans to help via a GoFundMe campaign to pay his expenses for rehabilitation. After nearly three months in the hospital, he was transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility for the physical therapy and other necessary treatment he needed to make a full recovery. On March 15, 2016, it was reported that Bad Brains frontman H.R. was diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and was seeking $15,000 to fight the "Suicide Syndrome" using methods not covered by health insurance; as a result, a GoFundMe page was created. According to the GoFundMe page, H.R. had dealt with "several health issues" in recent years that he had been able to overcome. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, where Dr. Know and bassist Darryl Jenifer talked about the band members' health issues and the status and future of Bad Brains, it was revealed that the band hopes they will record the follow-up to Into the Future, titled Mind Power. On June 8, the band played an unannounced short gig in Darryl Jenifer's art exhibition. They played three songs with H.R. on vocals, two songs with Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe on vocals and one song with Sid McCray singing with the band for the first time in 39 years. On April 2017, it was announced the Bad Brains would play an exclusive 40th anniversary set at Riot Fest in Chicago's Douglas Park. On September 16, 2017, they made that Riot Fest appearance, playing ten songs with H.R. on vocals and three songs with Randy Blythe on vocals. CANNOTANSWER
|
Dr. Know had come off life support and was "under close care"
|
Bad Brains are an American rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Originally a jazz fusion band under the name Mind Power, they are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of other genres like funk, heavy metal, hip hop, and soul. Bad Brains are followers of the Rastafari movement.
Bad Brains have released nine studio albums. They have broken up and reformed several times over their career, sometimes with different singers or drummers. Their classic lineup includes singer H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson. This lineup was intact until 1987 and has reunited periodically in the years since.
Many high-profile bands cite Bad Brains as musically influential to their music including Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses, The Roots, No Doubt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
History
Formation and early years (1976–1985)
The band's origins date to 1976, when the members first came together as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, in the mold of bands such as Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The group included lead guitarist Dr. Know (Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and brothers Paul Hudson (later known as H.R.) on rhythm guitar and Earl Hudson on drums.
In 1977, the band's friend Sid McCray introduced them to punk rock. Mind Power decided to switch their sound to hardcore punk and changed their name to Bad Brains, after the Ramones song "Bad Brain." Despite their burgeoning punk sound, after seeing Bob Marley in concert the band also became interested in reggae music and the Rastafari movement. McCray was briefly the singer for the new hardcore punk incarnation of the band, but he soon departed, and H.R. switched from guitar to lead vocals.
The band gained a fan base in Washington D.C. due to their high-energy performances and occasional reggae songs. In 1979 they were blacklisted from many Washington area clubs due to their destructive fans; this was later addressed in their song "Banned in D.C.". By 1980 the band relocated to New York City, where they would serve as a catalyst for that city's burgeoning hardcore scene.
By 1982, they were a regular act at the New York venue CBGB. Dr. Know recalled, "We played CB's every friggin' night. This whole 'Sunday matinee' thing is from us. When we first played, nobody was there. It's like, 'Who are these niggers?' And we're in their face, killing it. We got a weekend day, and by then a little buzz started happening." Their self-titled debut album was released on the ROIR label, originally on cassette only, in 1982, followed in 1983 by Rock for Light, produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars. In 1985, the Bad Brains song "Pay to Cum" was featured in Martin Scorsese's film After Hours.
Stylistic expansion and line-up changes (1986–1994)
In 1986, Bad Brains signed with SST Records and released I Against I. In addition to the band's hardcore punk and reggae sounds, this album added elements from heavy metal and funk. H.R. provided the vocals for the song "Sacred Love" over the phone from the Lorton Reformatory while serving time for a cannabis charge. H.R. gained additional critical notice for his expanded vocal style on I Against I; according to Rick Anderson of AllMusic, "[HR] digs deep into his bag of voices and pulls them all out, one by one: the frightening nasal falsetto that was his signature in the band's hardcore days, an almost bel canto baritone, and a declamatory speed-rap chatter that spews lyrics with the mechanical precision of a machine gun".
H.R. and Earl Hudson quit the band in 1987 to focus on reggae music. Touring for I Against I was completed with singer Taj Singleton and former Cro-Mags drummer Mackie Jayson. In 1988, Bad Brains signed with Caroline Records and began recording the album Quickness. The album was recorded with Singleton and Jayson, but the Hudson brothers returned to the band in 1989 and H.R. replaced Singleton's work with new lyrics and vocals.
During this period, the Hudson brothers, who wanted to steer the band toward reggae, often clashed with Dr. Know and Jenifer, who were increasingly interested in hard rock and heavy metal. H.R. often failed to turn up for scheduled concerts and recording sessions. After the tour supporting Quickness ended in 1989, the Hudson brothers again quit the band. Mackie Jayson again joined on drums. Former Faith No More member Chuck Mosley took over on lead vocals in 1990–91, and was then replaced by Israel Joseph I (Dexter Pinto). In 1990 the band collaborated with Henry Rollins on a cover of The MC5's "Kick Out the Jams", which appears on the soundtrack to the film Pump Up the Volume.
As bands influenced by Bad Brains (such as Living Colour and Fishbone) enjoyed commercial success, Epic Records approached Dr. Know in 1992 and offered the band their first major-label record deal. The album Rise was released by Epic in 1993. Jayson left the band in the middle of the ensuing tour and was temporarily replaced by Chuck Treece.
Original line-up reunions and name change (1994–2004)
The Hudson brothers again returned to the band in 1994, and they signed with Maverick Records for the 1995 album God of Love. In support of the album, Bad Brains opened for the Beastie Boys on the Ill Communication tour, and headlined a U.S. tour with the then-unknown Deftones. However, the reunion did not last for long, because of H.R.'s erratic behavior while performing and several violent incidents against the band's manager, fans, and venue employees. H.R. landed in jail and the band broke up once again.
In 1997 Bad Brains reconvened to remaster some early recordings, which were released as the EP The Omega Sessions. From 1998 to 2001, the original lineup toured under the name Soul Brains and released two live albums.
Build a Nation and Into the Future (2005–2015)
In 2005 the band, known once again as Bad Brains, announced that they were recording their first album of new material in ten years, with MCA of the Beastie Boys producing. They played their first shows in several years at CBGB in 2006. Build a Nation was released in 2007. The band toured extensively in 2007–08, with former singer Israel Joseph I filling in for H.R. on some dates. Daryl Jenifer released the solo album In Search of Black Judas in 2010. A short Bad Brains tour of Australia planned for 2010 was cancelled due to health reasons.
Bad Brains announced the recording of another new album in 2011. Into the Future was released in late 2012, and included a tribute to the recently deceased MCA. On the ensuing tour, the band added touring keyboardist Jamie Saft. In 2014 the band hinted at another new album, though no such album has yet been released. Also in 2014, author Greg Prato released the book Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains! which recounted the band's history. In 2015 the band recorded the live EP The Woodstock Sessions; H.R. did not participate for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Jamaican singer Jesse Royal. H.R.'s status at the band remained unclear throughout that year.
Recent developments (2015–present)
In November 2015, Dr. Know suffered a heart attack and was placed on life support due to the risk of organ failure. He spent three months in the hospital but made a full recovery, thanks in part to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his bandmates. In March 2016, H.R. announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and received treatment for this condition and other ongoing health issues thanks to another GoFundMe campaign.
In October 2016, Bad Brains were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but were not inducted. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Dr. Know and Darryl Jenifer discussed the band members' health issues and the future of the band. They announced that they hoped to record a new album titled Mind Power, after the band's short-lived original moniker. In June 2017 the band played a show featuring guest appearances by Randy Blythe and original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray, who sang with the band for the first time in 39 years.
Singer Chuck Mosley, who had played with Bad Brains in the early 1990s, died in November 2017. Sid McCray died in September 2020.
Band members
Current members
Dr. Know – lead guitar (1976–1995, 1998–present)
Darryl Jenifer – bass (1976–1995, 1998–present)
H.R. – vocals, occasional rhythm guitar (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Earl Hudson – drums (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Former members
Sid McCray – vocals (1977–1978; died 2020)
Mackie Jayson – drums (1988–1989, 1990–1993)
Taj Singleton – vocals (1988–1989)
Chuck Mosley – vocals (1990–1991; died 2017)
Israel Joseph I – vocals (1991–1994, 2008)
Chuck Treece – drums (1994)
Jesse Royal – vocals (2015)
Timeline
Discography
Bad Brains (1982)
Rock for Light (1983)
I Against I (1986)
Quickness (1989)
Rise (1993)
God of Love (1995)
I & I Survived (2002)
Build a Nation (2007)
Into the Future (2012)
References
External links
Bad Brains' Myspace
Official website
Bad Brains at ROIR
African-American heavy metal musical groups
African-American hard rock musical groups
Alternative Tentacles artists
American Rastafarians
Caroline Records artists
Hardcore punk groups from Washington, D.C.
Heavy metal musical groups from Washington, D.C.
Maverick Records artists
Megaforce Records artists
Musical groups established in 1977
Musical groups disestablished in 1995
Musical groups reestablished in 1998
Musical quartets
ROIR artists
Reggae metal musical groups
Reggae rock groups
Sibling musical groups
SST Records artists
Victory Records artists
African-American rock musical groups
| false |
[
"Burhan al-Haqq or Borhan ol-Haqq ( (, 'Demonstration of the Truth') is a 1963 (1342 Persian calendar) theological and spiritual work by Nur Ali Elahi dedicated to showing the inner spiritual aims shared by the Quran, Shia Islam and the original teachings and practices of the Ahl-e Haqq order.\n\nIn 1964, Dr. Simon Weightman wrote a piece titled \"The significance of Kitab Burhan al- Haqq\".\n\nElahi states that he has left \"nothing unsaid\", in the books he wrote. \"Even if you read Burhan al-Haqq a thousand times, you will find something new in it each time. He also states \"know that Burhan al-Haqq cannot be abridged. There are many secrets in my book... It is only after me that people will understand what \"Burhan Al-haqq\" is.\" He states that \"The higher the level of knowledge rises, the better one will comprehend the scope; the more centuries pass, the more their value will increase. I alone know how much research I have done.\"\n\nReferences\n\nKurdish literature\nPersian literature\nAhl-e Haqq School",
"Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? is a 1963 children's book published by Beginner Books and written by Helen Palmer Geisel, the first wife of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). Unlike most of the Beginner Books, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? did not follow the format of text with inline drawings, being illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Lynn Fayman, featuring a boy named Rawli Davis. It is sometimes misattributed to Dr. Seuss himself. The book's cover features a photograph of a young boy sitting at a breakfast table with a huge pile of pancakes.\n\nActivities mentioned in the book include bowling, water skiing, marching, boxing, and shooting guns with the United States Marines, and eating more spaghetti \"than anyone else has eaten before.\n\nHelen Palmer's photograph-based children's books did not prove to be as popular as the more traditional text-and-illustrations format; however, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday received positive reviews and was listed by The New York Times as one of the best children's books of 1963. The book is currently out of print.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 children's books\nAmerican picture books"
] |
[
"Bad Brains",
"Dr. Know and H.R.'s health issues and Mind Power (2015-present)",
"What is Dr. Know?",
"Dr. Know (Gary Miller)",
"What was Gary Millers role in the band?",
"I don't know.",
"What is the significance of Dr Know?",
"Dr. Know had come off life support and was \"under close care\""
] |
C_57ac13aef4134604bf11736835d6db78_0
|
What was his illness?
| 4 |
What was Dr. Know's illness?
|
Bad Brains
|
On November 3, 2015, Bad Brains announced on their Facebook page that Dr. Know (Gary Miller) was hospitalized and on life support, after many other musicians reported so. Bad Brains later announced, on November 10, that Dr. Know had come off life support and was "under close care" after a heart attack and subsequent organ failure. His bandmates were asking fans to help via a GoFundMe campaign to pay his expenses for rehabilitation. After nearly three months in the hospital, he was transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility for the physical therapy and other necessary treatment he needed to make a full recovery. On March 15, 2016, it was reported that Bad Brains frontman H.R. was diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and was seeking $15,000 to fight the "Suicide Syndrome" using methods not covered by health insurance; as a result, a GoFundMe page was created. According to the GoFundMe page, H.R. had dealt with "several health issues" in recent years that he had been able to overcome. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, where Dr. Know and bassist Darryl Jenifer talked about the band members' health issues and the status and future of Bad Brains, it was revealed that the band hopes they will record the follow-up to Into the Future, titled Mind Power. On June 8, the band played an unannounced short gig in Darryl Jenifer's art exhibition. They played three songs with H.R. on vocals, two songs with Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe on vocals and one song with Sid McCray singing with the band for the first time in 39 years. On April 2017, it was announced the Bad Brains would play an exclusive 40th anniversary set at Riot Fest in Chicago's Douglas Park. On September 16, 2017, they made that Riot Fest appearance, playing ten songs with H.R. on vocals and three songs with Randy Blythe on vocals. CANNOTANSWER
|
a heart attack and subsequent organ failure.
|
Bad Brains are an American rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Originally a jazz fusion band under the name Mind Power, they are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of other genres like funk, heavy metal, hip hop, and soul. Bad Brains are followers of the Rastafari movement.
Bad Brains have released nine studio albums. They have broken up and reformed several times over their career, sometimes with different singers or drummers. Their classic lineup includes singer H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson. This lineup was intact until 1987 and has reunited periodically in the years since.
Many high-profile bands cite Bad Brains as musically influential to their music including Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses, The Roots, No Doubt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
History
Formation and early years (1976–1985)
The band's origins date to 1976, when the members first came together as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, in the mold of bands such as Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The group included lead guitarist Dr. Know (Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and brothers Paul Hudson (later known as H.R.) on rhythm guitar and Earl Hudson on drums.
In 1977, the band's friend Sid McCray introduced them to punk rock. Mind Power decided to switch their sound to hardcore punk and changed their name to Bad Brains, after the Ramones song "Bad Brain." Despite their burgeoning punk sound, after seeing Bob Marley in concert the band also became interested in reggae music and the Rastafari movement. McCray was briefly the singer for the new hardcore punk incarnation of the band, but he soon departed, and H.R. switched from guitar to lead vocals.
The band gained a fan base in Washington D.C. due to their high-energy performances and occasional reggae songs. In 1979 they were blacklisted from many Washington area clubs due to their destructive fans; this was later addressed in their song "Banned in D.C.". By 1980 the band relocated to New York City, where they would serve as a catalyst for that city's burgeoning hardcore scene.
By 1982, they were a regular act at the New York venue CBGB. Dr. Know recalled, "We played CB's every friggin' night. This whole 'Sunday matinee' thing is from us. When we first played, nobody was there. It's like, 'Who are these niggers?' And we're in their face, killing it. We got a weekend day, and by then a little buzz started happening." Their self-titled debut album was released on the ROIR label, originally on cassette only, in 1982, followed in 1983 by Rock for Light, produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars. In 1985, the Bad Brains song "Pay to Cum" was featured in Martin Scorsese's film After Hours.
Stylistic expansion and line-up changes (1986–1994)
In 1986, Bad Brains signed with SST Records and released I Against I. In addition to the band's hardcore punk and reggae sounds, this album added elements from heavy metal and funk. H.R. provided the vocals for the song "Sacred Love" over the phone from the Lorton Reformatory while serving time for a cannabis charge. H.R. gained additional critical notice for his expanded vocal style on I Against I; according to Rick Anderson of AllMusic, "[HR] digs deep into his bag of voices and pulls them all out, one by one: the frightening nasal falsetto that was his signature in the band's hardcore days, an almost bel canto baritone, and a declamatory speed-rap chatter that spews lyrics with the mechanical precision of a machine gun".
H.R. and Earl Hudson quit the band in 1987 to focus on reggae music. Touring for I Against I was completed with singer Taj Singleton and former Cro-Mags drummer Mackie Jayson. In 1988, Bad Brains signed with Caroline Records and began recording the album Quickness. The album was recorded with Singleton and Jayson, but the Hudson brothers returned to the band in 1989 and H.R. replaced Singleton's work with new lyrics and vocals.
During this period, the Hudson brothers, who wanted to steer the band toward reggae, often clashed with Dr. Know and Jenifer, who were increasingly interested in hard rock and heavy metal. H.R. often failed to turn up for scheduled concerts and recording sessions. After the tour supporting Quickness ended in 1989, the Hudson brothers again quit the band. Mackie Jayson again joined on drums. Former Faith No More member Chuck Mosley took over on lead vocals in 1990–91, and was then replaced by Israel Joseph I (Dexter Pinto). In 1990 the band collaborated with Henry Rollins on a cover of The MC5's "Kick Out the Jams", which appears on the soundtrack to the film Pump Up the Volume.
As bands influenced by Bad Brains (such as Living Colour and Fishbone) enjoyed commercial success, Epic Records approached Dr. Know in 1992 and offered the band their first major-label record deal. The album Rise was released by Epic in 1993. Jayson left the band in the middle of the ensuing tour and was temporarily replaced by Chuck Treece.
Original line-up reunions and name change (1994–2004)
The Hudson brothers again returned to the band in 1994, and they signed with Maverick Records for the 1995 album God of Love. In support of the album, Bad Brains opened for the Beastie Boys on the Ill Communication tour, and headlined a U.S. tour with the then-unknown Deftones. However, the reunion did not last for long, because of H.R.'s erratic behavior while performing and several violent incidents against the band's manager, fans, and venue employees. H.R. landed in jail and the band broke up once again.
In 1997 Bad Brains reconvened to remaster some early recordings, which were released as the EP The Omega Sessions. From 1998 to 2001, the original lineup toured under the name Soul Brains and released two live albums.
Build a Nation and Into the Future (2005–2015)
In 2005 the band, known once again as Bad Brains, announced that they were recording their first album of new material in ten years, with MCA of the Beastie Boys producing. They played their first shows in several years at CBGB in 2006. Build a Nation was released in 2007. The band toured extensively in 2007–08, with former singer Israel Joseph I filling in for H.R. on some dates. Daryl Jenifer released the solo album In Search of Black Judas in 2010. A short Bad Brains tour of Australia planned for 2010 was cancelled due to health reasons.
Bad Brains announced the recording of another new album in 2011. Into the Future was released in late 2012, and included a tribute to the recently deceased MCA. On the ensuing tour, the band added touring keyboardist Jamie Saft. In 2014 the band hinted at another new album, though no such album has yet been released. Also in 2014, author Greg Prato released the book Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains! which recounted the band's history. In 2015 the band recorded the live EP The Woodstock Sessions; H.R. did not participate for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Jamaican singer Jesse Royal. H.R.'s status at the band remained unclear throughout that year.
Recent developments (2015–present)
In November 2015, Dr. Know suffered a heart attack and was placed on life support due to the risk of organ failure. He spent three months in the hospital but made a full recovery, thanks in part to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his bandmates. In March 2016, H.R. announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and received treatment for this condition and other ongoing health issues thanks to another GoFundMe campaign.
In October 2016, Bad Brains were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but were not inducted. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Dr. Know and Darryl Jenifer discussed the band members' health issues and the future of the band. They announced that they hoped to record a new album titled Mind Power, after the band's short-lived original moniker. In June 2017 the band played a show featuring guest appearances by Randy Blythe and original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray, who sang with the band for the first time in 39 years.
Singer Chuck Mosley, who had played with Bad Brains in the early 1990s, died in November 2017. Sid McCray died in September 2020.
Band members
Current members
Dr. Know – lead guitar (1976–1995, 1998–present)
Darryl Jenifer – bass (1976–1995, 1998–present)
H.R. – vocals, occasional rhythm guitar (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Earl Hudson – drums (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Former members
Sid McCray – vocals (1977–1978; died 2020)
Mackie Jayson – drums (1988–1989, 1990–1993)
Taj Singleton – vocals (1988–1989)
Chuck Mosley – vocals (1990–1991; died 2017)
Israel Joseph I – vocals (1991–1994, 2008)
Chuck Treece – drums (1994)
Jesse Royal – vocals (2015)
Timeline
Discography
Bad Brains (1982)
Rock for Light (1983)
I Against I (1986)
Quickness (1989)
Rise (1993)
God of Love (1995)
I & I Survived (2002)
Build a Nation (2007)
Into the Future (2012)
References
External links
Bad Brains' Myspace
Official website
Bad Brains at ROIR
African-American heavy metal musical groups
African-American hard rock musical groups
Alternative Tentacles artists
American Rastafarians
Caroline Records artists
Hardcore punk groups from Washington, D.C.
Heavy metal musical groups from Washington, D.C.
Maverick Records artists
Megaforce Records artists
Musical groups established in 1977
Musical groups disestablished in 1995
Musical groups reestablished in 1998
Musical quartets
ROIR artists
Reggae metal musical groups
Reggae rock groups
Sibling musical groups
SST Records artists
Victory Records artists
African-American rock musical groups
| false |
[
"Harriet Jane Shetler (August 1, 1917 – March 30, 2010) was a founder of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.\n\nShetler was born Harriet Jane McCown in Leechburg, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Monmouth College in 1938 and worked in the newspaper and publishing business. She married Charles Shetler (1918–2010) in 1943. Together with Beverly Young, Shetler founded what became the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Madison in 1977. She retired in 1982. Shetler died in Madison, Wisconsin.\n\nReferences\n\nPeople from Armstrong County, Pennsylvania\nWriters from Madison, Wisconsin\n1917 births\n2010 deaths",
"John Alfred Weinman is a British psychologist who has been prominent in the development of the field of health psychology.\n\nCareer\nIn 1974, Weinman was appointed as a Lecturer in Psychology at Guy's Hospital Medical School, London and was subsequently promoted to Professor of Psychology as Applied to Medicine. His unit was integrated into the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience of King's College London with which the medical school merged. He retired in 2015 and was granted the title of Emeritus Professor. He also held a position in the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences where he was Co-Director of the Centre for Adherence Research & Education.\n\nHe has been very active in the development of health psychology within the UK and Europe. In August 1985, Weinman and Marie Johnson wrote to the British Psychological Society and argued there was a need for a Health Psychology Section. The Section was inaugurated at the London Conference of the Society.\n\nHe was the founding editor of Psychology & Health: an international journal.\n\nResearch\nA primary focus of his research has been on the ways in which patients' beliefs about their illness and treatment affect self-regulation and self-management of physical health problems. In this area he led the development of what has become the most widely used measure of cognitive representation of illness (Weinman et al, 1995; Moss-Morris et al, 2002).\n\nHe has also conducted research on understanding the reasons underlying non-adherence to treatment, and in developing effective interventions for improving use of medicines and other recommended treatments.\n\nAwards\n Lifetime Achievement Award, British Psychological Society.\n Honorary Fellowship, British Psychological Society\n Fellow, European Health Psychology Society \n Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences\n\nKey publications\n Weinman, J., Petrie, K.J., Moss-Morris, R., & Horne, R. (1996). \"The Illness Perception Questionnaire: A new method for assessing the cognitive representation of illness\". Psychology and Health, 11(3), 431-445.\n Moss-Morris, R., Weinman, J., Petrie, K, Horne, R., Cameron, L., & Buick, D. (2002). \"The revised illness perception questionnaire (IPQ-R)\". Psychology & Health, 17(1), 1-16.\n\nReferences\n\nAcademics of King's College London\n\nLiving people\nBritish psychologists\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Bad Brains",
"Dr. Know and H.R.'s health issues and Mind Power (2015-present)",
"What is Dr. Know?",
"Dr. Know (Gary Miller)",
"What was Gary Millers role in the band?",
"I don't know.",
"What is the significance of Dr Know?",
"Dr. Know had come off life support and was \"under close care\"",
"What was his illness?",
"a heart attack and subsequent organ failure."
] |
C_57ac13aef4134604bf11736835d6db78_0
|
Did he recover?
| 5 |
Did Dr. Know recover from his heart attack and subsequent organ failure?
|
Bad Brains
|
On November 3, 2015, Bad Brains announced on their Facebook page that Dr. Know (Gary Miller) was hospitalized and on life support, after many other musicians reported so. Bad Brains later announced, on November 10, that Dr. Know had come off life support and was "under close care" after a heart attack and subsequent organ failure. His bandmates were asking fans to help via a GoFundMe campaign to pay his expenses for rehabilitation. After nearly three months in the hospital, he was transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility for the physical therapy and other necessary treatment he needed to make a full recovery. On March 15, 2016, it was reported that Bad Brains frontman H.R. was diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and was seeking $15,000 to fight the "Suicide Syndrome" using methods not covered by health insurance; as a result, a GoFundMe page was created. According to the GoFundMe page, H.R. had dealt with "several health issues" in recent years that he had been able to overcome. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, where Dr. Know and bassist Darryl Jenifer talked about the band members' health issues and the status and future of Bad Brains, it was revealed that the band hopes they will record the follow-up to Into the Future, titled Mind Power. On June 8, the band played an unannounced short gig in Darryl Jenifer's art exhibition. They played three songs with H.R. on vocals, two songs with Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe on vocals and one song with Sid McCray singing with the band for the first time in 39 years. On April 2017, it was announced the Bad Brains would play an exclusive 40th anniversary set at Riot Fest in Chicago's Douglas Park. On September 16, 2017, they made that Riot Fest appearance, playing ten songs with H.R. on vocals and three songs with Randy Blythe on vocals. CANNOTANSWER
|
After nearly three months in the hospital, he was transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility for the physical therapy and other necessary treatment he needed to make a full recovery.
|
Bad Brains are an American rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Originally a jazz fusion band under the name Mind Power, they are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of other genres like funk, heavy metal, hip hop, and soul. Bad Brains are followers of the Rastafari movement.
Bad Brains have released nine studio albums. They have broken up and reformed several times over their career, sometimes with different singers or drummers. Their classic lineup includes singer H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson. This lineup was intact until 1987 and has reunited periodically in the years since.
Many high-profile bands cite Bad Brains as musically influential to their music including Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses, The Roots, No Doubt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
History
Formation and early years (1976–1985)
The band's origins date to 1976, when the members first came together as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, in the mold of bands such as Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The group included lead guitarist Dr. Know (Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and brothers Paul Hudson (later known as H.R.) on rhythm guitar and Earl Hudson on drums.
In 1977, the band's friend Sid McCray introduced them to punk rock. Mind Power decided to switch their sound to hardcore punk and changed their name to Bad Brains, after the Ramones song "Bad Brain." Despite their burgeoning punk sound, after seeing Bob Marley in concert the band also became interested in reggae music and the Rastafari movement. McCray was briefly the singer for the new hardcore punk incarnation of the band, but he soon departed, and H.R. switched from guitar to lead vocals.
The band gained a fan base in Washington D.C. due to their high-energy performances and occasional reggae songs. In 1979 they were blacklisted from many Washington area clubs due to their destructive fans; this was later addressed in their song "Banned in D.C.". By 1980 the band relocated to New York City, where they would serve as a catalyst for that city's burgeoning hardcore scene.
By 1982, they were a regular act at the New York venue CBGB. Dr. Know recalled, "We played CB's every friggin' night. This whole 'Sunday matinee' thing is from us. When we first played, nobody was there. It's like, 'Who are these niggers?' And we're in their face, killing it. We got a weekend day, and by then a little buzz started happening." Their self-titled debut album was released on the ROIR label, originally on cassette only, in 1982, followed in 1983 by Rock for Light, produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars. In 1985, the Bad Brains song "Pay to Cum" was featured in Martin Scorsese's film After Hours.
Stylistic expansion and line-up changes (1986–1994)
In 1986, Bad Brains signed with SST Records and released I Against I. In addition to the band's hardcore punk and reggae sounds, this album added elements from heavy metal and funk. H.R. provided the vocals for the song "Sacred Love" over the phone from the Lorton Reformatory while serving time for a cannabis charge. H.R. gained additional critical notice for his expanded vocal style on I Against I; according to Rick Anderson of AllMusic, "[HR] digs deep into his bag of voices and pulls them all out, one by one: the frightening nasal falsetto that was his signature in the band's hardcore days, an almost bel canto baritone, and a declamatory speed-rap chatter that spews lyrics with the mechanical precision of a machine gun".
H.R. and Earl Hudson quit the band in 1987 to focus on reggae music. Touring for I Against I was completed with singer Taj Singleton and former Cro-Mags drummer Mackie Jayson. In 1988, Bad Brains signed with Caroline Records and began recording the album Quickness. The album was recorded with Singleton and Jayson, but the Hudson brothers returned to the band in 1989 and H.R. replaced Singleton's work with new lyrics and vocals.
During this period, the Hudson brothers, who wanted to steer the band toward reggae, often clashed with Dr. Know and Jenifer, who were increasingly interested in hard rock and heavy metal. H.R. often failed to turn up for scheduled concerts and recording sessions. After the tour supporting Quickness ended in 1989, the Hudson brothers again quit the band. Mackie Jayson again joined on drums. Former Faith No More member Chuck Mosley took over on lead vocals in 1990–91, and was then replaced by Israel Joseph I (Dexter Pinto). In 1990 the band collaborated with Henry Rollins on a cover of The MC5's "Kick Out the Jams", which appears on the soundtrack to the film Pump Up the Volume.
As bands influenced by Bad Brains (such as Living Colour and Fishbone) enjoyed commercial success, Epic Records approached Dr. Know in 1992 and offered the band their first major-label record deal. The album Rise was released by Epic in 1993. Jayson left the band in the middle of the ensuing tour and was temporarily replaced by Chuck Treece.
Original line-up reunions and name change (1994–2004)
The Hudson brothers again returned to the band in 1994, and they signed with Maverick Records for the 1995 album God of Love. In support of the album, Bad Brains opened for the Beastie Boys on the Ill Communication tour, and headlined a U.S. tour with the then-unknown Deftones. However, the reunion did not last for long, because of H.R.'s erratic behavior while performing and several violent incidents against the band's manager, fans, and venue employees. H.R. landed in jail and the band broke up once again.
In 1997 Bad Brains reconvened to remaster some early recordings, which were released as the EP The Omega Sessions. From 1998 to 2001, the original lineup toured under the name Soul Brains and released two live albums.
Build a Nation and Into the Future (2005–2015)
In 2005 the band, known once again as Bad Brains, announced that they were recording their first album of new material in ten years, with MCA of the Beastie Boys producing. They played their first shows in several years at CBGB in 2006. Build a Nation was released in 2007. The band toured extensively in 2007–08, with former singer Israel Joseph I filling in for H.R. on some dates. Daryl Jenifer released the solo album In Search of Black Judas in 2010. A short Bad Brains tour of Australia planned for 2010 was cancelled due to health reasons.
Bad Brains announced the recording of another new album in 2011. Into the Future was released in late 2012, and included a tribute to the recently deceased MCA. On the ensuing tour, the band added touring keyboardist Jamie Saft. In 2014 the band hinted at another new album, though no such album has yet been released. Also in 2014, author Greg Prato released the book Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains! which recounted the band's history. In 2015 the band recorded the live EP The Woodstock Sessions; H.R. did not participate for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Jamaican singer Jesse Royal. H.R.'s status at the band remained unclear throughout that year.
Recent developments (2015–present)
In November 2015, Dr. Know suffered a heart attack and was placed on life support due to the risk of organ failure. He spent three months in the hospital but made a full recovery, thanks in part to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his bandmates. In March 2016, H.R. announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare type of headache called SUNCT, and received treatment for this condition and other ongoing health issues thanks to another GoFundMe campaign.
In October 2016, Bad Brains were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but were not inducted. In a December 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Dr. Know and Darryl Jenifer discussed the band members' health issues and the future of the band. They announced that they hoped to record a new album titled Mind Power, after the band's short-lived original moniker. In June 2017 the band played a show featuring guest appearances by Randy Blythe and original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray, who sang with the band for the first time in 39 years.
Singer Chuck Mosley, who had played with Bad Brains in the early 1990s, died in November 2017. Sid McCray died in September 2020.
Band members
Current members
Dr. Know – lead guitar (1976–1995, 1998–present)
Darryl Jenifer – bass (1976–1995, 1998–present)
H.R. – vocals, occasional rhythm guitar (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Earl Hudson – drums (1976–1987, 1989–1990, 1994–1995, 1998–present)
Former members
Sid McCray – vocals (1977–1978; died 2020)
Mackie Jayson – drums (1988–1989, 1990–1993)
Taj Singleton – vocals (1988–1989)
Chuck Mosley – vocals (1990–1991; died 2017)
Israel Joseph I – vocals (1991–1994, 2008)
Chuck Treece – drums (1994)
Jesse Royal – vocals (2015)
Timeline
Discography
Bad Brains (1982)
Rock for Light (1983)
I Against I (1986)
Quickness (1989)
Rise (1993)
God of Love (1995)
I & I Survived (2002)
Build a Nation (2007)
Into the Future (2012)
References
External links
Bad Brains' Myspace
Official website
Bad Brains at ROIR
African-American heavy metal musical groups
African-American hard rock musical groups
Alternative Tentacles artists
American Rastafarians
Caroline Records artists
Hardcore punk groups from Washington, D.C.
Heavy metal musical groups from Washington, D.C.
Maverick Records artists
Megaforce Records artists
Musical groups established in 1977
Musical groups disestablished in 1995
Musical groups reestablished in 1998
Musical quartets
ROIR artists
Reggae metal musical groups
Reggae rock groups
Sibling musical groups
SST Records artists
Victory Records artists
African-American rock musical groups
| false |
[
"Never Recover may refer to:\n\nSongs\n \"Never Recover\", 1996 song by The Cardigans from their 1996 album First Band on the Moon\n \"Never Recover\", 2002 song by Dave Pirner from his 2002 album Faces & Names\n \"Never Recover\", 2018 song by Lil Baby and Gunna from their 2018 album Drip Harder\n\nSee also\n Recovery (disambiguation)",
"Morrisson v Robertson (1908 SC 332) is a case establishing the common law principles that govern unilateral error in Scots law.\n\nFacts\nA man claiming to be the son of Wilson of Bonnyrigg approached Morrisson and offered to buy two cows from him. Although Morrisson did not know the man, he knew of Wilson, who was a neighbouring farmer of good financial standing. Accordingly, he let the man have the two cows on credit. In fact, the man was not the son of Wilson but a rogue called Telford. Telford sold the two cows to Robertson. When Morrisson found this out he sought to recover the cows from Robertson.\n\nJudgment\nThe action was successful. It was held that there had been no contract between Morrisson and Telford. The purported transaction was a complete nullity. Accordingly, Telford had no rights which he could pass on to Robertson, so Morrisson was entitled to recover his cows.\n\nSee also\n Cundy v Lindsay (1878) 3 App Cas 459, a similar case in English law\n Shogun Finance Ltd v Hudson, a 2003 case\n\nReferences \n\n Contract, Third Edition, Greens Concise Scots Law, Stephen Woolman & Jonathan Lake.\n\nScottish case law\n1908 in case law\n1908 in Scotland\nScots law articles needing infoboxes\n1908 in British law"
] |
[
"Taryn Terrell",
"Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012-2013)"
] |
C_96bdfa822dc04d1ca68cd5918ad7dfdd_0
|
Why did she have a feud with Gail Kim?
| 1 |
Why did Taryn Terrell have a feud with Gail Kim?
|
Taryn Terrell
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On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division. On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her. On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as a TNA Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from TNA due to her real life pregnancy. CANNOTANSWER
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Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender
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Taryn Nicole Dryden (née Terrell; born December 28, 1985) is an American model, actress, stuntwoman, ring announcer, and professional wrestler. Currently, she serves as a wrestler and commentator for NWA.
She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under her real name, and for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tiffany. She is a former TNA Knockouts Champion, where her 279-day reign stood as the longest reign in the title's history until 2019. During her time in WWE, she trained at WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and served as the final general manager of the now-defunct ECW brand. She's currently a commentator with NWA.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2010)
Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. She made it to the final eight, but was eliminated fourth. In February 2008, WWE signed her to a developmental contract.
Terrell debuted in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, alongside Beverly Mullins, and they competed in various matches together, including lingerie matches. Soon afterwards, Terrell and Mullins drifted apart, leading to Terrell receiving a larger singles wrestling role as she competed against various other FCW Divas, including Mullins (now renamed to Wesley Holiday), Miss Angela, The Bella Twins, Alicia Fox, and Roucka. Terrell made her FCW television debut when she competed in a twist competition, which ended in a no contest. She and Angela were then used as ring announcers. On the March 11, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with Nic Nemeth and Brad Allen to defeat The Puerto Rican Nightmares (Eric Pérez, Eddie Colón and Angela Fong). On the August 2, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Daisy and again on August 9, 2008.
Later on, Terrell, now renamed Tiffany, lost her first FCW televised match in a fatal four-way match including Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. She then teamed with Nikki Bella and Eve Torres on the December 14 episode of FCW TV to defeat Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. Tiffany participated in the tournament to determine the inaugural Queen of FCW, and defeated Holiday in the first round before losing to Fox in the semi-finals. She teamed up with Angela Fong on several occasions, and also competed against Serena Mancini, April Lee, and Fox in a four-pack challenge to determine the new number one contender to the Queen of FCW crown, but was unsuccessful.
On July 30, 2009 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany tamed up with Angela Fong and April Lee to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Serena Deeb in a 6-Diva tag team match. On the August 6 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany and Yoshi Tatsu defeated Fox and Ricky Ortiz in a mixed tag team match. Tiffany unsuccessfully challenged the newly crowned Serena Mancini for the Queen of FCW crown and injured her humerus bone, on the September 24 taping of FCW TV. She returned on the February 19, 2010 episode of FCW TV, teaming with Aksana to defeat Courtney Taylor and Liviana in a tag team match.
Brand switches (2008–2010)
On the June 10, 2008 episode of ECW, Terrell made her main roster debut as Tiffany, the on-screen Assistant General Manager under Theodore Long. Tiffany participated in the Halloween costume contest on October 26 at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, and was dressed as a nun. Tiffany made her in-ring debut in a 16-Diva tag team match on the 800th episode of Raw teaming up with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Michelle McCool, Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and WWE Hall of Famer Mae Young against Beth Phoenix, Layla, Lena Yada, Jillian Hall, Natalya, Maryse, Victoria and Katie Lea Burchill, which her team lost, despite Tiffany never being tagged into the match.
On the March 30, 2009 episode of Raw, Tiffany competed in an 18-Diva tag team match, which she won for her team by pinning Katie Lea Burchill. On April 5, Tiffany made her WrestleMania debut as she competed in a 25 Diva battle royal at WrestleMania XXV to crown the first-ever "Miss WrestleMania", which was won by Santina Marella. On the April 7 episode of ECW, Tiffany was announced by Theodore Long as the new General Manager of ECW due to Long returning to SmackDown to again become its General Manager. As the new General Manager, her first order was to announce an elimination chase to determine who would face Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at Backlash, with the participants being Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer, Christian and Finlay, which Christian would ultimately win. In late June 2009, Tiffany was promoted to full-time General Manager of ECW. However, Tiffany was absent from television due to a storyline car accident with William Regal. In reality, Tiffany had injured her arm in an FCW match. She returned on the October 6 episode of ECW. On the final episode of ECW on February 16, 2010, Tiffany speared Rosa Mendes after she and Zack Ryder interfered in the ECW Championship match.
On the March 5, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her debut for the brand in a backstage segment, being welcomed by Rey Mysterio. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her in-ring debut, winning a match against Michelle McCool via disqualification after Vickie Guerrero interfered. Following the match, McCool, Guerrero, and Layla attacked Tiffany, until she was saved by Beth Phoenix. The following week, Tiffany and Phoenix defeated McCool and Layla (collectively known as LayCool) in a tag team match, and again in a rematch on the April 2 episode of SmackDown.
Tiffany then formed an alliance with Kelly Kelly, with the pair being dubbed "The Blondetourage", and they continued to feud with LayCool. On the June 12 of SmackDown!, Tiffany lost her first singles match to Layla after an interference from McCool. On May 21 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany and Kelly lost to LayCool in a tag team match. On the July 2 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly where she defeated McCool, and during the match Tiffany stopped Layla from interfering. On the July 10 episode of Superstars, Tiffany and Kelly again lost to LayCool. On the July 16 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly and Chris Masters where they defeated Layla and Trent Barreta after interference from Rosa Mendes. She also managed Kelly in her WWE Women's Championship match against Layla at Money in the Bank. On July 23 episode of SmackDown!, Theodore Long announced that Tiffany would receive a match for the Women's Championship, which occurred on the July 30 episode of Smackdown, however she failed to capture the championship. She was originally scheduled to fight Layla, however, she instead fought McCool, as the two defended the title under the Freebird rule.
On August 13, 2010, it was reported that WWE had suspended Terrell because of an incident involving her real-life husband, Drew McIntyre. Before she could return to WWE programming, Terrell was released from her contract on November 19, 2010.
Independent circuit (2010–2013)
On December 4, 2010, it was announced that Terrell would make her independent circuit debut in a match against Alissa Flash at the Pro Wrestling Revolution's ChickFight event in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2011. On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Terrell had pulled out of the show, citing personal reasons. ChickFight later claimed that the promotion could not cater to Terrell's requests that she had made despite already having an agreement with the promotion.
On April 5, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Powerslam Brewsky Brawl, where she teamed up with Jack Jameson to defeat Barbi Hayden and Houston Carson. On April 8, Terrell made appearance at Coastal Wrestling Federation, where she teamed with Sho Funaki in a winning effort, again defeating Hayden and Carson. Earlier in that event, Terrell defeated Jen Alise in singles match. Terrell also appeared at Maryland Championship Wrestling's Bodyslam Autism event on April 27, 2013.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2012–2013)
On November 4, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s then-developmental branch, at OVW's Saturday Night Special event, being introduced as the special guest referee for the OVW Women's Championship match between Josette Bynum, Taeler Hendrix, and Heidi Lovelace. During the match, Terrell ignited a feud with Hendrix after Terrell cost Hendrix the match, after she put her hands on Terrell. On the November 10 episode of OVW, Terrell was interrupted by Hendrix during an interview, who then provoked Terrell, only to get attacked in return. Later that event, Terrell refereed a tag team match between Lovelace, Jessie Belle against Hendrix and Epiphany.
Terrell made her in-ring debut on the November 17 episode of OVW, where she defeated Heidi Lovelace with Hendrix as special guest referee to win the OVW Women's Championship. On the November 24 episode of OVW, Terrell defeated Scarlett Bordeaux in a non-title match, but was attacked by Hendrix post-match. On the November 28 episode OVW, Terrell attacked Hendrix during a in-ring segment, but was stopped by Bostic. OVW announced that Terrell issued a challenged to Hendrix at OVW's Saturday Night Special with the OVW Women's Championship on the line, with the stipulation that the loser will swim in a pool of "animal feces". At the event on December 1, Terrell lost the Women's Championship to Hendrix. After the match, Hendrix tried to attack Terrell, but she gained a measure of revenge when she moved out the way and Hendrix fell in the pool.
Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012–2013)
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the Impact Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division.
On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four–way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her.
On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as an impact Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from Impact Wrestling due to her real life pregnancy.
Knockouts Champion and departure (2014–2016)
Terrell made her televised return on the June 19, 2014 episode of Impact Wrestling, being welcomed by her former rival Gail Kim and later interrupted by The Beautiful People (Angelina Love and Velvet Sky). This led to Terrell's in–ring return, the following week on Impact Wrestling, where Kim and Terrell defeated Love and Sky in a tag team match. Terrell went on to unsuccessfully challenge Kim for the TNA Knockouts Championship on July 24 and on August 14 in a fatal four–way match also involving Love and Sky. After defeating the evil Madison Rayne on August 27 to become the number one contender, Terrell received her title match on the September 3 episode of Impact Wrestling, where she was again unsuccessful. After the match, both Terrell and Kim were attacked by the debuting Havok.
On the November 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell defeated newly crowned champion Havok and Gail Kim in a three–way match to win the TNA Knockouts Championship for the first time. On January 7, 2015, during Impact Wrestlings debut on Destination America, Terrell successfully defended the championship in a battle royal against the other TNA Knockouts, lastly eliminating Havok. Terrell went on to successfully retain her championship in various matches: on January 30 against Kim and Madison Rayne in a three–way match and against Angelina Love on February 20. After that Terrell started a feud with the recently returned Awesome Kong, after Kong attacked her. This led to a match between the two, on March 6, which Taryn won via disqualification and Kong would continue her attack after the match, with Kim making the save. This led to a three–way match, where Terrell again prevailed. On April 18, Terrell became the new longest reigning TNA Knockouts Champion in history, surpassing Kim's previous record of 210 days.
On the special episode of Impact Wrestling, titled TKO: Night of Knockouts on April 24, Terrell retained her championship against Kong in a no disqualification match after The Dollhouse (Jade and Marti Bell) interfered and attacked Kong, ultimately assisting Terrell in putting Kong through a table as a "receipt" for an earlier attack in which Kong put Terrell through a table. After the match, Terrell transitioned into a villainess for the first time in her wrestling career and joined The Dollhouse as their leader. Terrell retained her championship on the Hardcore Justice episode of Impact Wrestling on May 1, against Brooke, with help from Jade and Marti. In their first match as a team, the following week, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Kim in a three–on–two handicap match. On the May 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, in a steel cage match, Terrell again retained her championship against Kim. At Slammiversary XIII, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Brooke in another three–on–two handicap match. After successfully retaining her championship against Brooke and Kong in a three–way match, Terrell lost the championship to Brooke, on the July 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, after interference from Gail Kim, ending her reign at 279 days. After her loss, Terrell went on a hiatus citing a hand injury, courtesy of Kim but continued to appear in segments on the jumbotron, orchestrating attacks on various Knockouts. During her absence, Rebel joined The Dollhouse. On January 4, 2016, Terrell announced that she had parted ways with the company, describing her departure as a personal decision.
On October 2, 2016, Terrell made an appearance at Bound for Glory alongside Awesome Kong, Christy Hemme, and Chairman Dixie Carter to induct Gail Kim into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Return to Impact Wrestling (2017)
On August 17, 2017, at Destination X, Terrell made her return to the newly rebranded Impact Wrestling, attacking Gail Kim during her GFW Knockouts Championship match against Sienna. On the September 7 episode of Impact!, in her first match back after her one and a half year hiatus, Terrell teamed with Sienna and defeated Kim and Allie in a tag team match. On October 20, 2017, it was announced that Terrell had departed Impact Wrestling.
National Wrestling Alliance (2021–present)
On March 21, 2021, Terrell made her NWA debut on commentary during the women's match between Thunder Rosa and Kamille. On the June 6, at When Our Shadows Fall, Terrell teamed with Kylie Rae and won their debut match against Thunder Rosa and Melina Perez.
Acting career
Terrell made a special appearance on The Showbiz Show with David Spade in 2007. Terrell was featured in a segment on Lopez Tonight on August 4, 2010. She received her start in acting after appearing alongside Will Ferrell in the 2012 comedy film The Campaign. She was later hired as a stunt double for Kayla Ewell in the film The Demented.
Filmography
Personal life
Terrell attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in marketing. Terrell is a co-leader for a volunteer mission group called Hope Children's Home that provides love and time to children that have been neglected, abused, and discarded. Terrell is a founder for a volunteer mission foundation called Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
In 2008, Terrell became a vegan due to animal rights. However, she revealed she was no longer a vegan in 2010.
She is also a convert to Christianity.
Terrell first appeared in Playboy in the special College Girls edition of January 2007. She next appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of the Playboy Lingerie Special Edition. The photos were an accumulation of previous photoshoots that she had done for the magazine prior to signing with WWE, and show her fully naked. She appeared again in Playboy in November 2010, in the special issue Big Boobs, Hot Buns, with the photos having been taken prior to her signing with WWE. Terrell has appeared in an issue of Maxim and on Sky Sports.com.
Terrell previously dated Alfonso Ribeiro in 2008. Terrell became engaged to Drew Galloway, who appears on-screen as wrestler Drew McIntyre, in July 2009. The couple married in Las Vegas in May 2010. On May 24, 2011, Terrell announced that she and Galloway were divorcing.
Terrell gave birth to a girl named Emerson on March 2, 2014. Terrell married professional motorcyclist and stunt man Joseph Dryden in 2015.
Championships and accomplishments
Ohio Valley Wrestling OVW Women's Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' PWI ranked her 10 of the best 50 female singles wrestlers in the PWI Female 50 in 2015
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling'''
TNA Knockouts Championship (1 time)
References
External links
Taryn Terrell Impact Wrestling Profile
1985 births
Female models from Florida
Actresses from Tampa, Florida
American female professional wrestlers
American film actresses
American stunt performers
American television actresses
Converts to Christianity
Female models from Louisiana
Glamour models
Living people
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Professional wrestlers from Louisiana
Professional wrestling authority figures
Professional wrestling managers and valets
Professional wrestling referees
University of New Orleans alumni
WWE Diva Search contestants
21st-century American women
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"Gail Rodwell (also Potter, Tilsley, Platt, Hillman and McIntyre) is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Coronation Street, played by Helen Worth. The character first appeared on-screen on 29 July 1974. Gail is the daughter of Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls) and Ted Page (Michael Byrne) and is the mother of Nick Tilsley (Ben Price), Sarah Platt (Tina O'Brien) and David Platt (Jack P. Shepherd) and has featured in some of the most controversial and high-profile storylines in the soap involving her family and her number of relationships — jointly with Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson), she is the soap's most married character, having been married six times.\n\nGail's storylines include her marriage to Brian Tilsley (Christopher Quinten); her vicious feud with her mother-in-law Ivy Tilsley (Lynne Perrie); her affair with Brian's cousin Ian Latimer; coping when Brian is killed in a knife attack; marrying the much younger Martin Platt (Sean Wilson); coping when her teenage daughter Sarah falls pregnant at the age of 13; divorcing Martin after he has an affair with a colleague; marrying Alma's cousin Richard Hillman (Brian Capron), who she discovers is a serial killer; being kidnapped with Sarah, David and her granddaughter Bethany Platt (Emily/Amy Walton) by Richard and being driven into the canal by him; her feud with Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver) after her son Todd (Bruno Langley) comes out as gay while dating Sarah; throwing David out after he hides drugs in Bethany's toys; being pushed down the stairs by David after he discovers that she took Tina McIntyre (Michelle Keegan) to a private abortion clinic to terminate a pregnancy fathered by David; marrying Tina's father Joe McIntyre (Reece Dinsdale); being imprisoned for Joe's murder when his plan to fake his own death goes wrong; a relationship with Audrey's ex-partner Lewis Archer (Nigel Havers) only for him to con her out of all her money; a feud with David's late wife Kylie Turner (Paula Lane); coping with the secret that Kylie slept with Nick and that her unborn baby may not be David's; marrying the burglar who robbed her home, Michael Rodwell (Les Dennis); keeping the secret that Andy Carver (Oliver Farnworth) is not actually Michael's son but an impostor; trying to help David come to terms with Kylie's death; locking David in the cellar of the Bistro after discovering that he is going to kill Kylie's murderer.\n\nStorylines\n\nGail Potter is a friend of Tricia Hopkins (Kathy Jones) and a boss. She is first seen as a teenager in July 1974 when she tells Ray Langton (Neville Buswell) that Tricia fancies him. In April 1975, Gail discovers that the man her mother was living with – Frank Peterson – isn't her father as she thought. Angry, Gail leaves home, moving into the shop flat with her co-worker/former schoolfriend, Tricia. Gail is plagued by nuisance telephone calls and when phone engineer, John Lane, turns up one evening to catch the culprit, Gail realises that it is him. Luckily, Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) sees him go in, her suspicions aroused, and the police are called.\nAfter the warehouse they work in burns down, Gail and Tricia work in the Corner Shop, but when Renee Bradshaw (Madge Hindle) buys the shop and flat in June 1976, the girls are evicted. Tricia leaves Weatherfield and Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix) returns. Elsie ensures that Gail can stay in the flat. Elsie and Gail find work at Sylvia's Separates and move into No 11. She loses her virginity to Roy Thornley but discovers that he is married and Gail is cited in a messy divorce. In December 1976, Sylvia's Separates is taken over by Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs) and renamed the Western Front. Elsie is moved from boutique manager to factory supervisor and Gail is promoted to manager with Suzie Birchall (Cheryl Murray), working for her. In early 1977, Suzie joins Elsie and Gail at No 11, and the three women become one of the programme's most popular groups.\n\nIn November 1978, Mike Baldwin closes down the Western Front, but things look up for Gail in December when Brian Tilsley (Christopher Quinten) gatecrashes a party at Elsie's and asks her out. In January 1979, Gail gets a job working with Emily Bishop in Dawson's Cafe. By April, Brian and Gail are engaged, beginning a long feud between Gail and Brian's mother, Ivy (Lynne Perrie), and saw the arrival of Gail's mother, Audrey Potter (Sue Nicholls). Brian and Gail are married that November and move in with Brian's parents at number five. Gail and Brian move to a one-bedroomed house at 5 Buxton Close in August 1980 and on New Year's Eve, their son, Nicky (Warren Jackson) is born. The Tilsleys' marriage never seems wholly secure, especially with narcissistic Brian being given free rein by his doting mother, and soon hits a rocky spot. Gail is propositioned by Brian's friend, Colin Jackson, and Brian is dazzled by customer Glenda Fox. In January 1982, Brian's boss, Ron Sykes, announces that he is selling the business and emigrating to the Persian Gulf. Faced with the choice of working away or redundancy, Brian goes to work in Qatar. Gail makes friends with neighbour, Jackie Moffatt, but bored at home on her own, asks Jackie to look after Nicky while she works part-time in Jim Sedgewick's café (she had briefly worked there when it first opened in 1980), now run by Jim's ex-wife, Alma Sedgewick, (Amanda Barrie).\n\nBrian announces that he is staying in the Gulf, extending his contract by two months. Lonely, Gail agrees to go for a drink with truck driver, Les Charlton, (Graham Fellows) but Nicky goes missing and is eventually found in the newly rebuilt number seven. A distressed Gail thinks about giving up her job and loses interest in Les. But Les's last visit coincides with Brian's return and he makes it very clear to Les that he is not welcome. Brian decides not to return to Qatar and admits having \"had a drink\" with a nurse and Gail realizes that his friendship with her was a lot closer than he is admitting. In August 1982, using the money he made in Qatar, Brian opens a garage in partnership with Ron Sykes and for a while, the Tilsleys are happy. In March 1983, things seem to be going so well that Brian takes out a bank loan and buys Ron Sykes's share of the garage. However, there is a change in fortunes – Brian's father, Bert (Peter Dudley), is seriously injured while overinflating a tyre at the garage and dies soon afterwards, and the business starts losing money – forcing Brian to put it up for sale. He is talked out of selling by Gail and Mike Baldwin, deciding to sell the house in Buxton Close instead, and move back in with Ivy. The Tilsleys' marriage now begins to crumble as living under the same roof irritates Ivy and Gail and when in August 1984, Gail is offered the job of manager at Jim's Cafe, she takes it – annoying Brian and Ivy. A couple of months later, there is more friction when Brian finds that Audrey's latest boyfriend, George Hepworth (Richard Moore), made a pass at Gail. By April 1985, Gail has had enough and leaves Brian, moving her and Nicky into a bedsit. This finally makes Brian get a council house so Gail and Nicky move in there with him.\n\nEarly in 1986, Brian's Australian cousin, Ian Latimer (Michael Loney) visits and stays with Ivy. Soon he and Gail are having an affair. Gail admits this to Brian on learning that she is pregnant and doesn't know who is the father. Blood tests show that Sarah-Louise (Lynsay & Leah King), who is born in January 1987, cannot be Ian's but Brian never really bonds with Sarah-Louise, and moves in with his new girlfriend, Liz Turnbull (Catriona A Elliott). Soon after, Brian divorces Gail. Gail starts dating Jeff Singleton (Jonathan Barlow), and Brian doesn't like the idea of him being a stand-in father. After Brian's abortive attempt to kidnap Nicky, Brian and Gail reconcile and he moves back into Hammond Road, and they remarry in February 1988. However, Gail realises that she married too young and Brian's old-fashioned attitudes about wives mean that the marriage will never work so they separate again but continue living under the same roof. Eventually, Gail asks for another divorce after a massive row one evening in February 1989. Brian's attempt to find other female company that same evening results in him stabbed to death outside a nightclub.\n\nAlma returns to Weatherfield from Spain late in 1988, and in June 1989, offers Gail a 40% partnership in Jim's Café, which she accepts. Martin Platt (Sean Wilson) has been working at the café since 1985. To Gail's surprise, she finds herself attracted to Martin, who is 10 years younger than her. Martin comforts Gail when she is upset about recent events and a few kisses leads to them ending up in bed together.\n\nMuch against Ivy and Audrey's wishes, Martin moves in with Gail and the children, and by the spring of 1990, she is pregnant. Feeling that she can't cope with three children and doesn't want Martin to be tied down too young, she decides to have an abortion. Martin catches her just as her train pulls out of the station and persuades her not to go ahead so David (Thomas Ormson) is born on Christmas Day 1990. Gail and Martin marry in September 1991 and in December, Martin buys number eight and the Platt family move in. Gail's emotional trials are far from over. When Martin studies to become a nurse, Carmel Finnan (Catherine Cusack), a fellow student, stays with them in late 1992 and becomes besotted with Martin. Gail angrily throws her out after Carmel tells Gail that she is too old for Martin but she returns a few weeks later, claiming she's expecting Martin's baby and tries to kidnap David. This causes a fight between her and Gail and Carmel falls down the stairs. At the hospital, it is found that she isn't pregnant and her grandfather arrives, explaining her mental history.\n\nDuring 1994, tensions build as a now teenaged Nicky refuses to acknowledge Martin as a \"father\" (particularly when he disciplines him for smoking), causing problems for Martin and Gail. Depressed after Christmas celebrations at work, Martin sleeps with Cathy Power, (Theresa Brindley) and is caught kissing her Audrey's husband, Alf Roberts, (Bryan Mosley). Alf and Martin agree to keep it between them but when Audrey finds out, Martin confesses everything to Gail. Gail takes the betrayal very badly, and although they continue to live together, she and Martin barely speak but reconcile after a family holiday in North Wales. However, tensions with Nick (as he now wants to be called) grow and are aggravated by Ivy's death in August 1995, more than a year after she had left Coronation Street. She leaves most of her estate to Nick – providing he changes his name back to Tilsley. Months of wrangling and bad feeling ensue, with Gail, Martin, Nick and Don Brennan (Geoffrey Hinsliff), Ivy's second husband, constantly arguing. Martin, however, disagrees since he is his adoptive father, but Gail knew that Ivy wanted Nicky to have Brian's surname. To end her feud with Ivy despite her death, they agreed to change his surname back to Tilsley. In January 1996, Gail settles the row by getting Don to pay Nick £12,000 for the house. Soon after, Gail meets her half-brother, Stephen Reid (Todd Boyce) when he visits Weatherfield. Later in 1996, Martin and Gail's marriage is strained, due to conflict between Nick and Martin so Stephen invites them to Canada for a holiday and Nick decides to go to school there, using the money Don paid him for Ivy's house.\n\nRoy Cropper (David Neilson) begins working in the café with Gail when Alma wants to spend less time there and eventually, Alma sells her share in the café to Roy after she and Gail fall out over Stephen's decision to cancel his contract with Mike. Gail and Roy get on very well and things tick over as usual. Roy even gives Gail and Martin a weekend trip to Paris from the vouchers he has saved. In 1997, Don is in prison after attacking Mike and Alma but is diagnosed with terminal cancer and asks to see Gail to make amends for the trouble he caused since Ivy's death. Don leaves hospital, attacks Mike and crashes Alma's car into the viaduct, killing himself. Nick (now played by Adam Rickett) returns for the funeral and starts dating Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson), part of a loud, obnoxious family now living in number five. Gail is furious when Nick and Leanne elope to Scotland in January 1998.\n\nBrian's murderer, Darren Whately, is released from prison on parole in 1998 and Nick persuades Leanne to write to him so he starts stalking her. Gail urges Nick to report him to the police when things get out of control and Darren is returned to prison. Leanne and Nick are shocked to learn that Leanne is pregnant, something Gail disapproves of, and their marriage ends after Nick pressures her to have an abortion and tell people that she miscarried. Nick returns to Canada, much to Gail's delight that he is no longer with Leanne, behaviour very similar to her former mother-in-law, Ivy.\n\nGail tires of her responsibility of the café and sells her share to Roy and his new girlfriend Hayley Patterson (Julie Hesmondhalgh), but continues to work there. The café relocates in 1999 to a new development on Victoria Street and is renamed Roy's Rolls. 1999 also sees Gail and Martin's marriage get into serious trouble after Gail demands Martin have a vasectomy after she has a pregnancy scare and doesn't want any more children. Martin refuses and Gail's unreasonable behaviour and anger pushes Martin to become good friends with another nurse, Rebecca Hopkins (Jill Halfpenny). They initially bond over troublesome spouses but soon begin an affair that lasts into 2000. Martin plans on leaving Gail for Rebecca, but this is put on hold when they discover that Sarah (now played by Tina O'Brien), now 13, is refusing to eat and being sick. Fearing that she is developing an eating disorder, Gail takes her to the doctors and learns that Sarah is five months pregnant and gives birth to Bethany (Emily & Amy Walton) in June 2000. Sarah struggles with motherhood and Gail quits her job so she can look after Bethany while Sarah is at school and enjoy being a teenager occasionally. The truth about Martin's affair comes out soon after the baby's birth and Gail is devastated. She tries to keep the family together but it doesn't work as Gail kept on taking her frustration out on Sarah, accusing her of being a bad mother which caused her to run away and to move into the Croppers' flat. Gail felt very guilty after Sarah returned home. She breaks down and tells Martin she wants a divorce. Martin moves out in October 2000, and he and Gail divorce the following year. Soon after Martin leaves, Gail gets a job as a receptionist in the newly built medical centre.\n\nThe character of Gail then becomes central to one of the soap's most high-profile plot lines in which episodes would go on to get viewing figures more than 17 million. Following Alma's death in June 2001, Gail became friends with her cousin: Richard Hillman (Brian Capron), a financial advisor. They gradually formed a relationship for the rest of the year and were eventually married in July 2002. However, while their marriage appeared to be thoroughly perfect as Gail had hoped, she was totally unaware that Richard had financial difficulties after proposals for a bail hostel to be built near apartments he had developed causes them not to sell; because of this, Richard ended up murdering two people and even tried to kill Gail's mother Audrey along with her friend Emily Bishop. When Audrey begins to suspect Richard, she tries to warn Gail but Gail believes Audrey is suffering from dementia as Richard made everyone, including Audrey at first believe through the use of secret mind games. This leads to a row and Gail cuts off contact with Audrey when she continues to call Richard a murderer, much to Audrey's heartache. Also, while Gail was still oblivious to Richard's actions, Sarah was seriously injured in a car crash caused by her boyfriend: Aidan Critchley (Dean Ashton), after he stole Ken Barlow's (William Roache) car. Aidan escapes from the wreckage, leaving Sarah for dead. She makes a full recovery but never forgives Aiden for what he did. When Gail begins to suspect that her husband is more than he seems, she confronts him with her suspicions and the worst is confirmed when Richard admits everything to her in a special two-hander episode broadcast on 24 February 2003; emulating that he murdered both Maxine Peacock (Tracy Shaw) and his ex-wife Patricia (Annabelle Apsion), left his business partner and the Rovers' landlord Duggie Ferguson (John Bowe) to die following a collapse, and tried to kill both Audrey and Emily – the latter which led to Maxine's murder and Richard subsequently framing Aidan for the crimes as revenge for Sarah's accident. Richard, after confessing that his crimes were all part of his financial benefit, tries to justify his actions whilst asserting his love for both Gail and her children.\n\nGail, however, is absolutely horrified with the truth of her husband and calls Richard \"Norman Bates With A Briefcase\" before throwing him out. She later reconciles with Audrey and together the pair give a statement to the police about Richard's confession, thus exposing his crimes and making him the most wanted fugitive in the UK. Gail subsequently attempts to rebuild her life back on track, but Richard secretly returns three weeks after fleeing Coronation Street. He takes Gail, Sarah, David (now played by Jack P. Shepherd) and Bethany hostage and attempts to gas them in the garage but their neighbours hear the sound of Richard's car in the garage, so he speeds off and drives them all into the canal. Gail, Sarah, David, and Bethany survive but Richard drowns. Gail later finds out that she faces financial ruin, due to Richard's actions and could lose her house. Her neighbour Vera Duckworth (Elizabeth Dawn) accuses her of being in league with Richard, as she and her husband Jack (Bill Tarmey) also face financial instability as Richard was their financial advisor. However, Audrey saves the day by using her life savings to buy the house for Gail and her family.\n\nAfter managing to overcome her trauma with Richard for the rest of 2003, Gail manages to rebuild her life until she and Sarah end up having another problem together. This begins with Sarah and Bethany moving out of the house and into a flat with Todd Grimshaw (Bruno Langley), her closest friend. This prompts Gail to call Social Services, hoping to get Bethany returned to her so Sarah will have to return too. When this doesn't work, Gail and Sarah have no contact for several months. Sarah becomes pregnant again and she and Todd get engaged, further angering Gail, just like her relationship with her former mother-in-law Ivy. However, Todd admits to Sarah that he is gay so they break up and Sarah and Bethany move out, returning to live with Gail. When Sarah tells Gail what has happened, the fight between Gail and Eileen (Sue Cleaver), Todd's mother, turns physical as Gail is furious at the position Todd has left Sarah in, 16 years old and 7 months pregnant with her 2nd child. Sarah is rushed to hospital with a placental abruption and needs an emergency Caesarean. She survives but baby Billy is very ill and dies the day after he is born.\n\nGail also does her best to come between Nick and his new girlfriend, Maria Sutherland (Samia Ghadie), believing that Maria will break Nick's heart again as she emigrated with him to Canada briefly once before but returned alone, as she wasn't happy there. They eventually do break up, and despite being very cold with each other for several months, Gail comforts Maria when she is devastated that Nick leaves to start a new job in Nottingham.\n\nIn 2005, Gail begins a relationship with chiropodist Phil Nail (Clive Russell), much to David's annoyance and he constantly tries to come between them.\n\nFrom early 2006, Gail receives cards from her late husband Richard, unnerving her so much that she becomes reliant on sleeping pills and drink. She contacts the police and thinks that the new boyfriend, Phil, is responsible and this causes Phil and David to argue, resulting in him and Gail breaking up and Phil leaving. Her relationship with David is strained to the point of breakdown when she realizes that he is sending the cards. She takes him to the police to close the case but doesn't press charges. Gail forgives David and believes that she can keep him in line, only to find that he is not going to school. On Christmas Day 2006, David unveils Ivy Brennan's diary, revealing Gail's planned abortion and he also exposes Audrey's affair with Bill Webster (Peter Armitage). David runs away from home when Gail tells him she wants him to start paying rent but returns with the police after claiming that Gail is abusing him. The final straw is when Bethany swallows an ecstasy tablet that was hidden in her doll's head by David in September 2007. Bethany is rushed to intensive care, and following an ultimatum from Sarah, Gail makes David move out and orders him not to attend Sarah's wedding to his enemy Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas). As revenge, David writes a suicide note and leaves it on the kitchen table for Gail to find the day before the wedding. However, Sarah finds it first and believing it to be another attention-seeking stunt, she puts it in the bin. The next day, David sees his family celebrating the wedding, despite the suicide note. To prove his point, he drives his car into the same part of the canal that Richard had driven them all into four years earlier. A distraught Gail waits for hours for news on whether he is alive or dead, and when he eventually turns up at the house, Gail swears to him that she will never let the situation get so out of hand again. Her relationship with Sarah becomes strained when it is revealed that Sarah was aware of the suicide note when in fact he hadn't intended on killing himself at all, just ruin Sarah's wedding. She began to blame herself, how her son David becomes evil since his father Martin left the town, and wish that she and Martin never divorced.\n\nGail's half brother Stephen comes to stay for Christmas and offers David a job in Milan which he accepts. However, as revenge for spoiling her wedding day, Sarah plants ecstasy tablets in his drawer at Audrey's salon and when Audrey finds them, Gail insists that David is not to go to Milan. Sarah is offered the job instead and plans on leaving with Jason and Bethany. However, she joyfully tells Jason what she did at the airport and disgusted with her, Jason returns to Weatherfield alone and tells Gail what really happened.\n\nIn March 2008, David's new girlfriend Tina McIntyre (Michelle Keegan) tells Gail that she is pregnant with David's baby. Believing that neither of them are ready for parenthood, Gail offers to pay for Tina to have an abortion and to keep it from David, which Tina accepts. However, David soon finds out and is angry with Gail. He goes to pack his bags and Gail begs him not to go and tries to explain her reasons, but David doesn't want to know and pushes her away from him. She is at the top of the stairs and has a terrible fall resulting in her being hospitalised and suffering from short-term amnesia. Gail eventually remembers who pushed her but forgives David believing she pushed him to it. However, believing that he should be punished for nearly killing his mother, he begins smashing up windows in the street resulting in him spending several weeks in prison. Ted Page (Michael Byrne), Gail's long lost father, gets in touch with Audrey. Gail finds out and is angry that she was not told. However, she arranges to meet Ted after he discovers he has a daughter, 3 grandchildren, and 1 great-grandchild.\n\nGail takes a shine to Tina's father, Joe McIntyre (Reece Dinsdale), and they start dating. Joe later proposes to Gail on a boat he renovated. However, Gail is unaware that Joe is deeply in debt, as his business has collapsed and is frequently visited by a debt collector. Gail marries Joe in January 2010 despite his debt. While Gail and Joe are on holiday the next month, Joe tries to fake his own death for the life insurance money. He tells Gail, who is horrified, and asks him to go to the police but they argue on the boat and Joe falls, spraining his wrist. The fight is witnessed by another couple. Joe eventually manages to push Gail back on to the dock and he sets sail. Shortly afterwards, Joe is knocked from the boat and drowns but Gail thinks he has gone ahead with his plan so she calls David and tells him about Joe's plan and they agree to tell people that Joe has got a job in the Lake District, thinking he will return. They take Joe's boat in from the lake and go home. Gail is devastated when Joe's body is found. However, the police find many inconsistencies in her story, especially when the couple from the lakes come forward as witnesses. She is arrested during Joe's wake for his murder and later charged after an indignant Tina tells the police that Gail intends to visit her daughter in Milan and that she asked Tina to lie to them. Consequently, Gail is denied bail and her trial is scheduled for three months later. Gail fears the worst, especially when former neighbour Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford) makes a false testimony against her claiming that Gail admitted in their prison cell to killing Joe with a rolling pin, but is relieved when she is found not guilty.\n\nGail learns that David is engaged to Kylie Turner (Paula Lane) and is against the marriage. Once David and Kylie are married Gail later warms to the marriage and allows them both to continue living with her. Gail and Audrey bump into Audrey's ex-boyfriend, professional con artist, Lewis Archer (Nigel Havers). They report him to the police but he is not charged and returns to Weatherfield, much to Audrey's horror. They reconcile, much to Gail's disgust, and live happily together. Lewis also gets a job at Nick's Bistro. However, Gail is sure that sooner or later Lewis will hurt Audrey so she plots with Gloria Price (Sue Johnston) to get proof that Lewis is really in love with Audrey. Audrey, however, finds out about this and doesn't stop them so when Lewis realizes that she knew, he leaves her. Wanting revenge, he later fools Gail into falling in love with him and they plan to remortgage her house and buy a hotel business in Italy. After telling her family this, and with Audrey and David disgusted, Lewis (by text) instructs Gail to turn on the DVD of 'Italian for Lovers' which David does. To the family's horror, Lewis has hacked her bank account, taken the money and left the country.\n\nGail meets a man named Michael Rodwell (Les Dennis), who turns up at her house pretending to be a gas man, who has come to the house to look at the \"gas leak\". He is revealed as a burglar and pushes Gail, causing her to fall over, and Kylie chases him out of the street, but he gets into his van and drives off. Gail starts to become anxious when she is home alone due to the burglary and is helped by her son David, Kylie and Audrey. However, Gail and Michael gradually grow close as Gail helps him to rebuild his life and she begins to stick up for him in front of David and Kylie. Eventually, Michael moves in with her.\n\nIn January 2015, Michael proposes to Gail, however, she is taken aback by the proposal and Michael is scared that he had rushed into things and that she would leave him. However, that evening at the bistro, Gail turns the tables and proposes to Michael. The celebrations are cut short when Michael collapses and is rushed to Weatherfield General. He later discovers he will require open heart surgery. When Sarah returns to Weatherfield in March 2015, she meets Michael but rudely refers to him as the 'burglar' before shaking hands. Gail and Michael are eventually married in April 2015.\n\nHowever, in June 2015 after Michael receives a photo album from his former wife Susan detailing the life of their son Gavin, it is revealed to Michael that Andy Carver has been posing as his son and the real Gavin is dead. Michael is horrified to learn that Gail (as well as David and Andy's girlfriend Steph) knew about the fake identity and aided Andy in keeping the lie secret. Michael walks out on Gail. Unable to forgive her, Michael later demands a divorce and moves in with his new friend Eileen Grimshaw. Later Michael tells Gail that he and Eileen shared a kiss and Gail and Eileen end up fighting in the street. In July, Gail is upset when Michael and Eileen begin a relationship.\n\nGail stands by David and Kylie when Max's biological father, Callum Logan (Sean Ward), begins terrorising the family, as he wants custody of Max. Gail tries to co-operate with Callum's own mother, Marion, but the mediation sessions between him and David end in failure, worsening the situation as time goes on. After Max says he saw Callum and some other gangsters beating up Jason, Gail forces him out of the house when he stops by for one of his impromptu visits, only for Max to tell Callum he \"wishes he was dead\", leading to Callum chasing Max into the road. Max is then hit by Nick in a van. Thankfully, he recovers. Gail's hatred for Callum reaches new heights when he has thugs raid Audrey's salon. Following this, Callum suddenly disappears, and Gail assumes he has decided to leave the family alone from now on.\n\nIn September 2015, as uncertainty grows about the future living situation at No.8, Gail and David agree to convert the garage into a \"granny annexe\" for Gail to live in. After it is finished, Gail discovers there is damp underneath the floor. This eventually dissipates, but Gail begins to notice David, Kylie, and Sarah acting out of the ordinary. She passes it off and officially moves into the annexe. However, in January 2016, Gail tells David and Kylie she wants underfloor heating for her annexe. She gets Jason to take a look at it, but David, frustrated, stops him from doing so, raising Gail's evermore suspicions about her son's temperament.\n\nIn 2016, it was revealed that there was a decomposed body in the manhole underneath Gail's annexe after a car crash involving Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall) and Fiz Stape (Jennie McAlpine). The body was later revealed as Callum, who was missing for a couple of months. Gail considered her family responsible for the murder but looked passed it after it was later said that Jason's father, Tony Stewart (Terence Maynard) was \"guilty\" of murdering him.\n\nGail's daughter Sarah began experiencing mental issues after believing that Callum wasn't dead and was still on the run and coming to kill her. Billy Mayhew's (Daniel Brocklebank) brother Lee ended up kidnapping Sarah before she went into hospital, telling her that Callum is indeed \"alive\". Sarah angers him by pushing him into a table, injuring him. Lee pushes her, looking like he is going to rape her and then Gail's son David kicks open the door and saves her from him. Sarah then goes into hospital leaving her newborn baby Harry with Gail's daughter-in-law, Kylie. Michael also later reconciles with Gail after splitting with Eileen, and moves back into No 8.\n\nIn July 2016, Gail's son David and his wife Kylie agreed to leave Weatherfield and move to Barbados with Kylie's half-sister Becky McDonald. This was cancelled because of the sudden death of Kylie after she was stabbed by Clayton Hibbs after protecting Gemma Winter (Dolly Rose-Campbelle). Gail and her family grieved following this especially David, Max, and Lily. These memories bring Gail back from her first husband Brian when he was stabbed thirty years ago.\n\nIn October 2016, Gail was horrified by David as he tried to kill Clayton and himself by crashing into his police van with his car full of petrol and by lighting a flame. Gail later found a suicide video, by David, stating that he didn't want to upset the kids but was doing this for Kylie. Gail's method for preventing David from suicide was by trapping him in the Bistro's wine cellar during the trial.\n\nDavid later escaped the cellar and ended up crashing into Gary Windass (Mikey North) and his own daughter, Lily. They both survived but soon after the explosion, Gary's mother Anna Windass (Debbie Rush) got caught up in flames after she fell into a petrol puddle and ended up receiving serious burns to the legs. Gail understood to not ask further questions to David as he felt terrible about it all.\n\nIn November 2016, Michael is found dead after Pat Phelan (Connor McIntyre) allowed him to die of a heart attack. Gail is devastated, and she and Eileen put aside their differences for Michael's funeral. Michael is cremated off-screen, and Gail scatters his ashes into a pond near to where they were planning to renew their vows.\n\nIn January 2017, Gail's granddaughter Bethany, begins dating an older man called Nathan Curtis (Christopher Harper) who ended up only being with her to exploit her and groom her. At the same time, David becomes involved with new girl, Shona Ramsey (Julia Goulding), who was also involved with Nathan.\n\nIn May 2017, Gail begins pairing up David and fellow hairdresser Maria Connor (Samia Ghadie) after believing that they had feelings for each other and were the \"perfect match\". David and Maria find out about Gail's plans and agree to mess with her. They pretend to be engaged and in love and later take it to the next level and pretend that Maria is pregnant with David's baby. Audrey discovers that they are lying to them and tells Gail. Gail pretends to organise the wedding plans and David tells her that it was all a joke.\n\nIn June 2017, Gail discovers that Bethany has been involved in a sex ring and is horrified. After believing that Nathan doesn't really love her, Bethany leaves him and gets him arrested. Gail's precious son Nick decides to leave Weatherfield for good because he has nothing left in Weatherfield. They have a touching moment together.\n\nGail's son David and Shona get closer and share a kiss in hospital together. This annoys Gail because she knows that Shona is the mother of Kylie's killer Clayton. She warns Shona to stay away and even offers her £600 to make her move away. Shona ends up telling David the truth and she leaves Weatherfield after being upset by David. David finds out that Gail knew about everything and kicks her out of his house, but eventually lets her back in.\n\nIn 2018, Gail finds out Pat Phelan watched Michael die.\n\nCasting\n\nActress Helen Worth was cast as Gail Potter in 1974. The role of Gail was initially intended to be very minor, a friend of the more established character Tricia Hopkins (Kathy Jones), who was introduced as part of a new family. The Hopkins family made little impact on the show, and, after they were written out, Gail went on to become one of the most popular and high-profile characters in the history of the series. Although Worth was 23 at the time of her casting, the character of Gail was supposed to be 16 when she first appeared.\n\nDevelopment\n\nBackground\nThe character of Gail was first portrayed as a teenager who liked to have fun with her best friends, first Tricia, then later Suzie Birchall (Cheryl Murray). However, following her first marriage to mechanic Brian Tilsley (Christopher Quinten) her storylines have seen her constantly suffer many blows and misery. She has had five husbands, three children, and four grandchildren, although her grandson died in infancy. Her storylines have seen her feuding with a domineering mother-in-law, deal with affairs, three divorces, being widowed three times, deal with traumas from each of her children, marry a serial killer who in turn tried to kill her and her family, and even been imprisoned to await a murder trial after being falsely accused of murdering her fourth husband. Throughout each of these ordeals, her personality altered from laid back to a bitter, miserable, whiny and bossy woman, a clone of her former mother-in-law Ivy Tilsley (Lynne Perrie). She has been known to interfere in her children's lives as family is important to her and she didn't come from a stable family background. Her mother gave birth to her at 18 because she thought it would help her get the baby back that she had been forced to give up for adoption two years previously. Gail's father was never told about her and as a result, she was mostly brought up by her grandmother or to fend for herself while her mother went out with a string of men. This caused Gail to become a headstrong, independent young woman. However, she always swore that her own children would have a proper family life, living with both their parents. However this hasn't worked out and she has been left with repeated failed marriages and being a single mother to her children. In early storylines, Gail appeared to know both her parents and it was suggested they were married. At the time of her affair with Roy Thornley in the episode broadcast on 30 August 1976, she was particularly anxious about what her father would think, stating that he always read the newspaper out loud to her mother over breakfast. However, as the character of Gail became more established and prominent in the series, her background was 'retconned' to introduce her single mother Audrey and to provide a more consistent back story. She interferes in her children's lives, thinking she is helping and knows what's best, causing many arguments in the process and feuding with whoever gets involved with her children, just like her own relationship with Ivy. Particularly after marrying a serial killer and putting her children's lives in danger, Gail's interfering has increased immensely. Actress Helen Worth has stated that she loves Gail's storylines as the many traumas give her great opportunities as an actress.\n\nFeud with Eileen Grimshaw\nThe character's feud with neighbour Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver) arose when Eileen's son, Todd (Bruno Langley) gave up his university course to remain with Gail's daughter Sarah-Louise (Tina O'Brien); Sarah later married Eileen's older son, Jason, but the marriage soon broke up. Various things, including the 2010 tram crash, have caused them to put aside their differences.\n\nCleaver has commented, \"Eileen's relationship with Gail is horrendous [...] I love all the scraps in the street with Gail. Helen Worth (Gail) and I love doing all that – we have such a laugh with the abusive comments we make for each other. The constant battle is fun. It's a love-hate relationship.\" Worth has suggested that Gail probably thinks she is \"a little better than Eileen\". Jenny Platt, who played Violet Wilson, has noted that \"Gail's found her nemesis in Eileen, but it's so stupid because actually they are so similar. They are both single mums looking out for their kids.\" In June 2015, they fought in the street after Gail discovered Eileen had kissed her estranged husband Michael.\n\nRelationship with Joe McIntyre\nIn 2008, Gail began a relationship with Joe McIntyre portrayed by Reece Dinsdale. The relationship was rocky just like most of other Gail's relationships but the two characters later went on to marry. Conclusion to the storyline and ending of the relationship resulting in Joe's death. In November 2009, The Sun reported Joe would decide to disappear on a boating holiday in the Lake District after experiencing a debt crisis which begins to spiral out of control, in a surprise twist, Joe ends up losing his life for real when a sail pole knocks him unconscious and into freezing cold water before he can carry out his plan in full. The plot mirrored real-life case of fraudster John Darwin, who faked his own death while out canoeing before turning up alive five years later in December 2007. A source said: \"It's a copycat storyline of Darwin's insurance scam. Corrie bosses have decided that Joe will meet a watery end. He decides to fake his own death to avoid his crippling debt problems and leave wife Gail with the proceeds from his life insurance.\"\n\nSpeaking of how Joe compared to Gail's other husband, Helen Worth said; \"On paper, Joe looks quite normal! He's like any other normal man with problems and they're getting on top of him. Gail will share those problems. Like she says, when Gail marries him, Joe's problems become her problems and that's the way it should be. That sums their relationship up, really. She'll do anything for him because Gail can't let her dream go. To realise that he's the wrong man would spell the end of her dream, so she's not going to do it.\"\n\nIn 2009, Worth revealed in an interview with the Daily Mirror that she thought Coronation Street bosses were going to write the character out of the soap as an upcoming storyline would see her on trial for murder: \"At the time I was genuinely anxious as to whether it was the end of the road for me and Coronation Street... I wasn’t shocked, because it can happen to an actor at any time. But I was very pleased when I found out that whatever happens at Gail’s trial, I will be staying in the show.\"\n\nRelationship with Michael Rodwell\n\nLes Dennis joined the show in 2014, as Michael Rodwell, who was being lined up as a love interest for Gail. Michael arrived in Weatherfield and burgled Gail's house, but returned later in the year to try to make amends with Gail as part of a restorative justice storyline. (The restorative justice scheme involves people who have admitted crimes meeting their victims or making amends by doing some sort of remedial work.) Gail would sacrifice everything for her relationship with Michael, in particular her relationship with son Nick Tilsley (Ben Price) who disapproved of the relationship. After just over two years, Rodwell was written out of the series, dying of a heart attack.\n\nReception\n\nOn 25 May 2014, Worth won \"Outstanding Achievement Award\" at The British Soap Awards 2014 for her portrayal of Gail over the last 40 years.\n\nOn 9 June 2014, a 30-minute documentary entitled \"Gail & Me: 40 Years on Coronation Street\" was aired at 20:00 dedicated to Worth's 40 years on the soap. In the show, Worth was reunited with past actors Brian Capron (Richard Hillman) and Amanda Barrie (Alma Halliwell), and spoke out about Gail's most controversial storylines.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nGail Rodwell at itv.com\n\nCoronation Street characters\nTelevision characters introduced in 1974\nFictional receptionists\nFictional waiting staff\nFictional bartenders\nFictional prisoners and detainees\nFictional people from Manchester\nFemale characters in television",
"Gail Lewis (also Robinson) is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Neighbours, played by Fiona Corke. She made her first screen appearance during the episode broadcast on 11 March 1987. Corke left the role in 1989, but made appearances in 2005, 2006 and 2007. She reprised the role in 2019, as Gail returns to Erinsborough to meet her granddaughter.\n\nCasting\nCorke first appeared in Neighbours in 1987. She described her time on the show as \"an amazing experience\" and added \"It was so full on and so huge you didn't know if you were an actor or in a pop group half the time.\" In 1988, Corke became one of ten actors from the show who were flown to London to perform in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance.\n\nDevelopment\n\nIntroduction and marriage\nGail was introduced alongside her father Rob Lewis (Ernie Bourne). They move to Erinsborough and Gail becomes reacquainted with Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis), who she worked with when they were both flight attendants. Neil Wallis and Dave Hogan of The Neighbours Factfile said both Gail and Paul had become \"talented ambitious high-flyers in business\" in the intervening years. Gail is shown to be intelligent and a university graduate. Gail becomes Paul's number two at the Daniels Corporation. She puts her work first in order to \"blot out\" her private life and a failed marriage to racing driver Jeremy Lord (Tim Elston).\n\nProducers created a marriage of convenience story for Gail and Paul. They decide to get married in order to trick Japanese businessman, Mr Udagawa (Lawrence Mah) and secure a business deal with him. Mr Udagawa believes marriage is a favourable indication of a man's judgement, and Gail quickly agrees to Paul's suggestion. They are married in the living room of Number 22 Ramsay Street in front of their families. Paul claims that they wanted something simple as they have both been married before. The plan works and Mr Udagawa awards them the contract, forcing them to work long hours together. Josephine Monroe wrote in her book The Neighbours Programme Guide: \"sadly their dedication was only to their work.\"\n\nDeparture\nCorke left Neighbours in August 1989, after deciding she wanted to experience life outside of the show. She initially commented, \"I love Neighbours and I've had a ball, but it's time to move on.\" Corke later told Sue Larkin of the Aberdeen Press and Journal that quitting the show was a hard decision, but she did not want to be in it forever. She continued, \"I decided to take a few risks, have a look round and see if I could do something else.\" Corke also told Larkin that the producers did not want to let her go. She had previously made \"noises\" about leaving six months earlier and they asked her to stay for longer, which she did. She said \"This time I meant it, though. In an situation like that, you can go on and on helping people out and end up staying for years.\"\n\nThe producers and writers were surprised by Corke's decision, but immediately began planning how Gail would exit. Ideas included a fatal car accident, a disappearance, or a marriage break up. They favoured the latter option. After Rob is killed in a car accident, Gail partly blames Paul. The couple's marriage is strained further when Paul leaves the funeral for a business meeting. Corke commented, \"that was just it for Gail, she couldn't take any more.\" Gail, who was seven months pregnant with triplets, realises that she probably will not receive the support from Paul that she needs, so she decides to move to Tasmania. Corke said one of the hardest things about leaving Neighbours was saying goodbye to her friends, including Dennis, who she got on with \"fantastically\".\n\nReturn\nCorke made a cameo appearance, alongside many former cast members, in the serial's 20th anniversary celebration episode \"Friends for Twenty Years\". In January 2006, a reporter for Inside Soap confirmed Corke would be reprising the role for a guest stint later that year. Gail returns to Erinsborough in June, almost twenty years after she departed, for her children. Gail and Paul \"face the terrible reality\" that their son Robert Robinson (Adam Hunter) is a killer. Corke said that the triplets have been everything to Gail. Although she had a long-term relationship with a man in Tasmania, her life has been her children and her plant nursery business. Corke explained, \"now she is so overcome by what's happened to her kids. At first, she is angry with Paul. She has brought these three kids up on her own, with no help from him, and they have been perfectly happy and healthy. Then as soon as they start staying with their Dad, everything goes wrong! Gail's really on her guard now.\" Paul's partner Izzy Hoyland (Natalie Bassingthwaighte) later brands Gail a bad mother and tells her she is in denial. At the same time, Paul is wondering whether he still loves Gail. Dennis thought that the former couple loved each other deeply, but they were refusing to acknowledge it due to the animosity between them. Corke also thought there was something unresolved between Gail and Paul, adding \"the thing with Gail is that she's someone who doesn't declare her emotions easily\".\n\nProducers created a second sham wedding story for Gail and Paul, who hold the ceremony with the hope of drawing Robert out of hiding. Paul's partner Izzy comes up with the sham wedding idea in jest, but they decide to go ahead with it to help the police capture Robert. Dennis told Jason Herbison from Inside Soap that Robert's goal is to destroy Paul and having a publicised wedding provides Robert with an opportunity to get at Paul. He added \"they're only pretending of course, so the marriage isn't binding.\"\n\nWriters played on the fact Gail and Paul still share romantic feelings. Dennis explained that \"the chemistry between Paul and Gail is still there, so the idea of them pretending to wed again is genius. Everyone's wondering if they've really fallen for each other. That's been the greatest thing about this storyline - you just never know. When we were filming it, we didn't even know ourselves!\" When the wedding takes place, Gail and Paul say their vows and sound too convincing. Dennis added \"it's almost as if he and Gail have to pull themselves up and remember what the day is actually about.\" When Robert fails to show, Paul shouts out load to get his attention and Robert shoots Paul in front of Gail. Following this, Robert gives himself up to the police and is arrested.\n\nReturns (2007, 2019)\nCorke returned for a short guest stint in 2007. In December 2009, Stefan Dennis called for the return of Gail. He said \"I'd like to see Fiona Corke come back, even for another guest role, because she's just adorable and fun to work with. And she's got every right to come back because she's still got a tie with Paul's children.\"\n\nCorke reprised the role on 21 August 2019, as Gail returns to Erinsborough to get to know her granddaughter Harlow Robinson (Jemma Donovan). After breaking up a catfight between Harlow and Roxy Willis (Zima Anderson), Gail voices her concerns about Harlow living with Paul and his fiancée Terese Willis (Rebekah Elmaloglou). She later admits to Paul that she blames him for the loss of their sons, and warns Terese not to marry him, leaving Terese to question whether Gail wants Paul back.\n\nStorylines\n\n1987–1989\nGail applies for the job at the Daniels Corporation and moves to Ramsay Street with her adoptive father Rob Lewis. She meets Paul Robinson again, and it emerges that they had a brief romance while they worked as air stewards. Paul gives Gail the job and they begin working alongside each other. Her former husband Jeremy Lord arrives in Erinsborough in the hope that Gail will take him back and proposes to her again, but he is killed in a racing car accident. As Gail deals with her grief, she discovers that Jeremy was already married when his widow, Meredith (Terrie Waddell) arrives and reveals she is pregnant with his child. Gail and Paul kiss after signing a business deal, but Paul quickly pulls away and apologises. When Paul realises that Japanese businessman, Mr Udagawa, prefers dealing with family men, Paul asks Gail to enter into a marriage of convenience. They fool their friends and family with their fake marriage and they slowly begin to fall for each other. When her friend Glen Matheson (Richard Moss) calls out of the blue and invites her to lunch, Gail jumps at the chance to meet him. Throughout the dinner, Gail can only talk about Paul and Glen realises that she was clearly in love him. When Gail meets up with Glen again, it follows an argument with Paul. She reveals the truth about the marriage to Glen. Gail kisses Glen goodbye and it is witnessed by Paul's grandmother Helen Daniels (Anne Haddy) who confronts Gail and she admits that she loves Paul, which he overhears.\n\nGail leaves for a business trip and on her return she tells Paul that they have no future and she wants a divorce. Although they had separated, Gail and Paul agree they make a good team at the Daniels Corporation and remain working together. But the tension between them quickly becomes unbearable and Gail resigns. She decided to leave for New York, but just before she is about to leave she says her goodbyes to everyone and Paul tells her he loves her. Gail agrees to stay in Erinsborough. Paul and Gail affirm their love and commitment for each other properly by renewing their wedding vows on Valentine's Day alongside Paul's father Jim (Alan Dale) and Beverly Marshall (Lisa Armitage). Gail and Paul want to start a family, but Gail discovers she is infertile. They then begin making plans to begin IVF treatment. During this time Paul discovers that he had fathered a child, Amy (Nicolette Minster), with Nina Williams (Leigh Morgan). Gail fears Paul will no longer want to have children with her, but she is proved wrong and Gail becomes pregnant with triplets. The prospect of becoming a mother leads Gail to track down her real parents. She discovers that her real mother Louise Hampstead has died, but finds her biological father, Ian Chadwick (Robin Bowering). Rob is jealous of Ian's presence but soon accepts it.\n\nRob is involved in a fatal car crash and dies and the blame falls on Paul. Gail learns the two had been engaged in a vicious argument where Paul accused Rob of dealing in stolen car parts, and Rob had stormed off in a rage, culminating in the car accident. Thus, Gail holds Paul responsible for her father's death. After the funeral Gail leaves a note for Paul and told him that she was leaving. Soon after arriving in Tasmania, she gives birth to Robert, Cameron (Adam Hunter) and Lucinda (Pippa Black). Paul flies out to see his children and attempts a reconciliation with Gail, but she is adamant the marriage is over. The couple agree to remain friends.\n\n2005–2019\nGail returns to Erinsborough again when she receives the news that Robert was put into a coma by Cameron. However, it turns out that Robert had actually put Cameron in a coma before assuming his identity and joining Elle and Paul in Erinsborough. Robert plots to destroy his father and everyone who meant anything to him. Gail's feelings for Paul resurface and Paul insists that she stay at No.22. After visiting Rob's grave, Gail kisses Paul. Robert kidnaps Paul and left him trapped in a mineshaft. Gail, Paul's partner Izzy Hoyland and Elle find Paul and rescue him. Paul and Gail then concoct a plan to get married again to lure Robert out of hiding. During the wedding, Gail is touched when Paul speaks from the heart about how blessed he was to have found her again. Robert shows up and shoots Paul. However, Paul is wearing a bulletproof vest and Robert is arrested. Gail returned to Tasmania, leaving Elle and Cameron behind to continue getting to know their father better. Cameron is killed accidentally by Max Hoyland (Stephen Lovatt) and Paul and Elle bring Cameron's body home to Tasmania for burial. Gail blames Paul for effectively costing her her two boys and vows never to speak to him again.\n\nPaul undergoes life-saving surgery to remove a tumour that has been growing on his brain for a number of years and wakes up unable to recall anything that had happened to him since the late 1980s. Gail returns to Erinsborough upon receiving a confused call from Paul declaring his love for her. Gail is sceptical of Paul's memory loss and rejects Elle's pleas to keep the truth from him. Unable to bring herself to hurt him, Gail agrees to go along with Elle's plan and spares Paul from knowing the truth about his past. But Paul overhears Gail and Elle discussing all the pain he has caused people. Gail tells Paul everything and he is stunned as he realises all the things that he had done to his family and friends. When Elle overhears Paul complaining about how he had no feelings for her as a father, she storms off. Gail follows her and tries to persuade her to return to Tasmania, but Elle is determined to make things work with Paul. Gail finds herself being drawn to Paul again and he asks her to give their marriage another go. During a picnic, Gail realises that she cannot forget the past twenty years and she returns to Tasmania.\n\nGail returns twelve years later, after receiving a call from Paul informing her that they have a granddaughter, Harlow. Gail walks into Number 22 and finds Harlow fighting with Roxy Willis. As they clean up, Gail is introduced to Paul's fiancée Terese Willis and she questions Harlow's living situation. Gail and Harlow have breakfast together, and Harlow asks about her father, Robert, and Gail admits that she visits him a few times a year, but he is currently refusing all visitors. Noticing the continued tension between Harlow and Roxy, Gail worries that it will badly affect Harlow and she tells Paul and Terese that she wants to take Harlow back to Tasmania with her. She blames Paul for the loss of Cameron and Robert, and does not want Harlow to go the same way. Gail changes her mind when she learns that Harlow is doing well in school and wants to stay in Erinsborough. Gail later advises Terese not to marry Paul. While in the cafe, Gail meets Gary Canning (Damien Richardson), who she matched with on tinder, and they go on a couple of dates. Gail later learns Gary has also been on a date with Paul's fifth wife Rebecca Napier (Jane Hall), but unlike Rebecca, she is fine with it as she and Gary are not exclusive. Another of Paul's ex-wives Lyn Scully (Janet Andrewartha) comes to Erinsborough, and Paul confronts Gail about their interference in his relationship with Terese. Gail insists that their arrival is just a coincidence, however, Paul soon learns that Elle asked the wives to persuade Terese not to marry him. Gail stays to look after Harlow while Paul and Terese go on honeymoon, but she soon becomes concerned for Elle, so Harlow books her a flight to New York.\n\nReception\nSue Larkin of the Aberdeen Press and Journal observed: \"As any self-respecting Neighbours fan will know, Gail, the smart, career-woman wife of Paul, is one of the most intriguing characters in the Aussie soap.\" The BBC said Gail's most notable moment was \"Running off with the triplets.\" Ruth Deller of television website Lowculture said Gail was the \"most well-remembered\" of Paul's wives. Of Gail and Paul's relationship The Sydney Morning Herald said \"we fretted for what seemed like days until Gail Lewis (Fiona Corke) sashayed into Mr R's love zone. We knew from the start that Paul and Gail were star crossed. But who could have predicted that one love's rose could have so many thorns.\" Gail is referred to in Emily Barr's fictitious novel \"Out of My Depth\", in which character Amanda is watching Neighbours, with scenes featuring Gail and Paul receiving disapproval from Harold, Amanda opines that she believes the couple are in love. Lorna Cooper from MSN said she \"loved\" Gail and Paul's romance. In 2006, Jason Herbison from Inside Soap wrote \"back in 1987, one of the hottest Ramsay Street storylines involved playboy Paul Robinson and career girl Gail Lewis tying the knot in a cynical marriage of convenience.\" He added that while their marriage was short lived, the pair \"genuinely did fall in love.\"\n\nReferences\n\n \n\nNeighbours characters\nAdoptee characters in television\nFictional flight attendants\nTelevision characters introduced in 1987\nFemale characters in television"
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[
"Taryn Terrell",
"Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012-2013)",
"Why did she have a feud with Gail Kim?",
"Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender"
] |
C_96bdfa822dc04d1ca68cd5918ad7dfdd_0
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Was Gail a top wrestler during this time?
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Was Gail Kim a top wrestler during the time that Taryn Terrell began a storyline?
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Taryn Terrell
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On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division. On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her. On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as a TNA Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from TNA due to her real life pregnancy. CANNOTANSWER
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The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win.
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Taryn Nicole Dryden (née Terrell; born December 28, 1985) is an American model, actress, stuntwoman, ring announcer, and professional wrestler. Currently, she serves as a wrestler and commentator for NWA.
She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under her real name, and for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tiffany. She is a former TNA Knockouts Champion, where her 279-day reign stood as the longest reign in the title's history until 2019. During her time in WWE, she trained at WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and served as the final general manager of the now-defunct ECW brand. She's currently a commentator with NWA.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2010)
Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. She made it to the final eight, but was eliminated fourth. In February 2008, WWE signed her to a developmental contract.
Terrell debuted in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, alongside Beverly Mullins, and they competed in various matches together, including lingerie matches. Soon afterwards, Terrell and Mullins drifted apart, leading to Terrell receiving a larger singles wrestling role as she competed against various other FCW Divas, including Mullins (now renamed to Wesley Holiday), Miss Angela, The Bella Twins, Alicia Fox, and Roucka. Terrell made her FCW television debut when she competed in a twist competition, which ended in a no contest. She and Angela were then used as ring announcers. On the March 11, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with Nic Nemeth and Brad Allen to defeat The Puerto Rican Nightmares (Eric Pérez, Eddie Colón and Angela Fong). On the August 2, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Daisy and again on August 9, 2008.
Later on, Terrell, now renamed Tiffany, lost her first FCW televised match in a fatal four-way match including Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. She then teamed with Nikki Bella and Eve Torres on the December 14 episode of FCW TV to defeat Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. Tiffany participated in the tournament to determine the inaugural Queen of FCW, and defeated Holiday in the first round before losing to Fox in the semi-finals. She teamed up with Angela Fong on several occasions, and also competed against Serena Mancini, April Lee, and Fox in a four-pack challenge to determine the new number one contender to the Queen of FCW crown, but was unsuccessful.
On July 30, 2009 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany tamed up with Angela Fong and April Lee to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Serena Deeb in a 6-Diva tag team match. On the August 6 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany and Yoshi Tatsu defeated Fox and Ricky Ortiz in a mixed tag team match. Tiffany unsuccessfully challenged the newly crowned Serena Mancini for the Queen of FCW crown and injured her humerus bone, on the September 24 taping of FCW TV. She returned on the February 19, 2010 episode of FCW TV, teaming with Aksana to defeat Courtney Taylor and Liviana in a tag team match.
Brand switches (2008–2010)
On the June 10, 2008 episode of ECW, Terrell made her main roster debut as Tiffany, the on-screen Assistant General Manager under Theodore Long. Tiffany participated in the Halloween costume contest on October 26 at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, and was dressed as a nun. Tiffany made her in-ring debut in a 16-Diva tag team match on the 800th episode of Raw teaming up with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Michelle McCool, Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and WWE Hall of Famer Mae Young against Beth Phoenix, Layla, Lena Yada, Jillian Hall, Natalya, Maryse, Victoria and Katie Lea Burchill, which her team lost, despite Tiffany never being tagged into the match.
On the March 30, 2009 episode of Raw, Tiffany competed in an 18-Diva tag team match, which she won for her team by pinning Katie Lea Burchill. On April 5, Tiffany made her WrestleMania debut as she competed in a 25 Diva battle royal at WrestleMania XXV to crown the first-ever "Miss WrestleMania", which was won by Santina Marella. On the April 7 episode of ECW, Tiffany was announced by Theodore Long as the new General Manager of ECW due to Long returning to SmackDown to again become its General Manager. As the new General Manager, her first order was to announce an elimination chase to determine who would face Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at Backlash, with the participants being Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer, Christian and Finlay, which Christian would ultimately win. In late June 2009, Tiffany was promoted to full-time General Manager of ECW. However, Tiffany was absent from television due to a storyline car accident with William Regal. In reality, Tiffany had injured her arm in an FCW match. She returned on the October 6 episode of ECW. On the final episode of ECW on February 16, 2010, Tiffany speared Rosa Mendes after she and Zack Ryder interfered in the ECW Championship match.
On the March 5, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her debut for the brand in a backstage segment, being welcomed by Rey Mysterio. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her in-ring debut, winning a match against Michelle McCool via disqualification after Vickie Guerrero interfered. Following the match, McCool, Guerrero, and Layla attacked Tiffany, until she was saved by Beth Phoenix. The following week, Tiffany and Phoenix defeated McCool and Layla (collectively known as LayCool) in a tag team match, and again in a rematch on the April 2 episode of SmackDown.
Tiffany then formed an alliance with Kelly Kelly, with the pair being dubbed "The Blondetourage", and they continued to feud with LayCool. On the June 12 of SmackDown!, Tiffany lost her first singles match to Layla after an interference from McCool. On May 21 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany and Kelly lost to LayCool in a tag team match. On the July 2 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly where she defeated McCool, and during the match Tiffany stopped Layla from interfering. On the July 10 episode of Superstars, Tiffany and Kelly again lost to LayCool. On the July 16 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly and Chris Masters where they defeated Layla and Trent Barreta after interference from Rosa Mendes. She also managed Kelly in her WWE Women's Championship match against Layla at Money in the Bank. On July 23 episode of SmackDown!, Theodore Long announced that Tiffany would receive a match for the Women's Championship, which occurred on the July 30 episode of Smackdown, however she failed to capture the championship. She was originally scheduled to fight Layla, however, she instead fought McCool, as the two defended the title under the Freebird rule.
On August 13, 2010, it was reported that WWE had suspended Terrell because of an incident involving her real-life husband, Drew McIntyre. Before she could return to WWE programming, Terrell was released from her contract on November 19, 2010.
Independent circuit (2010–2013)
On December 4, 2010, it was announced that Terrell would make her independent circuit debut in a match against Alissa Flash at the Pro Wrestling Revolution's ChickFight event in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2011. On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Terrell had pulled out of the show, citing personal reasons. ChickFight later claimed that the promotion could not cater to Terrell's requests that she had made despite already having an agreement with the promotion.
On April 5, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Powerslam Brewsky Brawl, where she teamed up with Jack Jameson to defeat Barbi Hayden and Houston Carson. On April 8, Terrell made appearance at Coastal Wrestling Federation, where she teamed with Sho Funaki in a winning effort, again defeating Hayden and Carson. Earlier in that event, Terrell defeated Jen Alise in singles match. Terrell also appeared at Maryland Championship Wrestling's Bodyslam Autism event on April 27, 2013.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2012–2013)
On November 4, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s then-developmental branch, at OVW's Saturday Night Special event, being introduced as the special guest referee for the OVW Women's Championship match between Josette Bynum, Taeler Hendrix, and Heidi Lovelace. During the match, Terrell ignited a feud with Hendrix after Terrell cost Hendrix the match, after she put her hands on Terrell. On the November 10 episode of OVW, Terrell was interrupted by Hendrix during an interview, who then provoked Terrell, only to get attacked in return. Later that event, Terrell refereed a tag team match between Lovelace, Jessie Belle against Hendrix and Epiphany.
Terrell made her in-ring debut on the November 17 episode of OVW, where she defeated Heidi Lovelace with Hendrix as special guest referee to win the OVW Women's Championship. On the November 24 episode of OVW, Terrell defeated Scarlett Bordeaux in a non-title match, but was attacked by Hendrix post-match. On the November 28 episode OVW, Terrell attacked Hendrix during a in-ring segment, but was stopped by Bostic. OVW announced that Terrell issued a challenged to Hendrix at OVW's Saturday Night Special with the OVW Women's Championship on the line, with the stipulation that the loser will swim in a pool of "animal feces". At the event on December 1, Terrell lost the Women's Championship to Hendrix. After the match, Hendrix tried to attack Terrell, but she gained a measure of revenge when she moved out the way and Hendrix fell in the pool.
Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012–2013)
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the Impact Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division.
On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four–way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her.
On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as an impact Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from Impact Wrestling due to her real life pregnancy.
Knockouts Champion and departure (2014–2016)
Terrell made her televised return on the June 19, 2014 episode of Impact Wrestling, being welcomed by her former rival Gail Kim and later interrupted by The Beautiful People (Angelina Love and Velvet Sky). This led to Terrell's in–ring return, the following week on Impact Wrestling, where Kim and Terrell defeated Love and Sky in a tag team match. Terrell went on to unsuccessfully challenge Kim for the TNA Knockouts Championship on July 24 and on August 14 in a fatal four–way match also involving Love and Sky. After defeating the evil Madison Rayne on August 27 to become the number one contender, Terrell received her title match on the September 3 episode of Impact Wrestling, where she was again unsuccessful. After the match, both Terrell and Kim were attacked by the debuting Havok.
On the November 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell defeated newly crowned champion Havok and Gail Kim in a three–way match to win the TNA Knockouts Championship for the first time. On January 7, 2015, during Impact Wrestlings debut on Destination America, Terrell successfully defended the championship in a battle royal against the other TNA Knockouts, lastly eliminating Havok. Terrell went on to successfully retain her championship in various matches: on January 30 against Kim and Madison Rayne in a three–way match and against Angelina Love on February 20. After that Terrell started a feud with the recently returned Awesome Kong, after Kong attacked her. This led to a match between the two, on March 6, which Taryn won via disqualification and Kong would continue her attack after the match, with Kim making the save. This led to a three–way match, where Terrell again prevailed. On April 18, Terrell became the new longest reigning TNA Knockouts Champion in history, surpassing Kim's previous record of 210 days.
On the special episode of Impact Wrestling, titled TKO: Night of Knockouts on April 24, Terrell retained her championship against Kong in a no disqualification match after The Dollhouse (Jade and Marti Bell) interfered and attacked Kong, ultimately assisting Terrell in putting Kong through a table as a "receipt" for an earlier attack in which Kong put Terrell through a table. After the match, Terrell transitioned into a villainess for the first time in her wrestling career and joined The Dollhouse as their leader. Terrell retained her championship on the Hardcore Justice episode of Impact Wrestling on May 1, against Brooke, with help from Jade and Marti. In their first match as a team, the following week, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Kim in a three–on–two handicap match. On the May 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, in a steel cage match, Terrell again retained her championship against Kim. At Slammiversary XIII, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Brooke in another three–on–two handicap match. After successfully retaining her championship against Brooke and Kong in a three–way match, Terrell lost the championship to Brooke, on the July 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, after interference from Gail Kim, ending her reign at 279 days. After her loss, Terrell went on a hiatus citing a hand injury, courtesy of Kim but continued to appear in segments on the jumbotron, orchestrating attacks on various Knockouts. During her absence, Rebel joined The Dollhouse. On January 4, 2016, Terrell announced that she had parted ways with the company, describing her departure as a personal decision.
On October 2, 2016, Terrell made an appearance at Bound for Glory alongside Awesome Kong, Christy Hemme, and Chairman Dixie Carter to induct Gail Kim into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Return to Impact Wrestling (2017)
On August 17, 2017, at Destination X, Terrell made her return to the newly rebranded Impact Wrestling, attacking Gail Kim during her GFW Knockouts Championship match against Sienna. On the September 7 episode of Impact!, in her first match back after her one and a half year hiatus, Terrell teamed with Sienna and defeated Kim and Allie in a tag team match. On October 20, 2017, it was announced that Terrell had departed Impact Wrestling.
National Wrestling Alliance (2021–present)
On March 21, 2021, Terrell made her NWA debut on commentary during the women's match between Thunder Rosa and Kamille. On the June 6, at When Our Shadows Fall, Terrell teamed with Kylie Rae and won their debut match against Thunder Rosa and Melina Perez.
Acting career
Terrell made a special appearance on The Showbiz Show with David Spade in 2007. Terrell was featured in a segment on Lopez Tonight on August 4, 2010. She received her start in acting after appearing alongside Will Ferrell in the 2012 comedy film The Campaign. She was later hired as a stunt double for Kayla Ewell in the film The Demented.
Filmography
Personal life
Terrell attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in marketing. Terrell is a co-leader for a volunteer mission group called Hope Children's Home that provides love and time to children that have been neglected, abused, and discarded. Terrell is a founder for a volunteer mission foundation called Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
In 2008, Terrell became a vegan due to animal rights. However, she revealed she was no longer a vegan in 2010.
She is also a convert to Christianity.
Terrell first appeared in Playboy in the special College Girls edition of January 2007. She next appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of the Playboy Lingerie Special Edition. The photos were an accumulation of previous photoshoots that she had done for the magazine prior to signing with WWE, and show her fully naked. She appeared again in Playboy in November 2010, in the special issue Big Boobs, Hot Buns, with the photos having been taken prior to her signing with WWE. Terrell has appeared in an issue of Maxim and on Sky Sports.com.
Terrell previously dated Alfonso Ribeiro in 2008. Terrell became engaged to Drew Galloway, who appears on-screen as wrestler Drew McIntyre, in July 2009. The couple married in Las Vegas in May 2010. On May 24, 2011, Terrell announced that she and Galloway were divorcing.
Terrell gave birth to a girl named Emerson on March 2, 2014. Terrell married professional motorcyclist and stunt man Joseph Dryden in 2015.
Championships and accomplishments
Ohio Valley Wrestling OVW Women's Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' PWI ranked her 10 of the best 50 female singles wrestlers in the PWI Female 50 in 2015
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling'''
TNA Knockouts Championship (1 time)
References
External links
Taryn Terrell Impact Wrestling Profile
1985 births
Female models from Florida
Actresses from Tampa, Florida
American female professional wrestlers
American film actresses
American stunt performers
American television actresses
Converts to Christianity
Female models from Louisiana
Glamour models
Living people
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Professional wrestlers from Louisiana
Professional wrestling authority figures
Professional wrestling managers and valets
Professional wrestling referees
University of New Orleans alumni
WWE Diva Search contestants
21st-century American women
| true |
[
"\"Boys like You\" is a song written by Gail Davies and Walker Igleheart. It was recorded and released as a single by Davies, an American country artist. It was released on her fifth studio record entitled What Can I Say.\n\n\"Boys like You\" was originally recorded in June 1983 at the \"Groundstar Recording Lab\", located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. \"It's You Alone\" (a song written by her brother Ron Davies) was also recorded during this session and would be released as Davies' next single. The song's session was produced completely by Davies. \"Boys like You\" was released as the second single from her album What Can I Say. Released in March 1984, the single peaked at number nineteen on the Billboard Magazine Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, becoming Davies' tenth \"top-twenty\" hit. In addition, the single peaked within the top-thirty on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks chart.\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences \n\n1984 songs\n1984 singles\nGail Davies songs\nSongs written by Gail Davies\nSong recordings produced by Gail Davies\nWarner Records singles",
"\"Grandma's Song\" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Gail Davies. The song was recorded for Davies' self-titled 1978 debut album. A re-recorded version from her 1981 album I'll Be There was released as the album's third single in July 1981.\n\nThe song was written by Gail Davies as a tribute to her grandmother, Frances Marion Whitten. Davies features her grandmother's singing voice at the beginning of the track, singing part of \"The Fox Hunting Song\", a popular folk song. \"Grandma's Song\" was recorded in April 1980 at the \"Producer's Workshop\" recording studio in Hollywood, California, United States. Davies produced the session herself and recorded the rest of her third studio album, I'll Be There, during this one session.\n\n\"Grandma's Song\" was released as a single via Warner Bros. Records in July 1981, peaking at number nine on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart later that year. The single became Davies' fourth Billboard top-ten hit and her third top-ten single from her album I'll Be There. Additionally, the single peaked within the top-twenty on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks chart in 1981.\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences \n\nSongs about old age\n1978 songs\n1981 singles\nGail Davies songs\nSongs written by Gail Davies\nSong recordings produced by Gail Davies\nWarner Records singles"
] |
[
"Taryn Terrell",
"Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012-2013)",
"Why did she have a feud with Gail Kim?",
"Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender",
"Was Gail a top wrestler during this time?",
"The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win."
] |
C_96bdfa822dc04d1ca68cd5918ad7dfdd_0
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What types of fights did they get into?
| 3 |
What types of fights did Taryn Terrell and Gail Kim get into?
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Taryn Terrell
|
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division. On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her. On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as a TNA Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from TNA due to her real life pregnancy. CANNOTANSWER
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during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process.
|
Taryn Nicole Dryden (née Terrell; born December 28, 1985) is an American model, actress, stuntwoman, ring announcer, and professional wrestler. Currently, she serves as a wrestler and commentator for NWA.
She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under her real name, and for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tiffany. She is a former TNA Knockouts Champion, where her 279-day reign stood as the longest reign in the title's history until 2019. During her time in WWE, she trained at WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and served as the final general manager of the now-defunct ECW brand. She's currently a commentator with NWA.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2010)
Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. She made it to the final eight, but was eliminated fourth. In February 2008, WWE signed her to a developmental contract.
Terrell debuted in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, alongside Beverly Mullins, and they competed in various matches together, including lingerie matches. Soon afterwards, Terrell and Mullins drifted apart, leading to Terrell receiving a larger singles wrestling role as she competed against various other FCW Divas, including Mullins (now renamed to Wesley Holiday), Miss Angela, The Bella Twins, Alicia Fox, and Roucka. Terrell made her FCW television debut when she competed in a twist competition, which ended in a no contest. She and Angela were then used as ring announcers. On the March 11, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with Nic Nemeth and Brad Allen to defeat The Puerto Rican Nightmares (Eric Pérez, Eddie Colón and Angela Fong). On the August 2, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Daisy and again on August 9, 2008.
Later on, Terrell, now renamed Tiffany, lost her first FCW televised match in a fatal four-way match including Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. She then teamed with Nikki Bella and Eve Torres on the December 14 episode of FCW TV to defeat Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. Tiffany participated in the tournament to determine the inaugural Queen of FCW, and defeated Holiday in the first round before losing to Fox in the semi-finals. She teamed up with Angela Fong on several occasions, and also competed against Serena Mancini, April Lee, and Fox in a four-pack challenge to determine the new number one contender to the Queen of FCW crown, but was unsuccessful.
On July 30, 2009 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany tamed up with Angela Fong and April Lee to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Serena Deeb in a 6-Diva tag team match. On the August 6 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany and Yoshi Tatsu defeated Fox and Ricky Ortiz in a mixed tag team match. Tiffany unsuccessfully challenged the newly crowned Serena Mancini for the Queen of FCW crown and injured her humerus bone, on the September 24 taping of FCW TV. She returned on the February 19, 2010 episode of FCW TV, teaming with Aksana to defeat Courtney Taylor and Liviana in a tag team match.
Brand switches (2008–2010)
On the June 10, 2008 episode of ECW, Terrell made her main roster debut as Tiffany, the on-screen Assistant General Manager under Theodore Long. Tiffany participated in the Halloween costume contest on October 26 at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, and was dressed as a nun. Tiffany made her in-ring debut in a 16-Diva tag team match on the 800th episode of Raw teaming up with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Michelle McCool, Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and WWE Hall of Famer Mae Young against Beth Phoenix, Layla, Lena Yada, Jillian Hall, Natalya, Maryse, Victoria and Katie Lea Burchill, which her team lost, despite Tiffany never being tagged into the match.
On the March 30, 2009 episode of Raw, Tiffany competed in an 18-Diva tag team match, which she won for her team by pinning Katie Lea Burchill. On April 5, Tiffany made her WrestleMania debut as she competed in a 25 Diva battle royal at WrestleMania XXV to crown the first-ever "Miss WrestleMania", which was won by Santina Marella. On the April 7 episode of ECW, Tiffany was announced by Theodore Long as the new General Manager of ECW due to Long returning to SmackDown to again become its General Manager. As the new General Manager, her first order was to announce an elimination chase to determine who would face Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at Backlash, with the participants being Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer, Christian and Finlay, which Christian would ultimately win. In late June 2009, Tiffany was promoted to full-time General Manager of ECW. However, Tiffany was absent from television due to a storyline car accident with William Regal. In reality, Tiffany had injured her arm in an FCW match. She returned on the October 6 episode of ECW. On the final episode of ECW on February 16, 2010, Tiffany speared Rosa Mendes after she and Zack Ryder interfered in the ECW Championship match.
On the March 5, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her debut for the brand in a backstage segment, being welcomed by Rey Mysterio. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her in-ring debut, winning a match against Michelle McCool via disqualification after Vickie Guerrero interfered. Following the match, McCool, Guerrero, and Layla attacked Tiffany, until she was saved by Beth Phoenix. The following week, Tiffany and Phoenix defeated McCool and Layla (collectively known as LayCool) in a tag team match, and again in a rematch on the April 2 episode of SmackDown.
Tiffany then formed an alliance with Kelly Kelly, with the pair being dubbed "The Blondetourage", and they continued to feud with LayCool. On the June 12 of SmackDown!, Tiffany lost her first singles match to Layla after an interference from McCool. On May 21 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany and Kelly lost to LayCool in a tag team match. On the July 2 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly where she defeated McCool, and during the match Tiffany stopped Layla from interfering. On the July 10 episode of Superstars, Tiffany and Kelly again lost to LayCool. On the July 16 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly and Chris Masters where they defeated Layla and Trent Barreta after interference from Rosa Mendes. She also managed Kelly in her WWE Women's Championship match against Layla at Money in the Bank. On July 23 episode of SmackDown!, Theodore Long announced that Tiffany would receive a match for the Women's Championship, which occurred on the July 30 episode of Smackdown, however she failed to capture the championship. She was originally scheduled to fight Layla, however, she instead fought McCool, as the two defended the title under the Freebird rule.
On August 13, 2010, it was reported that WWE had suspended Terrell because of an incident involving her real-life husband, Drew McIntyre. Before she could return to WWE programming, Terrell was released from her contract on November 19, 2010.
Independent circuit (2010–2013)
On December 4, 2010, it was announced that Terrell would make her independent circuit debut in a match against Alissa Flash at the Pro Wrestling Revolution's ChickFight event in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2011. On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Terrell had pulled out of the show, citing personal reasons. ChickFight later claimed that the promotion could not cater to Terrell's requests that she had made despite already having an agreement with the promotion.
On April 5, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Powerslam Brewsky Brawl, where she teamed up with Jack Jameson to defeat Barbi Hayden and Houston Carson. On April 8, Terrell made appearance at Coastal Wrestling Federation, where she teamed with Sho Funaki in a winning effort, again defeating Hayden and Carson. Earlier in that event, Terrell defeated Jen Alise in singles match. Terrell also appeared at Maryland Championship Wrestling's Bodyslam Autism event on April 27, 2013.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2012–2013)
On November 4, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s then-developmental branch, at OVW's Saturday Night Special event, being introduced as the special guest referee for the OVW Women's Championship match between Josette Bynum, Taeler Hendrix, and Heidi Lovelace. During the match, Terrell ignited a feud with Hendrix after Terrell cost Hendrix the match, after she put her hands on Terrell. On the November 10 episode of OVW, Terrell was interrupted by Hendrix during an interview, who then provoked Terrell, only to get attacked in return. Later that event, Terrell refereed a tag team match between Lovelace, Jessie Belle against Hendrix and Epiphany.
Terrell made her in-ring debut on the November 17 episode of OVW, where she defeated Heidi Lovelace with Hendrix as special guest referee to win the OVW Women's Championship. On the November 24 episode of OVW, Terrell defeated Scarlett Bordeaux in a non-title match, but was attacked by Hendrix post-match. On the November 28 episode OVW, Terrell attacked Hendrix during a in-ring segment, but was stopped by Bostic. OVW announced that Terrell issued a challenged to Hendrix at OVW's Saturday Night Special with the OVW Women's Championship on the line, with the stipulation that the loser will swim in a pool of "animal feces". At the event on December 1, Terrell lost the Women's Championship to Hendrix. After the match, Hendrix tried to attack Terrell, but she gained a measure of revenge when she moved out the way and Hendrix fell in the pool.
Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012–2013)
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the Impact Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division.
On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four–way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her.
On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as an impact Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from Impact Wrestling due to her real life pregnancy.
Knockouts Champion and departure (2014–2016)
Terrell made her televised return on the June 19, 2014 episode of Impact Wrestling, being welcomed by her former rival Gail Kim and later interrupted by The Beautiful People (Angelina Love and Velvet Sky). This led to Terrell's in–ring return, the following week on Impact Wrestling, where Kim and Terrell defeated Love and Sky in a tag team match. Terrell went on to unsuccessfully challenge Kim for the TNA Knockouts Championship on July 24 and on August 14 in a fatal four–way match also involving Love and Sky. After defeating the evil Madison Rayne on August 27 to become the number one contender, Terrell received her title match on the September 3 episode of Impact Wrestling, where she was again unsuccessful. After the match, both Terrell and Kim were attacked by the debuting Havok.
On the November 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell defeated newly crowned champion Havok and Gail Kim in a three–way match to win the TNA Knockouts Championship for the first time. On January 7, 2015, during Impact Wrestlings debut on Destination America, Terrell successfully defended the championship in a battle royal against the other TNA Knockouts, lastly eliminating Havok. Terrell went on to successfully retain her championship in various matches: on January 30 against Kim and Madison Rayne in a three–way match and against Angelina Love on February 20. After that Terrell started a feud with the recently returned Awesome Kong, after Kong attacked her. This led to a match between the two, on March 6, which Taryn won via disqualification and Kong would continue her attack after the match, with Kim making the save. This led to a three–way match, where Terrell again prevailed. On April 18, Terrell became the new longest reigning TNA Knockouts Champion in history, surpassing Kim's previous record of 210 days.
On the special episode of Impact Wrestling, titled TKO: Night of Knockouts on April 24, Terrell retained her championship against Kong in a no disqualification match after The Dollhouse (Jade and Marti Bell) interfered and attacked Kong, ultimately assisting Terrell in putting Kong through a table as a "receipt" for an earlier attack in which Kong put Terrell through a table. After the match, Terrell transitioned into a villainess for the first time in her wrestling career and joined The Dollhouse as their leader. Terrell retained her championship on the Hardcore Justice episode of Impact Wrestling on May 1, against Brooke, with help from Jade and Marti. In their first match as a team, the following week, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Kim in a three–on–two handicap match. On the May 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, in a steel cage match, Terrell again retained her championship against Kim. At Slammiversary XIII, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Brooke in another three–on–two handicap match. After successfully retaining her championship against Brooke and Kong in a three–way match, Terrell lost the championship to Brooke, on the July 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, after interference from Gail Kim, ending her reign at 279 days. After her loss, Terrell went on a hiatus citing a hand injury, courtesy of Kim but continued to appear in segments on the jumbotron, orchestrating attacks on various Knockouts. During her absence, Rebel joined The Dollhouse. On January 4, 2016, Terrell announced that she had parted ways with the company, describing her departure as a personal decision.
On October 2, 2016, Terrell made an appearance at Bound for Glory alongside Awesome Kong, Christy Hemme, and Chairman Dixie Carter to induct Gail Kim into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Return to Impact Wrestling (2017)
On August 17, 2017, at Destination X, Terrell made her return to the newly rebranded Impact Wrestling, attacking Gail Kim during her GFW Knockouts Championship match against Sienna. On the September 7 episode of Impact!, in her first match back after her one and a half year hiatus, Terrell teamed with Sienna and defeated Kim and Allie in a tag team match. On October 20, 2017, it was announced that Terrell had departed Impact Wrestling.
National Wrestling Alliance (2021–present)
On March 21, 2021, Terrell made her NWA debut on commentary during the women's match between Thunder Rosa and Kamille. On the June 6, at When Our Shadows Fall, Terrell teamed with Kylie Rae and won their debut match against Thunder Rosa and Melina Perez.
Acting career
Terrell made a special appearance on The Showbiz Show with David Spade in 2007. Terrell was featured in a segment on Lopez Tonight on August 4, 2010. She received her start in acting after appearing alongside Will Ferrell in the 2012 comedy film The Campaign. She was later hired as a stunt double for Kayla Ewell in the film The Demented.
Filmography
Personal life
Terrell attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in marketing. Terrell is a co-leader for a volunteer mission group called Hope Children's Home that provides love and time to children that have been neglected, abused, and discarded. Terrell is a founder for a volunteer mission foundation called Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
In 2008, Terrell became a vegan due to animal rights. However, she revealed she was no longer a vegan in 2010.
She is also a convert to Christianity.
Terrell first appeared in Playboy in the special College Girls edition of January 2007. She next appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of the Playboy Lingerie Special Edition. The photos were an accumulation of previous photoshoots that she had done for the magazine prior to signing with WWE, and show her fully naked. She appeared again in Playboy in November 2010, in the special issue Big Boobs, Hot Buns, with the photos having been taken prior to her signing with WWE. Terrell has appeared in an issue of Maxim and on Sky Sports.com.
Terrell previously dated Alfonso Ribeiro in 2008. Terrell became engaged to Drew Galloway, who appears on-screen as wrestler Drew McIntyre, in July 2009. The couple married in Las Vegas in May 2010. On May 24, 2011, Terrell announced that she and Galloway were divorcing.
Terrell gave birth to a girl named Emerson on March 2, 2014. Terrell married professional motorcyclist and stunt man Joseph Dryden in 2015.
Championships and accomplishments
Ohio Valley Wrestling OVW Women's Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' PWI ranked her 10 of the best 50 female singles wrestlers in the PWI Female 50 in 2015
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling'''
TNA Knockouts Championship (1 time)
References
External links
Taryn Terrell Impact Wrestling Profile
1985 births
Female models from Florida
Actresses from Tampa, Florida
American female professional wrestlers
American film actresses
American stunt performers
American television actresses
Converts to Christianity
Female models from Louisiana
Glamour models
Living people
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Professional wrestlers from Louisiana
Professional wrestling authority figures
Professional wrestling managers and valets
Professional wrestling referees
University of New Orleans alumni
WWE Diva Search contestants
21st-century American women
| true |
[
"The Right Fight is a 2010 book about business leadership. The authors argue that leader's time is not always best spent trying to help people in teams work in peaceable alignment. In contrast, Joni and Beyer show that leaders who foster productive dissent—what the authors call \"right fights\"—help their companies reach peak efficiency. The book ranked #6 on 800CEOread.com’s Books to Watch List in March 2010 and ranked #21 on its Bestseller list in October 2010.\n\nMajor sections and points\n\nPart One: Alignment and Tension in Organizational Life\nLeaders must introduce and manage right fights to create breakthrough performance, meaningful innovation, and lasting value\n Chapter One – Alignment is Not the Whole Answer\n Research demonstrates that tension is required for performance. Right fights can help leaders use tension for maximum benefits\n Chapter Two – Three kinds of Fights Not Worth Fighting\n There are all kinds of wrong fights. Decoding them is the first step to stopping or avoiding them.\n Chapter Three – “Jack Sparr” Takes on a Right Fight\n An example of a right fight fought right.\n\nPart Two: Learn to Pick the Right Fights: The Right Fight Decision Principles\n Chapter Four – Right Fight Principle #1 – Make it Material\n Make it about something worthwhile, something that matters.\n Chapter Five – Right Fight Principle #2 – Focus on the Future, Not the Past\n Move beyond blame to possibilities.\n Chapter Six – Right Fight Principle #3 – Pursue a Noble Purpose\n People need to commit their integrity and passion to something bigger than the bottom line.\n\nPart Three: Learn to Fight Right Fights Right: The Right Fight Discipline Principles\n Chapter Seven – Right Fight Principle #4 – Make it Sport, Not War\n Have rules and play by them.\n Chapter Eight – Right Fight Principle #5 – Structure Formally but Work Informally\n Set up the fight in your organizational structure, but work out the tensions through informal networks.\n Chapter Nine – Right Fight Principle #6 – Turn Pain into Gain\n People matter – everybody should grow in a right fight, even if they don’t win.\n Chapter Ten – Conclusion\n All successful organizations fight right fights. When you can manage the tensions consciously, and use the Right Fight Principles as your guide, you and your teams will reap extraordinary rewards.\n\nPart Four: Tools: Tests for Identifying and Leading Right Fights\n Chapter Eleven – Is the Challenge Worth a Right Fight?\n Assessment Tool\n Acknowledgements\n Index\n\nPrinciples\nThis book shows how leaders can foster healthy dissent in order to achieve high performance, foster innovation and groom the next generation of leaders. Done well, right fights bring out the best of human capacity. By contrast, wrong fights – or right fights that never happen – can transform high purpose into failure.\n\nThe first three right fight principles described in Part Two guide readers in recognizing right fights. These principles are:\n make the fight material, with big enough stakes to motivate everyone\n focus on the future, without apportioning blame for the past\n make the fight about a noble purpose – such as improving the lives of customers\n\nThe last three right fight principles, covered in Part Three, are:\n make the fight a sport with rules, rather than a war\n Structure right fights through the formal organization, but create informal networks and coalitions to help good ideas triumph in spite of the hierarchy\n Turn pain into gain by assuring that everyone, including the losers, benefits from the experience.\n\nCompanies\nJoni and Beyer include several case-study examples of leaders engaged in “right fights” in the following companies:\n Campbell Soup Company\n General Electric\n Southwest Airlines\n Disney\n Burlington Northern\n The Reagan and Clinton Administrations\n Wal-Mart\n Katy Independent School District\n Unilever\n Coca-Cola\n P&G\n Bayer Healthcare\n Shell Oil\n Microsoft\n Johnson & Johnson\n Acumen Fund\n BMC Software\n McKinsey & Co.\n\nResponse\n\nPublishers Weekly noted that “Joni and Beyer make a convincing and counterintuitive argument that instigating dissent, if done selectively, can produce big results.”\n\nBooklist observed that the authors “present valuable, thought-provoking ideas and conclude with an assessment tool for determining if an issue is an appropriate candidate for a right fight.”\n\nWarren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of On Becoming a Leader remarked that “Anybody in any organization who has any responsibility must read this book.”\n\nMarshall Goldsmith, the NYT bestselling author of Succession: Are You Ready? and What Got You Here Won't Get You There noted that “Managing tension and conflicting ideas is but part of the equation. Using them to steer the organization toward success is the other part, which is often overlooked. In The Right Fight, Saj-Nicole Joni and Damon Beyer show us how to use conflict the right way!”\n\nDoug Stone, coauthor of NYT bestseller Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most, observed that “The wisdom runs deep and the stories jump off the page. Joni and Beyer show us why alignment is not enough. Fighting the right fights right can be the difference between survival and extinction. This book should be at the top of any leaders reading list.”\n\nReferences\n\nBusiness books\nHarperCollins books",
"Free speech fights are struggles over free speech, and especially those struggles which involved the Industrial Workers of the World and their attempts to gain awareness for labor issues by organizing workers and urging them to use their collective voice. During the World War I period in the United States, the IWW members (referred to as Wobblies), engaged in free speech fights over labor issues which were closely connected to the developing industrial world as well as the Socialist Party. The Wobblies, along with other radical groups, were often met with opposition (violent and otherwise) from local governments and especially business leaders, in their free speech fights.\n\nThe IWW organized transient workers (especially in cities in the American West) who worked in highly seasonal jobs—they met on the streets, discussed contemporary issues, and listened to speakers; at the time, it was a very popular method of organization. The events often ended with the police arresting them for participating in street meetings. The most notorious of all of the free speech fights was the San Diego free speech fight, which won a significant amount of public awareness for the IWW as it involved tremendous violence against the labor groups organized by the IWW. which brought the IWW to the greater notice of the American public and was notable for the intensity of violence by anti-labor vigilantes directed at the IWW; this violence included the kidnapping and tarring and feathering of Ben Reitman, who was a physician, and was Emma Goldman's lover.\n\nMore generally, a free speech fight is any incident in which a group is involved in a conflict over its speech. For instance, the Free Speech Movement, which began with a conflict on the Berkeley Campus in California in the 1960s, was a \"free speech fight\".\n\n\"Free speech fights\" and the IWW\n\nThe IWW engaged in free speech fights during the period from approximately 1907 to 1916. The Wobblies, as the IWW members were called, relied upon free speech, which in the United States is guaranteed by the First Amendment, to enable them to communicate the concept of One Big Union to other workers. In communities where the authorities saw their interests in avoiding the development of unions, the practice of soapboxing was frequently restricted by ordinance or by police harassment. The IWW employed a variety of creative tactics, including the tactic of flooding the area of a free speech fight with footloose rebels who would challenge the authorities by flouting the ordinance, intentionally getting arrested in great numbers. With the jails full and a seemingly endless stream of union activists arriving by boxcar and highway, the local communities frequently rescinded their prohibitions on free speech, or came to some other accommodation.\n\nThe Free Speech League, a progressive group which functioned at the same time as (and occasionally together with) the IWW, worked in conjunction with the IWW prior to World War I in many of their free speech fights, which generated a good deal of controversy. The free speech fights of the IWW were highly publicized, as they were designed to garner attention: they frequently started when local communities interjected to attempt to prevent the IWW from occupying street corners from which they would use provocative language to detail their radical beliefs. The free speech fights began occurring in 1906 and drew to a close by 1917—over that period of time, at least 26 communities played host to the IWW's free speech fights, and the years of 1909 to 1913 were particularly active, with at least 21 free speech fights happening.\n\nThe IWW members who engaged in the free speech fights typically cited the First Amendment and the rights guaranteed therein as proof positive of the validity of their cause, thereby highlighting the legal importance of the issues they fought for. That being the case, their struggles did not go unanswered or ignored: local, state, and even the federal government were prompted to respond, while, perhaps more importantly, the American public, due to the national publicity garnered by the free speech fights, were invariably tasked with confronting free speech issues. Practically all realms of American life were impacted by the free speech fights, as members of the press, church officials, school teachers, politicians, anyone involved in the business and labor world, and members of any organization (especially those of the Socialist Party) had a stake in the fights and thus attempted to comment on the issues in contention.\n\nAn overview of the free speech fights\nFrom its inception, the IWW was deeply committed to free speech issues, and especially those affiliated with labor groups. The IWW formed in 1905 in response to dissatisfaction with the trade unions promoted by the American Federation of Labor (the AFL). Whereas the AFL promoted the ideals of capitalism by fighting for the rights of workers within the ideological framework of the free market system, the IWW functioned on anarchistic principles. Rather than urging workers to join unions based on craft and skill that were determined to form binding trade agreements with employers, the IWW advocated for the development of broad unions for low-skill workers that would be driven by the workers themselves (and their collective actions) rather than by top-down politics and binding capitalist decisions.\n\nThe primary vehicles of change for the free speech fights of the IWW were spontaneous workplace strikes as well as on-site labor slowdowns in addition to picketing, parades, and demonstrations. Importantly, the IWW engaged in street corner public displays and speaking to raise the public awareness regarding free speech fights. The desire for direct action by laborers was attributed to having grown disaffected with the beliefs of the AFL. They stressed their truly American origins and likened their actions to those of earlier American revolutionaries and activists.\n\nThe free speech fights of the IWW were often quite similar in nature: Wobblies (many of whom travelled across the country to spread their message) would visit a city's downtown and attempt to speak on soapboxes on street corners. Their message and their tactics were particularly provocative, and they were frequently arrested—though, if they were not arrested on one street corner, they would simply pack up and head to another one. \nAmong the offences which they were arrested for were blocking traffic, vagrancy, unlawful assembly, or violating local ordinances such as ones against speaking on the streets.\n\nThough the IWW was successful in many of their free speech fights, they did not always achieve their desired goals. In San Diego, for instance, they were unable to cause the repeal of a restrictive street ordinance while, in Paterson, they failed to gain protection for street picketing and meetings.\n\nThe IWW ideology of free speech\nThe ideology of the Wobblies who fought for free speech rights across America was deeply indebted to their core beliefs regarding the provenance of the First Amendment rights of the Constitution. In their estimation, they were fighting with the Constitution on their side while those who opposed them, such as city officials, were disregarding the fundamental laws of the country. The Wobblies frequently used phrases such as \"Have you ever read the Constitution?\" and \"What is this, Czarist Russia, or Free America?\"\n\nThe Wobblies held that the free speech rights granted by the First Amendment had been abridged over time, and they felt that it nowhere more evident than it was in the case of the laborers for whom they worked tirelessly—capitalism had conspired with the judicial system in the United States to deny agency and the Constitutionally-granted freedom of speech to American laborers. Not all Wobblies subscribed to such idealistic ideology, though, since some argued the more pessimistic belief that the Constitution had been written by the elites and that free speech was merely an illusion that worked to uphold the power of those same elites.\nBy adopting aggressive tactics which flaunted local ordinances against free speech, the Wobblies courted arrest, which they used as a demonstration of how far the abridgement of free speech had come. The official attempts to silence the IWW in the free speech fights, they argued, were totally opposed to the spirit of the First Amendment.\n\nAccording to the Wobblies, the fact that they even had to fight for free speech rights was evidence of the corrupting effect of capitalism in America and of its legal system. They argued that the Constitution was not being applied to American laborers, just as it had not been applied to slaves in the century prior. Rather than take their fights to the courts, which they felt were substantially corrupted by capitalist influence, they took their fight to the streets and urged other Americans to do the same.\n\nThe publications of the IWW urged people to \"Educate, Agitate, Organize!!!\" which led their opponents to see the fights for free speech as precursors to more insidious desires such as those for unionization and, especially, for the abolition of capitalism.\n\nPopular reactions\nThe free speech fights of the IWW were an inherently populist in nature. They were met with a variety of different public response and reactions: some supported their efforts and sought to collaborate with them while others engaged in vigilante violence against them (as was especially the case in San Diego). The free speech fights gained mass support from political groups such as labor unions, Socialists, and also the Free Speech League. Notably, few of the groups stood fast with the IWW when it came to their calls for revolution or for the overthrowing of capitalism more generally, and instead focused on the importance of the free speech rights for their own inherent worth to Americans. The AFL, though, opposed the IWW's efforts in the free speech realm from the get go. Other groups and members of the public, too, began to oppose the free speech fights over time because of the aggressive tactics and language among other things.\n\nThe Socialists were the most closely connected allies of the IWW in the free speech fights, as they had suffered through many years of free speech repression already and thus helped to fundraise for the cause and occasional even took part in the fights.\n\nLabor unions also offered significant support to the free speech fight cause since they had a stake in the fights. Important support, still, came from the American public at large.\n\nOfficial reactions and regulation of street speaking\nThe most notable proponent of the free speech fights in the official arena was New York City Police Commissioner Arthur Woods, who argued that all American groups should be granted the right of free speech and assembly. Rather than repress their constitutional rights, Woods felt that it was the duty of the police to protect the demonstrators. His personal philosophy dictated that free speech could be regulated only in ways that protected it through the creation of channels of expression which would not impede the rights of others.\n\nThe reasonable regulation of street speaking was an important issue that arose because of the free speech fights of the IWW. Their soapboxing on downtown street corners proved especially divisive. Whereas IWW supporters held that freedom of expression was especially important in the areas where that expression could actually reach the people (such as laborers) who would benefit the most from their message, opponents argued that their right to free speech did not belong in such public places where their incendiary tactics could be harmful to the public. Public streets were the best means of reaching the workers to whom their free speech fights were addressed, and the Wobblies did not always possess the necessary funds to rent out public assembly halls, for instance, from which they could exercise their right to free speech. \nThe IWW conceded, nonetheless, that reasonable restrictions should be placed on public speaking.\n\nThe struggle over free speech on downtown street corners was regarded as absurd by many people, since there were myriad other areas in the public sphere that allowed outdoor speaking to take place—downtown street corners, though, were outlawed. The fight over the street corners, therefore, became a symbol of the divisive ideology of the IWW—their opponents scornfully argued that the street corners were important to the Wobblies only because they could not reach an audience elsewhere since nobody would willingly attend any of their speeches.\n\nMany of the opponents of free speech fights, thus, were in favor of the establishment of centrally located areas that permitted oration but did not interfere with the city. Others, though, were totally opposed to the right to speak in public.\n\nThe IWW occasionally saw its fight over the regulation of street speaking extend to the judicial realm. More often than not, judges upheld the street ordinances that prevented public speaking. Notably, a judge in San Diego upheld the city's ordinance, and used the language of a similar decision in Los Angeles to explain that \"This ordinance does not attempt to suppress freedom of speech, or seek to interfere with the citizen in the right to express his views upon any subject, political, religious, or otherwise, as is suggested by the petitioner. It simply specifies a certain district within the city wherein no one may do the things prohibited.\"\n\nAnalysis of free speech themes\nOne of the key themes of the free speech fights came from the regulation of speaking on the streets and involved discussions over the importance of access to public property and how reasonable limitations could be applied to it. People who debated the free speech fights frequently focused on the distinction between legal speech and illegal action while also detailing the various types of unprotected speech. They also debated what types of criticisms of the government should be protected by free speech.\n\nOne of the primary issues with the debates surrounding the free speech fights was that commentators understood that certain types of speech should be regarded as illegal and were not covered as free speech—sedition, libel, inciting speech, and obscenity fell into this category of speech, yet what some regarded as obscenity or libel, others regarded simply as government criticism that should be protected by the Constitution.\n\nMajor IWW's free speech fights\n\nSpokane free speech fight\n\nIn A History of American Labor, Joseph G. Rayback has written,\n\n[The Industrial Workers of the World] made its first impression upon the nation through its involvement in the \"free speech\" fight begun in Spokane, Washington, employment center for the casual labor elements of the Pacific Northwest. The fight developed late in 1908 when the I.W.W. launched an extensive speaking campaign with the slogan \"Don't Buy Jobs\" in the streets around the Spokane employment agencies which had become skilled in the art of swindling men who applied for jobs.\n\nThe \"job sharks\" were so closely tied to the crew boss on many job sites that there would be \"one gang coming, one gang working and one gang going.\" The faster the turnover, the greater the fees that could be generated. From time to time the men would ignore the IWW and seek revenge after an employment shark took someone's last dollar for a job that didn't exist. The Spokesman-Review of February 17, 1909 reported,\n\nHurling rocks and chunks of ice through the windows of the Red Cross Employment Agency, 224 Stevens St., several members of a noisy mob of between 2,000 and 3,000 idle men were about to attempt to wreck the place about 6 o'clock last evening, when James H. Walsh, organizer of the IWW, mounted a chair and pacified the multitude. In the opinion of the police had it not been for the intervention of Walsh, a riot would surely have followed, as the rabble was worked up to such a pitch that its members would have readily attempted violence. Walsh discouraged violence and summoned all members of the IWW to their hall at the rear of 312 Front Ave. The police dispersed the rest... At the hall Walsh warned the crowd against an outbreak. \"There were a lot of hired Pinkertons in that crowd,\" he said. \"All they wanted you fellows to do was to start something and then they would have an excuse for shooting you down or smashing your heads in... You can gain nothing by resorting to mob rule.\"\n\nFor the rest of the summer, IWW street meetings brought more and more working stiffs into the IWW.\n\nThe agencies promptly countered by pressuring the city council to pass an ordinance forbidding street speaking. The I.W.W. obeyed the regulation for nearly a year, until Spokane religious groups, which habitually used the streets, secured a new regulation exempting them from the street-speaking ordinance. Angered by the discrimination on behalf of \"the Christers,\" the Spokane I.W.W. renewed its campaign.\n\nThe newspaper of the IWW, the Industrial Worker, published the following on October 28: \"Wanted—Men to Fill the Jails of Spokane.\" Then the IWW sent out a notice to all locations, \"Nov. 2, FREE SPEECH DAY—IWW locals will be notified by wire how many men to send if any... Meetings will be orderly and no irregularities of any kind will be tolerated.\"\n\nIn one day 150 men were arrested and crowded into jails that could hardly accommodate them. Reinforcements promptly arrived from the surrounding territory.\n\nThe Spokane City Council arranged for rock-pile work for the prisoners.\n\nAt the end of twenty days four hundred men had been jailed.\n\nOverflowing prisoners were lodged in the Franklin School [then located along Front Street (now Trent)], and the War Department made Fort Wright available for more. Eight editors in succession got out a copy of the Industrial Worker, and then took their turn soapboxing, and went to jail. The IWW's \"rebel girl,\" Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who was fresh out of high school, delayed her arrest by chaining herself to a lamppost. She later charged that the police were using the women's section of the jail as a brothel, with police soliciting customers. When that story was printed in the Industrial Worker on December 10, the police attempted to destroy all copies. Public sympathy began to favor the strikers. When the prison guards would march the overflowing prisoners through the streets to bathing facilities, crowds would shower the men with apples, oranges, and Cigarettes. Around 10:30 AM on December 20th, 1909, the I.W.W. Hall of Spokane was raided by police, driving 200 men out onto the street.\n\nThe effort brought results: the W.F.M. declared a boycott of all goods coming from Spokane, and taxpayers began to protest against the cost of feeding, housing, and policing the prisoners. When Vincent St. John publicly appealed to all Wobblies to come to Spokane to renew the struggle, city officials capitulated.\n\nThe victory for the free speech fight came on March 4, when the city of Spokane agreed to allow the I.W.W. to speak on the street. Subsequently that day, all arrested I.W.W. members were released. The licenses of 19 of the employment agencies were revoked.\n\nThe I.W.W. was granted freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and the right to distribute its literature.\n\nIn Labor's Untold Story, Boyer and Morais observed,\n\nThe courts became so clogged they could handle little else but free speech cases. The fight for free speech became largely a question of endurance between the lungs and heads of the Wobblies and the stamina of the police. In Missoula and Spokane as in most of the other towns where free speech fights were waged, any citizen could address any assemblage on any street on any subject at any time by the end of 1912.\n\nMissoula free speech fight\n\nThe IWW members won a free speech fight in Missoula when, on October 8, 1909, the city council decided to let the union members speak anywhere in the community, so long as they did not impede traffic.\n\nElizabeth Gurley Flynn was \"a striking auburn-haired 19-year-old\" when she arrived in Missoula with her husband, Jack Jones in September 1909. At Higgins Avenue and West Front Street, the Wobblies set up a soapbox. On September 22, Frank Little arrived to assist. Little and Jones were arrested on September 29. A young logger and a civil engineer then spoke, and were likewise arrested. Flynn put out the word, declaring, \"we need volunteers to go to jail.\" Wobblies poured in from the surrounding territory, flooding the jail. They sang IWW songs, and shouted Wobbly slogans.\n\nAccording to Flynn, who also was arrested October 3rd, 1909, the jail was \"a filthy, dirty hole under the firehouse stable, where all the filthy excrement of the place pours down upon the prisoners.\" Yet enough Wobblies submitted themselves to arrest—frequently just before dinner time—that the city was feeling the impact of the Wobbly tactic. After a night in jail, Wobblies were often offered their freedom before breakfast, but many refused to be released, instead demanding a jury trial.\n\nThe Western Montana Apple Show was set to open, and Missoula officials decided to \"wave a white flag.\" The IWW had won the Missoula free speech fight, and all charges were dropped.\n\nOn February 7, 2011, the National Park Service officially recognized Free Speech Corner at Higgens Avenue and West Front Street, adding it to the National Register of Historic Places to commemorate the Missoula free speech fight.\n\nSan Diego free speech fight\n\nThe free speech fight in San Diego from 1912 to 1913 was among the most prominent free speech fights of the IWW. An ordinance had been passed by the San Diego Common Council which made it much more difficult for the Wobblies to engage in their soapbox orations without being swiftly arrested. The San Diego jails were soon teeming with Wobblies and others who used civil disobedience in the fight for free speech, and, even more alarmingly, contingents of vigilantes arose to fight against those in favor of free speech. The Free Speech League worked in concert with the IWW in San Diego, but, when the fight became judicial, the ordinance was upheld.\n\nSioux City, Iowa\n\nSioux City was considered a very strategic town for workers to stage free speech fights in because it was \"a gateway for laborers entering and leaving summer employment in agriculture and construction in the Dakotas.\" Since those employment opportunities for the workers were seasonal, many of them returned to spend the winter in Sioux City, where the Wobblies attempted to provide them incentives to join their Free Speech Fight such as by educating them and helping feed them over the tough winter. \n\nOver a thousand men were unemployed in Sioux City at the time during the winter of 1915. There had been a real push to get workers to come to Sioux City by business leaders there, but workers who arrived found that there were barely enough jobs for the local laborers. \nOn the 15th of January, after facing even harsher conditions and struggling with unemployment, roughly 150 of the IWW-associated unemployed stormed the Commercial Club where many business leaders listened to them demand work and watched them take food. \n\nIn response to the direct action of the IWW, Sioux City increased enforcement of vagrancy laws and began arresting more of the IWW members engaged in the Free Speech Fights. Their goal in doing so was to attempt to drive the IWW out of town, but, unsurprisingly, they achieved the opposite. The IWW demanded free speech rights to be granted in the city. They Wobblies were filling the city's jails and forced the hand of the city officials to attempt to strike a deal with them. Ultimately, they won the fight and free speech rights were granted to workers in Sioux City.\n\nOther free speech fights of the IWW\n\nThe IWW followed with other free speech fights in Kansas City, Missouri; in Aberdeen and Wenatchee, Washington; and in Fresno, California. Tar and feathers, beatings, clubbings, and forcible deportations were used in addition to incarceration. The San Diego free speech fight was unique in that the IWW did not have a specific organizing campaign at stake. The IWW won all of these free speech fights.\n\nIn early 1913, IWW members in Denver, Colorado fought a lengthy free speech fight. Denver authorities had refused to allow the Wobblies to speak on street corners, so union members filled the jails for months. The union won the right to speak to workers, and within a year had formed two Denver branches.\n\nOther locations of free speech fights by the IWW included Duluth, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; New Castle, Pennsylvania, and New Bedford, Massachusetts.\n\nThe IWW's provocative free speech message\n\nThe IWW message was particularly unpopular with the business community. IWW members believed that the capitalist system was corrupt, could not be reformed, and could only be resisted until a better society could be built for all working people. James Walsh's streetcorner speeches were therefore frequently disrupted, particularly by the local Volunteers of America and Salvation Army Bands.\n\nWalsh recruited volunteers to put together a small band, equipped with \"a big booming bass drum,\" in order to get the IWW's message to listeners. The group practiced patriotic and religious tunes of the period, but the Wobblies wrote new words to the songs.\n\n\"To grab the crowd's attention,\" the IWW band often \"hid in a doorway while one member dressed in a bowler hat and carrying a briefcase and umbrella, yelled to the crowd, 'Help! I've been robbed!' The crowd rushed over only to hear, 'I've been robbed by the capitalist system! Fellow workers ...' He then launched into a short speech, and the makeshift band stepped out of the doorway and played their songs.\"\n\nThe soapbox tradition\nPrior to television, radio, and film becoming parts of American mass culture, public speaking was a primary medium for entertainment and information. Politicians, religious zealots, and newsboys all pitched their trade on the soapbox. Though not all street speakers were political, soapbox oration was fundamentally a political act. \n\nWith the march of time of the 20th century, police forces and city ordinances began to take away the rights of soapbox orators. As television and radio became more prominent, the very act of street speaking began to seem antiquated and, at the very least, irrelevant. Street speaking represented a threat to upper- and middle-class white Americans who feared that \"inter-ethnoracial, working-class political coalitions\" would achieve influence through the soap box. \n\nThis was especially true in Los Angeles, where class politics was reaching a fever pitch in the early 20th century. A multitude of political groups, such as the IWW, the Socialists, the Communist Party, and the Partido Liberal Mexicano all spoke out for Angelinos to fight for the rights of the underprivileged.\n\nSocialist free speech fights: 1900–1911\nIn the early 20th century, it was the Socialist Party that led the charge in soapbox oration. They were the first group to make effective use of the tactics of public speaking. Over the first ten years of the city, they grew enough to gain significant political clout. In Los Angeles, the party drew in skilled and semi-skilled white workers who worried about their job security. Additionally, they attempted to recruit central Angelinos from more diverse ethnic backgrounds. In this way, Free Speech Fights in Los Angeles served as the battleground between central Los Angeles workers and the rest of the city.\n\nThe World War I crackdown\nIn the 1910s and 1920s, street speaking in Los Angeles suffered from increasing escalation of tactics by the LAPD and city ordinances. The Wobblies became the more dominant social group after the Socialists lost power, but the IWW was unable to draw nearly as many people to their soapbox speeches.\n\nThe IWW had a major conflict with the police over public speaking in San Pedro, a harbor community. They organized with striking dockworkers, but were met with extreme repression by the police who even used violent tactics to prevent their protests from being successful. Because of the failures in San Pedro, the IWW lost power in Southern California.\n\nSee also\n\n Anti-union violence\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences\n Peter Blecha, \"Fanning the Flames: Northwest Labor Song Traditions\", February 5, 2006, Retrieved May 14, 2007.\n Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, Labor's Untold Story (1974).\n Paul F. Brisseden, The I.W.W.: A Study of American Syndicalism (New York, 1919)\n David Brundage, The Making of Western Labor Radicalism: Denver's Organized Workers, 1878-1905 (1994).\n Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (1969)\n Joseph G. Rayback, A History of American Labor (1966).\n Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin, The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975 (1976).\n Woodrow C. Whitten, Criminal Syndicalism and the Law in California, 1919-1927 (Philadelphia, 1969).\n\nFurther reading\n John Duda (editor), \"Wanted! Men to Fill the Jails of Spokane: Fighting for Free Speech with the Hobo Agitators of the I.W.W. \" (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 2009) \n Philip S. Foner (editor), \"Fellow Workers and Friends: I.W.W. Free-Speech Fights as Told by Participants\" (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1981)\nMatthew S. May, \"Soapbox Rebellion: The Hobo Orator Union and the Free Speech Fights of the Industrial Workers of the World\" (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2013)\n\nFreedom of expression\nHistory of the Industrial Workers of the World\nPolitical repression in the United States\nFreedom of speech"
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[
"Taryn Terrell",
"Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012-2013)",
"Why did she have a feud with Gail Kim?",
"Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender",
"Was Gail a top wrestler during this time?",
"The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win.",
"What types of fights did they get into?",
"during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process."
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C_96bdfa822dc04d1ca68cd5918ad7dfdd_0
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WHat match did it cost her?
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What match did it cost Gail Kim?
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Taryn Terrell
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On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division. On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her. On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as a TNA Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from TNA due to her real life pregnancy. CANNOTANSWER
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Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match.
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Taryn Nicole Dryden (née Terrell; born December 28, 1985) is an American model, actress, stuntwoman, ring announcer, and professional wrestler. Currently, she serves as a wrestler and commentator for NWA.
She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under her real name, and for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tiffany. She is a former TNA Knockouts Champion, where her 279-day reign stood as the longest reign in the title's history until 2019. During her time in WWE, she trained at WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and served as the final general manager of the now-defunct ECW brand. She's currently a commentator with NWA.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2010)
Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. She made it to the final eight, but was eliminated fourth. In February 2008, WWE signed her to a developmental contract.
Terrell debuted in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, alongside Beverly Mullins, and they competed in various matches together, including lingerie matches. Soon afterwards, Terrell and Mullins drifted apart, leading to Terrell receiving a larger singles wrestling role as she competed against various other FCW Divas, including Mullins (now renamed to Wesley Holiday), Miss Angela, The Bella Twins, Alicia Fox, and Roucka. Terrell made her FCW television debut when she competed in a twist competition, which ended in a no contest. She and Angela were then used as ring announcers. On the March 11, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with Nic Nemeth and Brad Allen to defeat The Puerto Rican Nightmares (Eric Pérez, Eddie Colón and Angela Fong). On the August 2, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Daisy and again on August 9, 2008.
Later on, Terrell, now renamed Tiffany, lost her first FCW televised match in a fatal four-way match including Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. She then teamed with Nikki Bella and Eve Torres on the December 14 episode of FCW TV to defeat Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. Tiffany participated in the tournament to determine the inaugural Queen of FCW, and defeated Holiday in the first round before losing to Fox in the semi-finals. She teamed up with Angela Fong on several occasions, and also competed against Serena Mancini, April Lee, and Fox in a four-pack challenge to determine the new number one contender to the Queen of FCW crown, but was unsuccessful.
On July 30, 2009 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany tamed up with Angela Fong and April Lee to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Serena Deeb in a 6-Diva tag team match. On the August 6 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany and Yoshi Tatsu defeated Fox and Ricky Ortiz in a mixed tag team match. Tiffany unsuccessfully challenged the newly crowned Serena Mancini for the Queen of FCW crown and injured her humerus bone, on the September 24 taping of FCW TV. She returned on the February 19, 2010 episode of FCW TV, teaming with Aksana to defeat Courtney Taylor and Liviana in a tag team match.
Brand switches (2008–2010)
On the June 10, 2008 episode of ECW, Terrell made her main roster debut as Tiffany, the on-screen Assistant General Manager under Theodore Long. Tiffany participated in the Halloween costume contest on October 26 at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, and was dressed as a nun. Tiffany made her in-ring debut in a 16-Diva tag team match on the 800th episode of Raw teaming up with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Michelle McCool, Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and WWE Hall of Famer Mae Young against Beth Phoenix, Layla, Lena Yada, Jillian Hall, Natalya, Maryse, Victoria and Katie Lea Burchill, which her team lost, despite Tiffany never being tagged into the match.
On the March 30, 2009 episode of Raw, Tiffany competed in an 18-Diva tag team match, which she won for her team by pinning Katie Lea Burchill. On April 5, Tiffany made her WrestleMania debut as she competed in a 25 Diva battle royal at WrestleMania XXV to crown the first-ever "Miss WrestleMania", which was won by Santina Marella. On the April 7 episode of ECW, Tiffany was announced by Theodore Long as the new General Manager of ECW due to Long returning to SmackDown to again become its General Manager. As the new General Manager, her first order was to announce an elimination chase to determine who would face Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at Backlash, with the participants being Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer, Christian and Finlay, which Christian would ultimately win. In late June 2009, Tiffany was promoted to full-time General Manager of ECW. However, Tiffany was absent from television due to a storyline car accident with William Regal. In reality, Tiffany had injured her arm in an FCW match. She returned on the October 6 episode of ECW. On the final episode of ECW on February 16, 2010, Tiffany speared Rosa Mendes after she and Zack Ryder interfered in the ECW Championship match.
On the March 5, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her debut for the brand in a backstage segment, being welcomed by Rey Mysterio. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her in-ring debut, winning a match against Michelle McCool via disqualification after Vickie Guerrero interfered. Following the match, McCool, Guerrero, and Layla attacked Tiffany, until she was saved by Beth Phoenix. The following week, Tiffany and Phoenix defeated McCool and Layla (collectively known as LayCool) in a tag team match, and again in a rematch on the April 2 episode of SmackDown.
Tiffany then formed an alliance with Kelly Kelly, with the pair being dubbed "The Blondetourage", and they continued to feud with LayCool. On the June 12 of SmackDown!, Tiffany lost her first singles match to Layla after an interference from McCool. On May 21 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany and Kelly lost to LayCool in a tag team match. On the July 2 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly where she defeated McCool, and during the match Tiffany stopped Layla from interfering. On the July 10 episode of Superstars, Tiffany and Kelly again lost to LayCool. On the July 16 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly and Chris Masters where they defeated Layla and Trent Barreta after interference from Rosa Mendes. She also managed Kelly in her WWE Women's Championship match against Layla at Money in the Bank. On July 23 episode of SmackDown!, Theodore Long announced that Tiffany would receive a match for the Women's Championship, which occurred on the July 30 episode of Smackdown, however she failed to capture the championship. She was originally scheduled to fight Layla, however, she instead fought McCool, as the two defended the title under the Freebird rule.
On August 13, 2010, it was reported that WWE had suspended Terrell because of an incident involving her real-life husband, Drew McIntyre. Before she could return to WWE programming, Terrell was released from her contract on November 19, 2010.
Independent circuit (2010–2013)
On December 4, 2010, it was announced that Terrell would make her independent circuit debut in a match against Alissa Flash at the Pro Wrestling Revolution's ChickFight event in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2011. On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Terrell had pulled out of the show, citing personal reasons. ChickFight later claimed that the promotion could not cater to Terrell's requests that she had made despite already having an agreement with the promotion.
On April 5, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Powerslam Brewsky Brawl, where she teamed up with Jack Jameson to defeat Barbi Hayden and Houston Carson. On April 8, Terrell made appearance at Coastal Wrestling Federation, where she teamed with Sho Funaki in a winning effort, again defeating Hayden and Carson. Earlier in that event, Terrell defeated Jen Alise in singles match. Terrell also appeared at Maryland Championship Wrestling's Bodyslam Autism event on April 27, 2013.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2012–2013)
On November 4, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s then-developmental branch, at OVW's Saturday Night Special event, being introduced as the special guest referee for the OVW Women's Championship match between Josette Bynum, Taeler Hendrix, and Heidi Lovelace. During the match, Terrell ignited a feud with Hendrix after Terrell cost Hendrix the match, after she put her hands on Terrell. On the November 10 episode of OVW, Terrell was interrupted by Hendrix during an interview, who then provoked Terrell, only to get attacked in return. Later that event, Terrell refereed a tag team match between Lovelace, Jessie Belle against Hendrix and Epiphany.
Terrell made her in-ring debut on the November 17 episode of OVW, where she defeated Heidi Lovelace with Hendrix as special guest referee to win the OVW Women's Championship. On the November 24 episode of OVW, Terrell defeated Scarlett Bordeaux in a non-title match, but was attacked by Hendrix post-match. On the November 28 episode OVW, Terrell attacked Hendrix during a in-ring segment, but was stopped by Bostic. OVW announced that Terrell issued a challenged to Hendrix at OVW's Saturday Night Special with the OVW Women's Championship on the line, with the stipulation that the loser will swim in a pool of "animal feces". At the event on December 1, Terrell lost the Women's Championship to Hendrix. After the match, Hendrix tried to attack Terrell, but she gained a measure of revenge when she moved out the way and Hendrix fell in the pool.
Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012–2013)
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the Impact Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division.
On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four–way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her.
On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as an impact Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from Impact Wrestling due to her real life pregnancy.
Knockouts Champion and departure (2014–2016)
Terrell made her televised return on the June 19, 2014 episode of Impact Wrestling, being welcomed by her former rival Gail Kim and later interrupted by The Beautiful People (Angelina Love and Velvet Sky). This led to Terrell's in–ring return, the following week on Impact Wrestling, where Kim and Terrell defeated Love and Sky in a tag team match. Terrell went on to unsuccessfully challenge Kim for the TNA Knockouts Championship on July 24 and on August 14 in a fatal four–way match also involving Love and Sky. After defeating the evil Madison Rayne on August 27 to become the number one contender, Terrell received her title match on the September 3 episode of Impact Wrestling, where she was again unsuccessful. After the match, both Terrell and Kim were attacked by the debuting Havok.
On the November 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell defeated newly crowned champion Havok and Gail Kim in a three–way match to win the TNA Knockouts Championship for the first time. On January 7, 2015, during Impact Wrestlings debut on Destination America, Terrell successfully defended the championship in a battle royal against the other TNA Knockouts, lastly eliminating Havok. Terrell went on to successfully retain her championship in various matches: on January 30 against Kim and Madison Rayne in a three–way match and against Angelina Love on February 20. After that Terrell started a feud with the recently returned Awesome Kong, after Kong attacked her. This led to a match between the two, on March 6, which Taryn won via disqualification and Kong would continue her attack after the match, with Kim making the save. This led to a three–way match, where Terrell again prevailed. On April 18, Terrell became the new longest reigning TNA Knockouts Champion in history, surpassing Kim's previous record of 210 days.
On the special episode of Impact Wrestling, titled TKO: Night of Knockouts on April 24, Terrell retained her championship against Kong in a no disqualification match after The Dollhouse (Jade and Marti Bell) interfered and attacked Kong, ultimately assisting Terrell in putting Kong through a table as a "receipt" for an earlier attack in which Kong put Terrell through a table. After the match, Terrell transitioned into a villainess for the first time in her wrestling career and joined The Dollhouse as their leader. Terrell retained her championship on the Hardcore Justice episode of Impact Wrestling on May 1, against Brooke, with help from Jade and Marti. In their first match as a team, the following week, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Kim in a three–on–two handicap match. On the May 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, in a steel cage match, Terrell again retained her championship against Kim. At Slammiversary XIII, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Brooke in another three–on–two handicap match. After successfully retaining her championship against Brooke and Kong in a three–way match, Terrell lost the championship to Brooke, on the July 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, after interference from Gail Kim, ending her reign at 279 days. After her loss, Terrell went on a hiatus citing a hand injury, courtesy of Kim but continued to appear in segments on the jumbotron, orchestrating attacks on various Knockouts. During her absence, Rebel joined The Dollhouse. On January 4, 2016, Terrell announced that she had parted ways with the company, describing her departure as a personal decision.
On October 2, 2016, Terrell made an appearance at Bound for Glory alongside Awesome Kong, Christy Hemme, and Chairman Dixie Carter to induct Gail Kim into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Return to Impact Wrestling (2017)
On August 17, 2017, at Destination X, Terrell made her return to the newly rebranded Impact Wrestling, attacking Gail Kim during her GFW Knockouts Championship match against Sienna. On the September 7 episode of Impact!, in her first match back after her one and a half year hiatus, Terrell teamed with Sienna and defeated Kim and Allie in a tag team match. On October 20, 2017, it was announced that Terrell had departed Impact Wrestling.
National Wrestling Alliance (2021–present)
On March 21, 2021, Terrell made her NWA debut on commentary during the women's match between Thunder Rosa and Kamille. On the June 6, at When Our Shadows Fall, Terrell teamed with Kylie Rae and won their debut match against Thunder Rosa and Melina Perez.
Acting career
Terrell made a special appearance on The Showbiz Show with David Spade in 2007. Terrell was featured in a segment on Lopez Tonight on August 4, 2010. She received her start in acting after appearing alongside Will Ferrell in the 2012 comedy film The Campaign. She was later hired as a stunt double for Kayla Ewell in the film The Demented.
Filmography
Personal life
Terrell attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in marketing. Terrell is a co-leader for a volunteer mission group called Hope Children's Home that provides love and time to children that have been neglected, abused, and discarded. Terrell is a founder for a volunteer mission foundation called Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
In 2008, Terrell became a vegan due to animal rights. However, she revealed she was no longer a vegan in 2010.
She is also a convert to Christianity.
Terrell first appeared in Playboy in the special College Girls edition of January 2007. She next appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of the Playboy Lingerie Special Edition. The photos were an accumulation of previous photoshoots that she had done for the magazine prior to signing with WWE, and show her fully naked. She appeared again in Playboy in November 2010, in the special issue Big Boobs, Hot Buns, with the photos having been taken prior to her signing with WWE. Terrell has appeared in an issue of Maxim and on Sky Sports.com.
Terrell previously dated Alfonso Ribeiro in 2008. Terrell became engaged to Drew Galloway, who appears on-screen as wrestler Drew McIntyre, in July 2009. The couple married in Las Vegas in May 2010. On May 24, 2011, Terrell announced that she and Galloway were divorcing.
Terrell gave birth to a girl named Emerson on March 2, 2014. Terrell married professional motorcyclist and stunt man Joseph Dryden in 2015.
Championships and accomplishments
Ohio Valley Wrestling OVW Women's Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' PWI ranked her 10 of the best 50 female singles wrestlers in the PWI Female 50 in 2015
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling'''
TNA Knockouts Championship (1 time)
References
External links
Taryn Terrell Impact Wrestling Profile
1985 births
Female models from Florida
Actresses from Tampa, Florida
American female professional wrestlers
American film actresses
American stunt performers
American television actresses
Converts to Christianity
Female models from Louisiana
Glamour models
Living people
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Professional wrestlers from Louisiana
Professional wrestling authority figures
Professional wrestling managers and valets
Professional wrestling referees
University of New Orleans alumni
WWE Diva Search contestants
21st-century American women
| true |
[
"Mandy Kornet (born 3 February 1985) is a Dutch former cricketer who played as a right-arm medium bowler. She appeared in one Test match, 15 One Day Internationals and two Twenty20 Internationals for the Netherlands between 2001 and 2009. She is the older sister of Mariska Kornet, who has also represented the Netherlands at cricket.\n\nKornet made her One Day International (ODI) debut aged 16, against England in August 2001. At the time of her debut only Cheraldine Oudolf had debuted at a younger age for the Netherlands. Against Japan at the 2003 IWCC Trophy, Kornet took what were to be the best figures of her ODI career, 3/10 from 10 overs. However, after that tournament, she did not again appear for the Netherlands until 2007, when she played three ODIs and a single Test against the touring South Africans. The Test match was the first and only match played by the Netherlands at that level.\n\nIn July 2008, Kornet made her Twenty20 International debut, taking 1/20 against the West Indies. The following year, at the 2009 European Championship, the regular Dutch captain, Helmien Rambaldo, was unable to play, and Kornet was appointed captain in her place. The tournament had both 50-over and 20-over components, and the Netherlands won its matches against Scotland in both of those formats. However, the team did not win either of its games against Ireland, leaving Kornet without a win as captain in ODIs or T20Is. Kornet missed the 2010 season after falling pregnant, and did not return to the team after giving birth, meaning her two matches as captain were her last at international level.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1985 births\nLiving people\nSportspeople from Rotterdam\nDutch women cricketers\nNetherlands women Test cricketers\nNetherlands women One Day International cricketers\nNetherlands women Twenty20 International cricketers\nDutch women cricket captains",
"The Lenglen–Dewhurst match at the 1926 Wimbledon Championships was a second-round match between French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen and British Ceylonese tennis player Evelyn Dewhurst at the 1926 Wimbledon Championships, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments. Lenglen, a six-time Wimbledon singles champion who was undefeated in singles at the tournament, defeated Dewhurst in straight sets for the last competitive win of her amateur career. The match had been rescheduled three times. Lenglen withdrew from the tournament following the match and also forfeited her amateur status a month after the tournament to become a professional tennis player.\n\nThe match was enshrouded in controversy after it needed to be rescheduled to accommodate the British royal family. As Lenglen did not think the rescheduled time fit in with her doubles match, she asked for the match to be rescheduled again. Although it never was, Lenglen did not show up at the rescheduled time. As a result, tournament officials ultimately rescheduled the match anyway, moving it to the following day to be played following her doubles match. After her doubles match took longer than anticipated to complete, the singles match was rescheduled a third time again to the following day. Although Lenglen won the match, the British crowd that had long been extremely supportive of Lenglen turned against her after the press erroneously reported the postponements had angered Queen Mary, even though Queen Mary was supportive of Lenglen in the situation. Lenglen's fallout with the British crowd was one of the underlying factors in her leaving amateur tennis.\n\nLenglen's unwillingness to comply with the first rescheduled time of the match was in part due to two other separate issues, namely her family struggling with their finances and the French Tennis Federation demanding that she partner with a compatriot instead of her longtime doubles partner American Elizabeth Ryan.\n\nBackground\nThe 1926 Wimbledon Championships were known as the Jubilee Championships to commemorate the 50th edition of the tournament. Suzanne Lenglen entered the tournament on a 179-match win streak in singles and notably defeated her main competitive rival American Helen Wills earlier in the year in the Match of the Century in their only ever encounter. Shortly before Wimbledon, Wills unexpectedly needed to withdraw due to appendicitis. Although Lenglen was a heavy favourite with Wills not participating, the tournament began with two issues. With her father ill and her family expending money, Lenglen's finances were more of a concern than they had been in previous years. For previous Wimbledon tournaments, national tennis associations would pay top players more than what they needed to cover their travel expenses so they could earn money while maintaining their amateur status. However, in 1926, the Wimbledon club covered the travel expenses of top players without giving them anything extra. Meanwhile, the French Tennis Federation wanted Lenglen to enter the doubles event with a French partner in Julie Vlasto rather than her usual partner Elizabeth Ryan. Lenglen preferred to enter with Ryan even though she had partnered with Vlasto at the previous two French Championships in Ryan's absence. Although she agreed to play with Vlasto, the situation later worsened. Lenglen became unsettled by being drawn against Ryan in her opening doubles match. In the lead-up to this match, Lenglen and Ryan played an exhibition set of doubles together with Queen Mary in attendance to celebrate the start of the Jubilee Championships. They were surprisingly defeated 6–8 by McKane and Kea Bouman, despite having only lost one set together in open competition in their careers.\n\nMatch details\n\nLenglen's situation did not improve once the tournament began. She opened the singles event with an uncharacteristic win against Browne in which she lost five games, the same number she had lost in the entire 1925 singles event. She was originally supposed to play the doubles match against Ryan at 4:30 PM the following day, followed by her second singles match of the day. However, her singles match was moved to 2:00 PM before the doubles match to accommodate the royal family who planned to be in attendance. Lenglen was not informed of the change until the next morning. She did not want to play the singles before her more important doubles, and did not want to play at 2:00 PM because she had a doctor's appointment at the time. Lenglen asked her regular mixed doubles partner Jacques Brugnon to tell the tournament referee to reschedule the singles match. He never received the message. By the time Lenglen arrived on the grounds at 3:30 PM, Queen Mary and the rest of the crowd were waiting over an hour. After Wimbledon officials confronted her in anger, she refused to play either match.\n\nNeither the officials, nor Lenglen's opponents wanted her defaulted. As a result, the club adhered to Lenglen's wishes and rescheduled both matches the following day, with the doubles first. Nonetheless, Lenglen and Vlasto were defeated by Ryan and her partner Mary Browne in three sets, despite having three match points when they were ahead 7–6 in the second set. The crowd who had typically supported Lenglen were against her, in part as a result of a fabricated story in the newspaper that Lenglen had angered Queen Mary. With the long duration of the match, the singles was again delayed until the following day. Although Lenglen defeated Evelyn Dewhurst in the match, she lost four games, far more than anyone expected.\n\nAftermath\nAfter the match, Lenglen played and won her opening mixed doubles match before withdrawing from both singles and mixed doubles due to a shoulder injury. Lenglen ultimately decided that this was her last amateur tournament, ending her career in the midst of a 179-match win streak, having not lost since 1921. A month later, she signed a $50,000 contract with American sports promotor C. C. Pyle to turn professional and headline an exhibition tour in the United States. After that tour was a financial success, Lenglen headlined another shorter tour in the United Kingdom a few months later. Dewhurst also turned professional to join Lenglen on that second tour.\n\nIn the wake of Lenglen's withdrawal from the tournament, Kitty Godfree won her second Wimbledon title. In Lenglen's absence from amateur tennis in the coming years, Helen Wills established herself as the best women's tennis player in the world, winning the next four editions of Wimbledon in particular. Although Lenglen retired from professional tennis the following year, she never regained her amateur status and a rematch of the Match of the Century with Wills never materialized.\n\nReferences\n\nBooks\n \n \n\nTennis matches\nSuzanne Lenglen"
] |
[
"Taryn Terrell",
"Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012-2013)",
"Why did she have a feud with Gail Kim?",
"Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender",
"Was Gail a top wrestler during this time?",
"The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win.",
"What types of fights did they get into?",
"during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process.",
"WHat match did it cost her?",
"Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match."
] |
C_96bdfa822dc04d1ca68cd5918ad7dfdd_0
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Did Terell fight in pairs or more?
| 5 |
Did Taryn Terrell fight in pairs or more in the Knockout Championship?
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Taryn Terrell
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On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division. On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her. On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as a TNA Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from TNA due to her real life pregnancy. CANNOTANSWER
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Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match,
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Taryn Nicole Dryden (née Terrell; born December 28, 1985) is an American model, actress, stuntwoman, ring announcer, and professional wrestler. Currently, she serves as a wrestler and commentator for NWA.
She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under her real name, and for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tiffany. She is a former TNA Knockouts Champion, where her 279-day reign stood as the longest reign in the title's history until 2019. During her time in WWE, she trained at WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and served as the final general manager of the now-defunct ECW brand. She's currently a commentator with NWA.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2010)
Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. She made it to the final eight, but was eliminated fourth. In February 2008, WWE signed her to a developmental contract.
Terrell debuted in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, alongside Beverly Mullins, and they competed in various matches together, including lingerie matches. Soon afterwards, Terrell and Mullins drifted apart, leading to Terrell receiving a larger singles wrestling role as she competed against various other FCW Divas, including Mullins (now renamed to Wesley Holiday), Miss Angela, The Bella Twins, Alicia Fox, and Roucka. Terrell made her FCW television debut when she competed in a twist competition, which ended in a no contest. She and Angela were then used as ring announcers. On the March 11, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with Nic Nemeth and Brad Allen to defeat The Puerto Rican Nightmares (Eric Pérez, Eddie Colón and Angela Fong). On the August 2, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Daisy and again on August 9, 2008.
Later on, Terrell, now renamed Tiffany, lost her first FCW televised match in a fatal four-way match including Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. She then teamed with Nikki Bella and Eve Torres on the December 14 episode of FCW TV to defeat Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. Tiffany participated in the tournament to determine the inaugural Queen of FCW, and defeated Holiday in the first round before losing to Fox in the semi-finals. She teamed up with Angela Fong on several occasions, and also competed against Serena Mancini, April Lee, and Fox in a four-pack challenge to determine the new number one contender to the Queen of FCW crown, but was unsuccessful.
On July 30, 2009 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany tamed up with Angela Fong and April Lee to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Serena Deeb in a 6-Diva tag team match. On the August 6 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany and Yoshi Tatsu defeated Fox and Ricky Ortiz in a mixed tag team match. Tiffany unsuccessfully challenged the newly crowned Serena Mancini for the Queen of FCW crown and injured her humerus bone, on the September 24 taping of FCW TV. She returned on the February 19, 2010 episode of FCW TV, teaming with Aksana to defeat Courtney Taylor and Liviana in a tag team match.
Brand switches (2008–2010)
On the June 10, 2008 episode of ECW, Terrell made her main roster debut as Tiffany, the on-screen Assistant General Manager under Theodore Long. Tiffany participated in the Halloween costume contest on October 26 at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, and was dressed as a nun. Tiffany made her in-ring debut in a 16-Diva tag team match on the 800th episode of Raw teaming up with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Michelle McCool, Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and WWE Hall of Famer Mae Young against Beth Phoenix, Layla, Lena Yada, Jillian Hall, Natalya, Maryse, Victoria and Katie Lea Burchill, which her team lost, despite Tiffany never being tagged into the match.
On the March 30, 2009 episode of Raw, Tiffany competed in an 18-Diva tag team match, which she won for her team by pinning Katie Lea Burchill. On April 5, Tiffany made her WrestleMania debut as she competed in a 25 Diva battle royal at WrestleMania XXV to crown the first-ever "Miss WrestleMania", which was won by Santina Marella. On the April 7 episode of ECW, Tiffany was announced by Theodore Long as the new General Manager of ECW due to Long returning to SmackDown to again become its General Manager. As the new General Manager, her first order was to announce an elimination chase to determine who would face Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at Backlash, with the participants being Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer, Christian and Finlay, which Christian would ultimately win. In late June 2009, Tiffany was promoted to full-time General Manager of ECW. However, Tiffany was absent from television due to a storyline car accident with William Regal. In reality, Tiffany had injured her arm in an FCW match. She returned on the October 6 episode of ECW. On the final episode of ECW on February 16, 2010, Tiffany speared Rosa Mendes after she and Zack Ryder interfered in the ECW Championship match.
On the March 5, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her debut for the brand in a backstage segment, being welcomed by Rey Mysterio. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her in-ring debut, winning a match against Michelle McCool via disqualification after Vickie Guerrero interfered. Following the match, McCool, Guerrero, and Layla attacked Tiffany, until she was saved by Beth Phoenix. The following week, Tiffany and Phoenix defeated McCool and Layla (collectively known as LayCool) in a tag team match, and again in a rematch on the April 2 episode of SmackDown.
Tiffany then formed an alliance with Kelly Kelly, with the pair being dubbed "The Blondetourage", and they continued to feud with LayCool. On the June 12 of SmackDown!, Tiffany lost her first singles match to Layla after an interference from McCool. On May 21 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany and Kelly lost to LayCool in a tag team match. On the July 2 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly where she defeated McCool, and during the match Tiffany stopped Layla from interfering. On the July 10 episode of Superstars, Tiffany and Kelly again lost to LayCool. On the July 16 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly and Chris Masters where they defeated Layla and Trent Barreta after interference from Rosa Mendes. She also managed Kelly in her WWE Women's Championship match against Layla at Money in the Bank. On July 23 episode of SmackDown!, Theodore Long announced that Tiffany would receive a match for the Women's Championship, which occurred on the July 30 episode of Smackdown, however she failed to capture the championship. She was originally scheduled to fight Layla, however, she instead fought McCool, as the two defended the title under the Freebird rule.
On August 13, 2010, it was reported that WWE had suspended Terrell because of an incident involving her real-life husband, Drew McIntyre. Before she could return to WWE programming, Terrell was released from her contract on November 19, 2010.
Independent circuit (2010–2013)
On December 4, 2010, it was announced that Terrell would make her independent circuit debut in a match against Alissa Flash at the Pro Wrestling Revolution's ChickFight event in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2011. On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Terrell had pulled out of the show, citing personal reasons. ChickFight later claimed that the promotion could not cater to Terrell's requests that she had made despite already having an agreement with the promotion.
On April 5, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Powerslam Brewsky Brawl, where she teamed up with Jack Jameson to defeat Barbi Hayden and Houston Carson. On April 8, Terrell made appearance at Coastal Wrestling Federation, where she teamed with Sho Funaki in a winning effort, again defeating Hayden and Carson. Earlier in that event, Terrell defeated Jen Alise in singles match. Terrell also appeared at Maryland Championship Wrestling's Bodyslam Autism event on April 27, 2013.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2012–2013)
On November 4, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s then-developmental branch, at OVW's Saturday Night Special event, being introduced as the special guest referee for the OVW Women's Championship match between Josette Bynum, Taeler Hendrix, and Heidi Lovelace. During the match, Terrell ignited a feud with Hendrix after Terrell cost Hendrix the match, after she put her hands on Terrell. On the November 10 episode of OVW, Terrell was interrupted by Hendrix during an interview, who then provoked Terrell, only to get attacked in return. Later that event, Terrell refereed a tag team match between Lovelace, Jessie Belle against Hendrix and Epiphany.
Terrell made her in-ring debut on the November 17 episode of OVW, where she defeated Heidi Lovelace with Hendrix as special guest referee to win the OVW Women's Championship. On the November 24 episode of OVW, Terrell defeated Scarlett Bordeaux in a non-title match, but was attacked by Hendrix post-match. On the November 28 episode OVW, Terrell attacked Hendrix during a in-ring segment, but was stopped by Bostic. OVW announced that Terrell issued a challenged to Hendrix at OVW's Saturday Night Special with the OVW Women's Championship on the line, with the stipulation that the loser will swim in a pool of "animal feces". At the event on December 1, Terrell lost the Women's Championship to Hendrix. After the match, Hendrix tried to attack Terrell, but she gained a measure of revenge when she moved out the way and Hendrix fell in the pool.
Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012–2013)
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the Impact Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division.
On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four–way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her.
On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as an impact Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from Impact Wrestling due to her real life pregnancy.
Knockouts Champion and departure (2014–2016)
Terrell made her televised return on the June 19, 2014 episode of Impact Wrestling, being welcomed by her former rival Gail Kim and later interrupted by The Beautiful People (Angelina Love and Velvet Sky). This led to Terrell's in–ring return, the following week on Impact Wrestling, where Kim and Terrell defeated Love and Sky in a tag team match. Terrell went on to unsuccessfully challenge Kim for the TNA Knockouts Championship on July 24 and on August 14 in a fatal four–way match also involving Love and Sky. After defeating the evil Madison Rayne on August 27 to become the number one contender, Terrell received her title match on the September 3 episode of Impact Wrestling, where she was again unsuccessful. After the match, both Terrell and Kim were attacked by the debuting Havok.
On the November 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell defeated newly crowned champion Havok and Gail Kim in a three–way match to win the TNA Knockouts Championship for the first time. On January 7, 2015, during Impact Wrestlings debut on Destination America, Terrell successfully defended the championship in a battle royal against the other TNA Knockouts, lastly eliminating Havok. Terrell went on to successfully retain her championship in various matches: on January 30 against Kim and Madison Rayne in a three–way match and against Angelina Love on February 20. After that Terrell started a feud with the recently returned Awesome Kong, after Kong attacked her. This led to a match between the two, on March 6, which Taryn won via disqualification and Kong would continue her attack after the match, with Kim making the save. This led to a three–way match, where Terrell again prevailed. On April 18, Terrell became the new longest reigning TNA Knockouts Champion in history, surpassing Kim's previous record of 210 days.
On the special episode of Impact Wrestling, titled TKO: Night of Knockouts on April 24, Terrell retained her championship against Kong in a no disqualification match after The Dollhouse (Jade and Marti Bell) interfered and attacked Kong, ultimately assisting Terrell in putting Kong through a table as a "receipt" for an earlier attack in which Kong put Terrell through a table. After the match, Terrell transitioned into a villainess for the first time in her wrestling career and joined The Dollhouse as their leader. Terrell retained her championship on the Hardcore Justice episode of Impact Wrestling on May 1, against Brooke, with help from Jade and Marti. In their first match as a team, the following week, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Kim in a three–on–two handicap match. On the May 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, in a steel cage match, Terrell again retained her championship against Kim. At Slammiversary XIII, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Brooke in another three–on–two handicap match. After successfully retaining her championship against Brooke and Kong in a three–way match, Terrell lost the championship to Brooke, on the July 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, after interference from Gail Kim, ending her reign at 279 days. After her loss, Terrell went on a hiatus citing a hand injury, courtesy of Kim but continued to appear in segments on the jumbotron, orchestrating attacks on various Knockouts. During her absence, Rebel joined The Dollhouse. On January 4, 2016, Terrell announced that she had parted ways with the company, describing her departure as a personal decision.
On October 2, 2016, Terrell made an appearance at Bound for Glory alongside Awesome Kong, Christy Hemme, and Chairman Dixie Carter to induct Gail Kim into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Return to Impact Wrestling (2017)
On August 17, 2017, at Destination X, Terrell made her return to the newly rebranded Impact Wrestling, attacking Gail Kim during her GFW Knockouts Championship match against Sienna. On the September 7 episode of Impact!, in her first match back after her one and a half year hiatus, Terrell teamed with Sienna and defeated Kim and Allie in a tag team match. On October 20, 2017, it was announced that Terrell had departed Impact Wrestling.
National Wrestling Alliance (2021–present)
On March 21, 2021, Terrell made her NWA debut on commentary during the women's match between Thunder Rosa and Kamille. On the June 6, at When Our Shadows Fall, Terrell teamed with Kylie Rae and won their debut match against Thunder Rosa and Melina Perez.
Acting career
Terrell made a special appearance on The Showbiz Show with David Spade in 2007. Terrell was featured in a segment on Lopez Tonight on August 4, 2010. She received her start in acting after appearing alongside Will Ferrell in the 2012 comedy film The Campaign. She was later hired as a stunt double for Kayla Ewell in the film The Demented.
Filmography
Personal life
Terrell attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in marketing. Terrell is a co-leader for a volunteer mission group called Hope Children's Home that provides love and time to children that have been neglected, abused, and discarded. Terrell is a founder for a volunteer mission foundation called Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
In 2008, Terrell became a vegan due to animal rights. However, she revealed she was no longer a vegan in 2010.
She is also a convert to Christianity.
Terrell first appeared in Playboy in the special College Girls edition of January 2007. She next appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of the Playboy Lingerie Special Edition. The photos were an accumulation of previous photoshoots that she had done for the magazine prior to signing with WWE, and show her fully naked. She appeared again in Playboy in November 2010, in the special issue Big Boobs, Hot Buns, with the photos having been taken prior to her signing with WWE. Terrell has appeared in an issue of Maxim and on Sky Sports.com.
Terrell previously dated Alfonso Ribeiro in 2008. Terrell became engaged to Drew Galloway, who appears on-screen as wrestler Drew McIntyre, in July 2009. The couple married in Las Vegas in May 2010. On May 24, 2011, Terrell announced that she and Galloway were divorcing.
Terrell gave birth to a girl named Emerson on March 2, 2014. Terrell married professional motorcyclist and stunt man Joseph Dryden in 2015.
Championships and accomplishments
Ohio Valley Wrestling OVW Women's Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' PWI ranked her 10 of the best 50 female singles wrestlers in the PWI Female 50 in 2015
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling'''
TNA Knockouts Championship (1 time)
References
External links
Taryn Terrell Impact Wrestling Profile
1985 births
Female models from Florida
Actresses from Tampa, Florida
American female professional wrestlers
American film actresses
American stunt performers
American television actresses
Converts to Christianity
Female models from Louisiana
Glamour models
Living people
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Professional wrestlers from Louisiana
Professional wrestling authority figures
Professional wrestling managers and valets
Professional wrestling referees
University of New Orleans alumni
WWE Diva Search contestants
21st-century American women
| false |
[
"Shawndell Terell Winters (born November 5, 1980) is an American professional boxer. He has held the WBA-NABA heavyweight title since 2019. Winters had a late start to boxing, turning professional in the sport at 34 years of age. As an amateur, he competed at the National Golden Gloves on two occasions. In 2014 he placed second after losing to DeRae Crane and in 2012 he suffered an early defeat thus missing out on qualification into the quarterfinals. In February 2020, Winters received his first ever appearance in one of the four major sanctioning bodies rankings by the WBA.\n\nProfessional career \nIn July 2016, Winters was confirmed to fight former Ghanaian olympian Maxwell Amponsah as the co-main event in Hammond, Indiana. He recorded a dominant fifth-round knockout after a right-hand staggered Amponsah before Winters finished with a flurry of punches that left his opponent face down on the canvas. The bout was immediately waved off for medical attention. The following year Winters fought in Elk Grove Village where he suffered his first defeat in an upset victory for Brian Howard. Winters redeemed himself after winning three consecutive knockout victories over Raymond Gray, Joe Jones, and Ryan Soft before receiving an eight-round majority decision loss in his second fight overseas against Nikodem Jeżewski.\n\nWinters recorded an upset technical knockout win over undefeated heavyweight Oleksandr Teslenko in Brampton, Ontario on the latest United Boxing Promotions card. He landed an overhand right and began connecting many more combination punches until the referee intervened. Winters became the new North American Boxing Association champion. He then fought during November in Poland against Sergiej Werwejko. Winters produced a solid performance by dropping and outclassing Werwejko in the seventh round. In February 2020, it was announced Winters would fight former heavyweight world champion Joseph Parker in Frisco, Texas on the undercard of Mikey Garcia versus Jessie Vargas.\n\nProfessional boxing record\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nAfrican-American boxers\nAmerican male boxers\n1980 births\nLiving people\nHeavyweight boxers\n21st-century African-American sportspeople\n20th-century African-American people",
"The Hilliard Mixed Pairs national bridge championship was last held at the spring American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) North American Bridge Championship (NABC).\n\nHistory\n\nThis was the original national mixed pairs event. It was contested at the summer NABC the first two years. It moved to the fall NABC in 1933 until it was replaced by the Rockwell Mixed Pairs in 1946. However, it continued to be contested at Bridge Week until 1957. It was contested at the newly created Spring NABC from 1958 to 1962\n.\n\nWinners\n\nWhen this was the premier event for mixed pairs, before 1946, no pair defended its title successfully, or even won the trophy twice. Only a few players won it twice. Two pairs did win the Hilliard trophy more than once after it was downgraded in status: Kay and James Dunn, three times, Helen and Morris Portugal twice, all during the five-year span 1951 to 1955. Mary Jane and Arnold Kauder won in 1949 and finished second in 1950 and 1957. Married couples did not generally dominate the event, however.\n\nAll listings are \"ladies first\".\n\nSee also\n Rockwell Mixed Pairs, successor as premier event\n\nSources\n \n \"Search Results: Mixed Pairs (Hilliard)\". 1931 to 1962. ACBL. Visit \"NABC Winners\"; select a Discontinued NABC. Retrieved 2014-06-04. \n\nNorth American Bridge Championships\nContract bridge mixed pairs"
] |
[
"Taryn Terrell",
"Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012-2013)",
"Why did she have a feud with Gail Kim?",
"Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender",
"Was Gail a top wrestler during this time?",
"The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win.",
"What types of fights did they get into?",
"during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process.",
"WHat match did it cost her?",
"Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match.",
"Did Terell fight in pairs or more?",
"Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match,"
] |
C_96bdfa822dc04d1ca68cd5918ad7dfdd_0
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Did they win?
| 6 |
Did Taryn Terrell and Velvet sky win in the elimination match?
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Taryn Terrell
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On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division. On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her. On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as a TNA Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from TNA due to her real life pregnancy. CANNOTANSWER
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Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match.
|
Taryn Nicole Dryden (née Terrell; born December 28, 1985) is an American model, actress, stuntwoman, ring announcer, and professional wrestler. Currently, she serves as a wrestler and commentator for NWA.
She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under her real name, and for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tiffany. She is a former TNA Knockouts Champion, where her 279-day reign stood as the longest reign in the title's history until 2019. During her time in WWE, she trained at WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and served as the final general manager of the now-defunct ECW brand. She's currently a commentator with NWA.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2010)
Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. She made it to the final eight, but was eliminated fourth. In February 2008, WWE signed her to a developmental contract.
Terrell debuted in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, alongside Beverly Mullins, and they competed in various matches together, including lingerie matches. Soon afterwards, Terrell and Mullins drifted apart, leading to Terrell receiving a larger singles wrestling role as she competed against various other FCW Divas, including Mullins (now renamed to Wesley Holiday), Miss Angela, The Bella Twins, Alicia Fox, and Roucka. Terrell made her FCW television debut when she competed in a twist competition, which ended in a no contest. She and Angela were then used as ring announcers. On the March 11, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with Nic Nemeth and Brad Allen to defeat The Puerto Rican Nightmares (Eric Pérez, Eddie Colón and Angela Fong). On the August 2, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Daisy and again on August 9, 2008.
Later on, Terrell, now renamed Tiffany, lost her first FCW televised match in a fatal four-way match including Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. She then teamed with Nikki Bella and Eve Torres on the December 14 episode of FCW TV to defeat Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. Tiffany participated in the tournament to determine the inaugural Queen of FCW, and defeated Holiday in the first round before losing to Fox in the semi-finals. She teamed up with Angela Fong on several occasions, and also competed against Serena Mancini, April Lee, and Fox in a four-pack challenge to determine the new number one contender to the Queen of FCW crown, but was unsuccessful.
On July 30, 2009 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany tamed up with Angela Fong and April Lee to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Serena Deeb in a 6-Diva tag team match. On the August 6 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany and Yoshi Tatsu defeated Fox and Ricky Ortiz in a mixed tag team match. Tiffany unsuccessfully challenged the newly crowned Serena Mancini for the Queen of FCW crown and injured her humerus bone, on the September 24 taping of FCW TV. She returned on the February 19, 2010 episode of FCW TV, teaming with Aksana to defeat Courtney Taylor and Liviana in a tag team match.
Brand switches (2008–2010)
On the June 10, 2008 episode of ECW, Terrell made her main roster debut as Tiffany, the on-screen Assistant General Manager under Theodore Long. Tiffany participated in the Halloween costume contest on October 26 at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, and was dressed as a nun. Tiffany made her in-ring debut in a 16-Diva tag team match on the 800th episode of Raw teaming up with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Michelle McCool, Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and WWE Hall of Famer Mae Young against Beth Phoenix, Layla, Lena Yada, Jillian Hall, Natalya, Maryse, Victoria and Katie Lea Burchill, which her team lost, despite Tiffany never being tagged into the match.
On the March 30, 2009 episode of Raw, Tiffany competed in an 18-Diva tag team match, which she won for her team by pinning Katie Lea Burchill. On April 5, Tiffany made her WrestleMania debut as she competed in a 25 Diva battle royal at WrestleMania XXV to crown the first-ever "Miss WrestleMania", which was won by Santina Marella. On the April 7 episode of ECW, Tiffany was announced by Theodore Long as the new General Manager of ECW due to Long returning to SmackDown to again become its General Manager. As the new General Manager, her first order was to announce an elimination chase to determine who would face Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at Backlash, with the participants being Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer, Christian and Finlay, which Christian would ultimately win. In late June 2009, Tiffany was promoted to full-time General Manager of ECW. However, Tiffany was absent from television due to a storyline car accident with William Regal. In reality, Tiffany had injured her arm in an FCW match. She returned on the October 6 episode of ECW. On the final episode of ECW on February 16, 2010, Tiffany speared Rosa Mendes after she and Zack Ryder interfered in the ECW Championship match.
On the March 5, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her debut for the brand in a backstage segment, being welcomed by Rey Mysterio. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her in-ring debut, winning a match against Michelle McCool via disqualification after Vickie Guerrero interfered. Following the match, McCool, Guerrero, and Layla attacked Tiffany, until she was saved by Beth Phoenix. The following week, Tiffany and Phoenix defeated McCool and Layla (collectively known as LayCool) in a tag team match, and again in a rematch on the April 2 episode of SmackDown.
Tiffany then formed an alliance with Kelly Kelly, with the pair being dubbed "The Blondetourage", and they continued to feud with LayCool. On the June 12 of SmackDown!, Tiffany lost her first singles match to Layla after an interference from McCool. On May 21 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany and Kelly lost to LayCool in a tag team match. On the July 2 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly where she defeated McCool, and during the match Tiffany stopped Layla from interfering. On the July 10 episode of Superstars, Tiffany and Kelly again lost to LayCool. On the July 16 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly and Chris Masters where they defeated Layla and Trent Barreta after interference from Rosa Mendes. She also managed Kelly in her WWE Women's Championship match against Layla at Money in the Bank. On July 23 episode of SmackDown!, Theodore Long announced that Tiffany would receive a match for the Women's Championship, which occurred on the July 30 episode of Smackdown, however she failed to capture the championship. She was originally scheduled to fight Layla, however, she instead fought McCool, as the two defended the title under the Freebird rule.
On August 13, 2010, it was reported that WWE had suspended Terrell because of an incident involving her real-life husband, Drew McIntyre. Before she could return to WWE programming, Terrell was released from her contract on November 19, 2010.
Independent circuit (2010–2013)
On December 4, 2010, it was announced that Terrell would make her independent circuit debut in a match against Alissa Flash at the Pro Wrestling Revolution's ChickFight event in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2011. On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Terrell had pulled out of the show, citing personal reasons. ChickFight later claimed that the promotion could not cater to Terrell's requests that she had made despite already having an agreement with the promotion.
On April 5, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Powerslam Brewsky Brawl, where she teamed up with Jack Jameson to defeat Barbi Hayden and Houston Carson. On April 8, Terrell made appearance at Coastal Wrestling Federation, where she teamed with Sho Funaki in a winning effort, again defeating Hayden and Carson. Earlier in that event, Terrell defeated Jen Alise in singles match. Terrell also appeared at Maryland Championship Wrestling's Bodyslam Autism event on April 27, 2013.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2012–2013)
On November 4, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s then-developmental branch, at OVW's Saturday Night Special event, being introduced as the special guest referee for the OVW Women's Championship match between Josette Bynum, Taeler Hendrix, and Heidi Lovelace. During the match, Terrell ignited a feud with Hendrix after Terrell cost Hendrix the match, after she put her hands on Terrell. On the November 10 episode of OVW, Terrell was interrupted by Hendrix during an interview, who then provoked Terrell, only to get attacked in return. Later that event, Terrell refereed a tag team match between Lovelace, Jessie Belle against Hendrix and Epiphany.
Terrell made her in-ring debut on the November 17 episode of OVW, where she defeated Heidi Lovelace with Hendrix as special guest referee to win the OVW Women's Championship. On the November 24 episode of OVW, Terrell defeated Scarlett Bordeaux in a non-title match, but was attacked by Hendrix post-match. On the November 28 episode OVW, Terrell attacked Hendrix during a in-ring segment, but was stopped by Bostic. OVW announced that Terrell issued a challenged to Hendrix at OVW's Saturday Night Special with the OVW Women's Championship on the line, with the stipulation that the loser will swim in a pool of "animal feces". At the event on December 1, Terrell lost the Women's Championship to Hendrix. After the match, Hendrix tried to attack Terrell, but she gained a measure of revenge when she moved out the way and Hendrix fell in the pool.
Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012–2013)
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the Impact Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division.
On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four–way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her.
On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as an impact Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from Impact Wrestling due to her real life pregnancy.
Knockouts Champion and departure (2014–2016)
Terrell made her televised return on the June 19, 2014 episode of Impact Wrestling, being welcomed by her former rival Gail Kim and later interrupted by The Beautiful People (Angelina Love and Velvet Sky). This led to Terrell's in–ring return, the following week on Impact Wrestling, where Kim and Terrell defeated Love and Sky in a tag team match. Terrell went on to unsuccessfully challenge Kim for the TNA Knockouts Championship on July 24 and on August 14 in a fatal four–way match also involving Love and Sky. After defeating the evil Madison Rayne on August 27 to become the number one contender, Terrell received her title match on the September 3 episode of Impact Wrestling, where she was again unsuccessful. After the match, both Terrell and Kim were attacked by the debuting Havok.
On the November 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell defeated newly crowned champion Havok and Gail Kim in a three–way match to win the TNA Knockouts Championship for the first time. On January 7, 2015, during Impact Wrestlings debut on Destination America, Terrell successfully defended the championship in a battle royal against the other TNA Knockouts, lastly eliminating Havok. Terrell went on to successfully retain her championship in various matches: on January 30 against Kim and Madison Rayne in a three–way match and against Angelina Love on February 20. After that Terrell started a feud with the recently returned Awesome Kong, after Kong attacked her. This led to a match between the two, on March 6, which Taryn won via disqualification and Kong would continue her attack after the match, with Kim making the save. This led to a three–way match, where Terrell again prevailed. On April 18, Terrell became the new longest reigning TNA Knockouts Champion in history, surpassing Kim's previous record of 210 days.
On the special episode of Impact Wrestling, titled TKO: Night of Knockouts on April 24, Terrell retained her championship against Kong in a no disqualification match after The Dollhouse (Jade and Marti Bell) interfered and attacked Kong, ultimately assisting Terrell in putting Kong through a table as a "receipt" for an earlier attack in which Kong put Terrell through a table. After the match, Terrell transitioned into a villainess for the first time in her wrestling career and joined The Dollhouse as their leader. Terrell retained her championship on the Hardcore Justice episode of Impact Wrestling on May 1, against Brooke, with help from Jade and Marti. In their first match as a team, the following week, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Kim in a three–on–two handicap match. On the May 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, in a steel cage match, Terrell again retained her championship against Kim. At Slammiversary XIII, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Brooke in another three–on–two handicap match. After successfully retaining her championship against Brooke and Kong in a three–way match, Terrell lost the championship to Brooke, on the July 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, after interference from Gail Kim, ending her reign at 279 days. After her loss, Terrell went on a hiatus citing a hand injury, courtesy of Kim but continued to appear in segments on the jumbotron, orchestrating attacks on various Knockouts. During her absence, Rebel joined The Dollhouse. On January 4, 2016, Terrell announced that she had parted ways with the company, describing her departure as a personal decision.
On October 2, 2016, Terrell made an appearance at Bound for Glory alongside Awesome Kong, Christy Hemme, and Chairman Dixie Carter to induct Gail Kim into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Return to Impact Wrestling (2017)
On August 17, 2017, at Destination X, Terrell made her return to the newly rebranded Impact Wrestling, attacking Gail Kim during her GFW Knockouts Championship match against Sienna. On the September 7 episode of Impact!, in her first match back after her one and a half year hiatus, Terrell teamed with Sienna and defeated Kim and Allie in a tag team match. On October 20, 2017, it was announced that Terrell had departed Impact Wrestling.
National Wrestling Alliance (2021–present)
On March 21, 2021, Terrell made her NWA debut on commentary during the women's match between Thunder Rosa and Kamille. On the June 6, at When Our Shadows Fall, Terrell teamed with Kylie Rae and won their debut match against Thunder Rosa and Melina Perez.
Acting career
Terrell made a special appearance on The Showbiz Show with David Spade in 2007. Terrell was featured in a segment on Lopez Tonight on August 4, 2010. She received her start in acting after appearing alongside Will Ferrell in the 2012 comedy film The Campaign. She was later hired as a stunt double for Kayla Ewell in the film The Demented.
Filmography
Personal life
Terrell attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in marketing. Terrell is a co-leader for a volunteer mission group called Hope Children's Home that provides love and time to children that have been neglected, abused, and discarded. Terrell is a founder for a volunteer mission foundation called Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
In 2008, Terrell became a vegan due to animal rights. However, she revealed she was no longer a vegan in 2010.
She is also a convert to Christianity.
Terrell first appeared in Playboy in the special College Girls edition of January 2007. She next appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of the Playboy Lingerie Special Edition. The photos were an accumulation of previous photoshoots that she had done for the magazine prior to signing with WWE, and show her fully naked. She appeared again in Playboy in November 2010, in the special issue Big Boobs, Hot Buns, with the photos having been taken prior to her signing with WWE. Terrell has appeared in an issue of Maxim and on Sky Sports.com.
Terrell previously dated Alfonso Ribeiro in 2008. Terrell became engaged to Drew Galloway, who appears on-screen as wrestler Drew McIntyre, in July 2009. The couple married in Las Vegas in May 2010. On May 24, 2011, Terrell announced that she and Galloway were divorcing.
Terrell gave birth to a girl named Emerson on March 2, 2014. Terrell married professional motorcyclist and stunt man Joseph Dryden in 2015.
Championships and accomplishments
Ohio Valley Wrestling OVW Women's Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' PWI ranked her 10 of the best 50 female singles wrestlers in the PWI Female 50 in 2015
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling'''
TNA Knockouts Championship (1 time)
References
External links
Taryn Terrell Impact Wrestling Profile
1985 births
Female models from Florida
Actresses from Tampa, Florida
American female professional wrestlers
American film actresses
American stunt performers
American television actresses
Converts to Christianity
Female models from Louisiana
Glamour models
Living people
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Professional wrestlers from Louisiana
Professional wrestling authority figures
Professional wrestling managers and valets
Professional wrestling referees
University of New Orleans alumni
WWE Diva Search contestants
21st-century American women
| true |
[
"The Gilleys Shield is a trophy symbolising the Open Women's Championship of the Softball Australia organisation (formerly known as the Australian Softball Federation). The competition's full name is the Mack Gilley Shield.\n\nHistory \nIn 1947, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria participated in the first interstate softball competition in the country. The competition was eventually called the Mack Gilley Shield. For the 2009–2010 season the Shield will for the first time admit the New Zealand White Sox team to the competition.\n\nWinners \nBetween 1947 and 1968, New South Wales did not win a single Mack Gilley Shield. They finally won in 1969, repeating their first-place finish again in 1973, 1981 when they shared the title with Victoria, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993. Between the start of the competition and 1995, New South Wales won a total of nine Gilley Shields. This total ranked them third amongst all states.\n\nQueensland won the Mack Gilley Shield in 1963, 1966 and 1968. They won again in 1975, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1992 and 1994. In 2012, Queensland finished third in the Gilley Shield. Between the start of the competition and 1995, Queensland won a total of ten Gilley Shields. This total ranked them second amongst all states.\n\nVictoria won the Mack Gilley Shield in 1947, 1949, 1950, and 1951. They won it again in 1954, 1957 and 1958. They did not win in 1959 but won again in 1960, 1961 and 1962. Queensland won in 1963, but Victoria won again in 1964 and 1965 and 1967. Victoria went on to win again in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, and shared the title with New South Wales in 1981. They won again in 1982, and 1985. Between the start of the competition and 1995, Victoria won a total of twenty-two Gilley Shields if the 1981 tie with New South Wales is counted. This was twelve more than any other state.\n\nBetween 1947 and 1994, Tasmania did not win a single Mack Gilley Shield.\n\nSouth Australia won the Mack Gilley Shield in 1956. Between 1957 and 1994, they did not win another championship.\n\nWestern Australia won the Mack Gilley Shield in 1952 and 1953. They did not win in 1954 but won it again in 1955. They missed out in winning from 1956 to 1958, before winning again in 1959. They did not win another championship between 1960 and 1994.\n\nBetween 1947 and 1968, the Australian Capital Territory did not win the Mack Gilley Shield. They finally broke their losing streak by winning in 1978, 1979 and 1980. They did not win again between 1981 and 1994.\n\nBetween 1947 and 1968, the Northern Territory did not win the Mack Gilley Shield. They did not win between 1969 and 1994.\n\nHosting \nNew South Wales hosted the Mack Gilley Shield in Sydney in 1950, 1955, 1961, and 1968. Queensland hosted the Mack Gilley Shield in Brisbane in 1947, 1953, 1959 and 1966. Victoria hosted the Mack Gilley Shield in Melbourne in 1949, 1954, 1960 and 1967. Tasmania hosted the Mack Gilley Shield in Hobart in 1958, 1964 and 1985. South Australia hosted the Mack Gilley Shield in Adelaide in 1951, 1956, and 1962. Western Australia hosted the Mack Gilley Shield in Perth in 1952, 1957, and 1963. The Australian Capital Territory hosted the Mack Gilley Shield in Canberra in 1965. Between 1947 and 1968, the Northern Territory did not host the Mack Gilley Shield.\n\nGilleys Shield Awards \nThere are several awards connected with the Shield including the Midge Nelson Medal for the competition's most valuable player, the Lorraine Woolley Medal for pitching and the Sybil turner Medal for the best batting. In 1985, the Nelson Medal was won by K. Dienelt of the Northern Territory and the Woolley Medal was won by L. Evans of Victoria. In 1986, the Nelson Medal was won by H. Strauss of Queensland and the Woolley Medal was won by C. Bruce of New South Wales. In 1987, the Nelson Medal was won by K. Dienelt of the Northern Territory and the Woolley Medal was won by C. Cunderson of Queensland. 1988 was the first year all three medals were awarded. They were won respectively by L. Ward of New South Wales, M. Roche of New South Wales and V. Grant of Western Australia. In 1989, they respectively went to L. Loughman of Victoria, M. Rouche of New South Wales and L. Martin of South Australia. In 1990, they went to K, McCracken of Victoria, M. Rouche of New South Wales, and G. Ledingham of New South Wales.\n\nAWARD NAMES\nMidge Nelson Medal – Most Valuable Player\nRosemary Adey Medal – Rookie of the Year\nLorraine Woolley Medal – Best Pitcher\nSybil Turner Medal – Best Batter\n\nPrevious Individual Award Winners \n2003\nMost Valuable Player – Tanya Harding (QLD)\nRookie of the Year – Melanie Dunne (QLD)\nBest Pitcher – Kelly Hardie (QLD)\nBest Batter – Kerrie Sheehan (NSW)\n2004\nMost Valuable Player – Tanya Harding (QLD\nRookie of the Year – Kylie Cronk (QLD)\nBest Pitcher – Brooke Wilkins (QLD)\nBest Batter – Natalie Titcume (VIC)\n2005\nMost Valuable Player – Natalie Titcume (VIC)\nRookie of the Year – Krystle Rivers (WA)\nBest Pitcher – Jocelyn McCallum (QLD)\nBest Batter – Amanda Doman (QLD)\n2006\nMost Valuable Player – Amanda Doman (QLD)\nRookie of the Year – Nicole Smith (ACT)\nBest Pitcher – Kelly Hardie (QLD)\nBest Batter – Stacey Porter (NSW)\n\nSee also \nSoftball Australia\nASF National Championships\n\nReferences \n\nSoftball competitions in Australia",
"The African National Congress was a political party in Trinidad and Tobago. The party first contested national elections in 1961, when it received just 0.5% of the vote and failed to win a seat. They did not put forward any candidates for the 1966 elections, but returned for the 1971 elections, in which they received 2.4% of the vote, but again failed to win a seat as the People's National Movement won all 36. The party did not contest any further elections.\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct political parties in Trinidad and Tobago"
] |
[
"Taryn Terrell",
"Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012-2013)",
"Why did she have a feud with Gail Kim?",
"Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender",
"Was Gail a top wrestler during this time?",
"The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win.",
"What types of fights did they get into?",
"during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process.",
"WHat match did it cost her?",
"Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match.",
"Did Terell fight in pairs or more?",
"Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match,",
"Did they win?",
"Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match."
] |
C_96bdfa822dc04d1ca68cd5918ad7dfdd_0
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What event happened in 2012 to Terell?
| 7 |
What event happened in 2012 to Taryn Terrell?
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Taryn Terrell
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On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division. On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four-way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her. On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as a TNA Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from TNA due to her real life pregnancy. CANNOTANSWER
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On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division,
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Taryn Nicole Dryden (née Terrell; born December 28, 1985) is an American model, actress, stuntwoman, ring announcer, and professional wrestler. Currently, she serves as a wrestler and commentator for NWA.
She is best known for her time with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under her real name, and for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tiffany. She is a former TNA Knockouts Champion, where her 279-day reign stood as the longest reign in the title's history until 2019. During her time in WWE, she trained at WWE's then-developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and served as the final general manager of the now-defunct ECW brand. She's currently a commentator with NWA.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2010)
Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. She made it to the final eight, but was eliminated fourth. In February 2008, WWE signed her to a developmental contract.
Terrell debuted in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental territory, alongside Beverly Mullins, and they competed in various matches together, including lingerie matches. Soon afterwards, Terrell and Mullins drifted apart, leading to Terrell receiving a larger singles wrestling role as she competed against various other FCW Divas, including Mullins (now renamed to Wesley Holiday), Miss Angela, The Bella Twins, Alicia Fox, and Roucka. Terrell made her FCW television debut when she competed in a twist competition, which ended in a no contest. She and Angela were then used as ring announcers. On the March 11, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with Nic Nemeth and Brad Allen to defeat The Puerto Rican Nightmares (Eric Pérez, Eddie Colón and Angela Fong). On the August 2, 2008 episode of FCW TV, Terrell teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Daisy and again on August 9, 2008.
Later on, Terrell, now renamed Tiffany, lost her first FCW televised match in a fatal four-way match including Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. She then teamed with Nikki Bella and Eve Torres on the December 14 episode of FCW TV to defeat Roucka, Holiday, and Fox. Tiffany participated in the tournament to determine the inaugural Queen of FCW, and defeated Holiday in the first round before losing to Fox in the semi-finals. She teamed up with Angela Fong on several occasions, and also competed against Serena Mancini, April Lee, and Fox in a four-pack challenge to determine the new number one contender to the Queen of FCW crown, but was unsuccessful.
On July 30, 2009 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany tamed up with Angela Fong and April Lee to defeat Alicia Fox, Roucka and Serena Deeb in a 6-Diva tag team match. On the August 6 episode of FCW TV, Tiffany and Yoshi Tatsu defeated Fox and Ricky Ortiz in a mixed tag team match. Tiffany unsuccessfully challenged the newly crowned Serena Mancini for the Queen of FCW crown and injured her humerus bone, on the September 24 taping of FCW TV. She returned on the February 19, 2010 episode of FCW TV, teaming with Aksana to defeat Courtney Taylor and Liviana in a tag team match.
Brand switches (2008–2010)
On the June 10, 2008 episode of ECW, Terrell made her main roster debut as Tiffany, the on-screen Assistant General Manager under Theodore Long. Tiffany participated in the Halloween costume contest on October 26 at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, and was dressed as a nun. Tiffany made her in-ring debut in a 16-Diva tag team match on the 800th episode of Raw teaming up with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Michelle McCool, Brie Bella, Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and WWE Hall of Famer Mae Young against Beth Phoenix, Layla, Lena Yada, Jillian Hall, Natalya, Maryse, Victoria and Katie Lea Burchill, which her team lost, despite Tiffany never being tagged into the match.
On the March 30, 2009 episode of Raw, Tiffany competed in an 18-Diva tag team match, which she won for her team by pinning Katie Lea Burchill. On April 5, Tiffany made her WrestleMania debut as she competed in a 25 Diva battle royal at WrestleMania XXV to crown the first-ever "Miss WrestleMania", which was won by Santina Marella. On the April 7 episode of ECW, Tiffany was announced by Theodore Long as the new General Manager of ECW due to Long returning to SmackDown to again become its General Manager. As the new General Manager, her first order was to announce an elimination chase to determine who would face Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at Backlash, with the participants being Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer, Christian and Finlay, which Christian would ultimately win. In late June 2009, Tiffany was promoted to full-time General Manager of ECW. However, Tiffany was absent from television due to a storyline car accident with William Regal. In reality, Tiffany had injured her arm in an FCW match. She returned on the October 6 episode of ECW. On the final episode of ECW on February 16, 2010, Tiffany speared Rosa Mendes after she and Zack Ryder interfered in the ECW Championship match.
On the March 5, 2010 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her debut for the brand in a backstage segment, being welcomed by Rey Mysterio. On the March 12 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany made her in-ring debut, winning a match against Michelle McCool via disqualification after Vickie Guerrero interfered. Following the match, McCool, Guerrero, and Layla attacked Tiffany, until she was saved by Beth Phoenix. The following week, Tiffany and Phoenix defeated McCool and Layla (collectively known as LayCool) in a tag team match, and again in a rematch on the April 2 episode of SmackDown.
Tiffany then formed an alliance with Kelly Kelly, with the pair being dubbed "The Blondetourage", and they continued to feud with LayCool. On the June 12 of SmackDown!, Tiffany lost her first singles match to Layla after an interference from McCool. On May 21 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany and Kelly lost to LayCool in a tag team match. On the July 2 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly where she defeated McCool, and during the match Tiffany stopped Layla from interfering. On the July 10 episode of Superstars, Tiffany and Kelly again lost to LayCool. On the July 16 episode of SmackDown!, Tiffany managed Kelly and Chris Masters where they defeated Layla and Trent Barreta after interference from Rosa Mendes. She also managed Kelly in her WWE Women's Championship match against Layla at Money in the Bank. On July 23 episode of SmackDown!, Theodore Long announced that Tiffany would receive a match for the Women's Championship, which occurred on the July 30 episode of Smackdown, however she failed to capture the championship. She was originally scheduled to fight Layla, however, she instead fought McCool, as the two defended the title under the Freebird rule.
On August 13, 2010, it was reported that WWE had suspended Terrell because of an incident involving her real-life husband, Drew McIntyre. Before she could return to WWE programming, Terrell was released from her contract on November 19, 2010.
Independent circuit (2010–2013)
On December 4, 2010, it was announced that Terrell would make her independent circuit debut in a match against Alissa Flash at the Pro Wrestling Revolution's ChickFight event in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2011. On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Terrell had pulled out of the show, citing personal reasons. ChickFight later claimed that the promotion could not cater to Terrell's requests that she had made despite already having an agreement with the promotion.
On April 5, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Powerslam Brewsky Brawl, where she teamed up with Jack Jameson to defeat Barbi Hayden and Houston Carson. On April 8, Terrell made appearance at Coastal Wrestling Federation, where she teamed with Sho Funaki in a winning effort, again defeating Hayden and Carson. Earlier in that event, Terrell defeated Jen Alise in singles match. Terrell also appeared at Maryland Championship Wrestling's Bodyslam Autism event on April 27, 2013.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
Ohio Valley Wrestling (2012–2013)
On November 4, 2012, Terrell made her debut for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)'s then-developmental branch, at OVW's Saturday Night Special event, being introduced as the special guest referee for the OVW Women's Championship match between Josette Bynum, Taeler Hendrix, and Heidi Lovelace. During the match, Terrell ignited a feud with Hendrix after Terrell cost Hendrix the match, after she put her hands on Terrell. On the November 10 episode of OVW, Terrell was interrupted by Hendrix during an interview, who then provoked Terrell, only to get attacked in return. Later that event, Terrell refereed a tag team match between Lovelace, Jessie Belle against Hendrix and Epiphany.
Terrell made her in-ring debut on the November 17 episode of OVW, where she defeated Heidi Lovelace with Hendrix as special guest referee to win the OVW Women's Championship. On the November 24 episode of OVW, Terrell defeated Scarlett Bordeaux in a non-title match, but was attacked by Hendrix post-match. On the November 28 episode OVW, Terrell attacked Hendrix during a in-ring segment, but was stopped by Bostic. OVW announced that Terrell issued a challenged to Hendrix at OVW's Saturday Night Special with the OVW Women's Championship on the line, with the stipulation that the loser will swim in a pool of "animal feces". At the event on December 1, Terrell lost the Women's Championship to Hendrix. After the match, Hendrix tried to attack Terrell, but she gained a measure of revenge when she moved out the way and Hendrix fell in the pool.
Knockouts referee and feud with Gail Kim (2012–2013)
On August 16, 2012, Terrell made her debut for TNA, being introduced by the Vice President of the Knockouts Division, Brooke Hogan, as the special guest referee for the Impact Women's Knockout Championship match between Madison Rayne and Miss Tessmacher. Terrell later became the official referee for the Knockouts division.
On January 13, 2013, at Genesis, Terrell began a storyline with Gail Kim after making a bad call during a gauntlet match, thus costing Kim's chance to become the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell appeared backstage with Kim, who told Terrell not to make another mistake. Later that night, during Kim's match with Velvet Sky, Kim would argue with Terrell, costing herself the match in the process. On the February 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell helped Sky defeat Tara, Miss Tessmacher and Kim in a fatal four–way elimination match, with Sky lastly eliminating Kim to win the Knockouts Championship after Kim provoked Terrell into getting involved in the match. On March 10 at Lockdown, towards the end of the Knockouts Championship match, Terrell would attack Kim, again costing her the title. After the match, Terrell was attacked by Kim backstage during an interview. On the following episode of Impact Wrestling, Kim revealed that Brooke Hogan put Terrell on probation for attacking Kim. In a tag team match between Mickie James and Velvet Sky against Gail Kim and Tara, Terrell would again cost Kim the match by attacking her.
On the March 21 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was terminated as Knockouts referee by Hogan, and was subsequently signed as an impact Knockout. On the March 28 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell challenged Kim to a match, however the match never started when Kim and Tara attacked Terrell, only to be saved by the Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. On the April 4 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Sky were defeated by Kim and Tara after the special guest referee Joey Ryan made a fast count on Terrell. Terrell finally faced Kim in a match on the April 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, which Terrell won. On the May 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell and Mickie James defeated Kim and Tara. After the match, Kim attacked Terrell. The rivalry between Terrell and Kim culminated in a Last Knockout Standing match on June 2 at Slammiversary XI, which Terrell would win. On the July 11 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell was defeated by Kim in a ladder match to determine the number one contender to the Knockouts Championship. The following month, Terrell was granted time off from Impact Wrestling due to her real life pregnancy.
Knockouts Champion and departure (2014–2016)
Terrell made her televised return on the June 19, 2014 episode of Impact Wrestling, being welcomed by her former rival Gail Kim and later interrupted by The Beautiful People (Angelina Love and Velvet Sky). This led to Terrell's in–ring return, the following week on Impact Wrestling, where Kim and Terrell defeated Love and Sky in a tag team match. Terrell went on to unsuccessfully challenge Kim for the TNA Knockouts Championship on July 24 and on August 14 in a fatal four–way match also involving Love and Sky. After defeating the evil Madison Rayne on August 27 to become the number one contender, Terrell received her title match on the September 3 episode of Impact Wrestling, where she was again unsuccessful. After the match, both Terrell and Kim were attacked by the debuting Havok.
On the November 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, Terrell defeated newly crowned champion Havok and Gail Kim in a three–way match to win the TNA Knockouts Championship for the first time. On January 7, 2015, during Impact Wrestlings debut on Destination America, Terrell successfully defended the championship in a battle royal against the other TNA Knockouts, lastly eliminating Havok. Terrell went on to successfully retain her championship in various matches: on January 30 against Kim and Madison Rayne in a three–way match and against Angelina Love on February 20. After that Terrell started a feud with the recently returned Awesome Kong, after Kong attacked her. This led to a match between the two, on March 6, which Taryn won via disqualification and Kong would continue her attack after the match, with Kim making the save. This led to a three–way match, where Terrell again prevailed. On April 18, Terrell became the new longest reigning TNA Knockouts Champion in history, surpassing Kim's previous record of 210 days.
On the special episode of Impact Wrestling, titled TKO: Night of Knockouts on April 24, Terrell retained her championship against Kong in a no disqualification match after The Dollhouse (Jade and Marti Bell) interfered and attacked Kong, ultimately assisting Terrell in putting Kong through a table as a "receipt" for an earlier attack in which Kong put Terrell through a table. After the match, Terrell transitioned into a villainess for the first time in her wrestling career and joined The Dollhouse as their leader. Terrell retained her championship on the Hardcore Justice episode of Impact Wrestling on May 1, against Brooke, with help from Jade and Marti. In their first match as a team, the following week, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Kim in a three–on–two handicap match. On the May 29 episode of Impact Wrestling, in a steel cage match, Terrell again retained her championship against Kim. At Slammiversary XIII, The Dollhouse were defeated by Kong and Brooke in another three–on–two handicap match. After successfully retaining her championship against Brooke and Kong in a three–way match, Terrell lost the championship to Brooke, on the July 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, after interference from Gail Kim, ending her reign at 279 days. After her loss, Terrell went on a hiatus citing a hand injury, courtesy of Kim but continued to appear in segments on the jumbotron, orchestrating attacks on various Knockouts. During her absence, Rebel joined The Dollhouse. On January 4, 2016, Terrell announced that she had parted ways with the company, describing her departure as a personal decision.
On October 2, 2016, Terrell made an appearance at Bound for Glory alongside Awesome Kong, Christy Hemme, and Chairman Dixie Carter to induct Gail Kim into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Return to Impact Wrestling (2017)
On August 17, 2017, at Destination X, Terrell made her return to the newly rebranded Impact Wrestling, attacking Gail Kim during her GFW Knockouts Championship match against Sienna. On the September 7 episode of Impact!, in her first match back after her one and a half year hiatus, Terrell teamed with Sienna and defeated Kim and Allie in a tag team match. On October 20, 2017, it was announced that Terrell had departed Impact Wrestling.
National Wrestling Alliance (2021–present)
On March 21, 2021, Terrell made her NWA debut on commentary during the women's match between Thunder Rosa and Kamille. On the June 6, at When Our Shadows Fall, Terrell teamed with Kylie Rae and won their debut match against Thunder Rosa and Melina Perez.
Acting career
Terrell made a special appearance on The Showbiz Show with David Spade in 2007. Terrell was featured in a segment on Lopez Tonight on August 4, 2010. She received her start in acting after appearing alongside Will Ferrell in the 2012 comedy film The Campaign. She was later hired as a stunt double for Kayla Ewell in the film The Demented.
Filmography
Personal life
Terrell attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in marketing. Terrell is a co-leader for a volunteer mission group called Hope Children's Home that provides love and time to children that have been neglected, abused, and discarded. Terrell is a founder for a volunteer mission foundation called Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
In 2008, Terrell became a vegan due to animal rights. However, she revealed she was no longer a vegan in 2010.
She is also a convert to Christianity.
Terrell first appeared in Playboy in the special College Girls edition of January 2007. She next appeared in the February/March 2010 issue of the Playboy Lingerie Special Edition. The photos were an accumulation of previous photoshoots that she had done for the magazine prior to signing with WWE, and show her fully naked. She appeared again in Playboy in November 2010, in the special issue Big Boobs, Hot Buns, with the photos having been taken prior to her signing with WWE. Terrell has appeared in an issue of Maxim and on Sky Sports.com.
Terrell previously dated Alfonso Ribeiro in 2008. Terrell became engaged to Drew Galloway, who appears on-screen as wrestler Drew McIntyre, in July 2009. The couple married in Las Vegas in May 2010. On May 24, 2011, Terrell announced that she and Galloway were divorcing.
Terrell gave birth to a girl named Emerson on March 2, 2014. Terrell married professional motorcyclist and stunt man Joseph Dryden in 2015.
Championships and accomplishments
Ohio Valley Wrestling OVW Women's Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' PWI ranked her 10 of the best 50 female singles wrestlers in the PWI Female 50 in 2015
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling'''
TNA Knockouts Championship (1 time)
References
External links
Taryn Terrell Impact Wrestling Profile
1985 births
Female models from Florida
Actresses from Tampa, Florida
American female professional wrestlers
American film actresses
American stunt performers
American television actresses
Converts to Christianity
Female models from Louisiana
Glamour models
Living people
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Professional wrestlers from Louisiana
Professional wrestling authority figures
Professional wrestling managers and valets
Professional wrestling referees
University of New Orleans alumni
WWE Diva Search contestants
21st-century American women
| true |
[
"A Walkin' Thing is the final studio album by organist Shirley Scott recorded in 1992 at Van Gelder Studio and released on the Candid label.\n\nReception\nThe Allmusic site awarded the album 4 stars stating \"One of Shirley Scott's last viable recordings before she passed away is a sweet, delicious collection of jazz standards and originals with a fresh-faced group that the organist was happy she was able to present, if the music is any indication... On this solid top-to-bottom recording, and one of her better contemporary efforts, Shirley Scott carries on fine and mellow, emphasizing her strengths and letting her very capable band do the work while she lingers in her own serene, soulful way\".\n\nTrack listing \n \"Carnival (Panamanian Independence Song)\" (Traditional) - 4:07 \n \"D.T. Blues\" (Terell Stafford) - 6:06 \n \"A Walkin' Thing\" (Benny Carter) - 10:43 \n \"When a Man Loves a Woman\" (Calvin Lewis, Andrew Wright) - 3:51 \n \"What Makes Harold Sing?\" (Shirley Scott) - 4:12 \n \"Shades of Bu\" (Tim Warfield) - 6:51 \n \"How Am I to Know?\" (Jack King, Dorothy Parker) - 8:36 \n \"Remember\" (Irving Berlin) - 9:09\n\nPersonnel \n Shirley Scott - organ\n Terell Stafford - trumpet\n Tim Warfield - tenor saxophone\n Arthur Harper - bass \n Aaron Walker - drums\n\nReferences \n\n1992 albums\nCandid Records albums\nShirley Scott albums\nAlbums recorded at Van Gelder Studio",
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books"
] |
[
"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama"
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
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What did she do in 2016?
| 1 |
What did Lorde do in 2016?
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Lorde
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In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
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In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.
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Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
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[
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"Kylie Watson (born 7 May 1978) is an Australian actress, interior designer and model. She is best known for playing Shauna Bradley in the Australian soap opera Home and Away between 1999 and 2002. She is now a successful interior designer.\n\nCareer\nIn her teens, Watson was an international model, travelling to Asia for several contracts.\n\nIn February 1999, Watson received an audition for Home and Away. However, she decided not to attend the audition because she did not think she stood a chance of winning the part. Her agent persuaded her to change her mind and she went on to receive the role of Shauna Bradley. It was her first acting role and she revealed \"So at that point, I thought 'What am I going to do? I've never done this before, never acted in my life.' My agent booked me into acting classes – I think I had about eight weeks before I started so I was absolutely petrified. I think I was really bad, to be honest, at the beginning. But like anything if you really put your mind to it and love what you do, you invest the time to grow and educate yourself and I did do that.\"\n\nAfter leaving Home and Away in 2002, Watson completed a diploma in interior design. She began her own business called KW Design.\n\nIn 2009, Watson starred in Lightswitch, a short film directed by Emma Keltie and written by Natalie Krikowa and Penny Glasswell. The film played at various LGBT festivals.\n\nPersonal life\nWatson is lesbian. She came out in an issue of Cherrie magazine in March 2008. Watson told Katrina Fox \"I've never made a point of letting people know about my sexuality because I've never thought it was relevant, but it's who I am and I'm not ashamed of it. However in saying that, I think in this particular day it's a lot easier to be identified as a not-so-straight woman particularly with The L Word series out where it's glamorised if you like; it's almost a bit of a fad like we're in fashion.\"\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAustralian soap opera actresses\nAustralian interior designers\n1978 births\nLiving people\nAustralian lesbian actresses"
] |
[
"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland."
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
|
Is she still working on music?
| 2 |
Is Lorde still working on music?
|
Lorde
|
In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
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Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017.
|
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
| false |
[
"David Kos \"Music Man\" Rolfe (born November 23, 1968) is an American singer from New York City who has written and performed five English songs for the Pokémon anime. Rolfe is currently working at the advertising agency BBDO and is still making music as of 2017.\n\nPersonal life \nDavid Rolfe was born in New York on November 23, 1968. He is married and has two children. Rolfe currently still lives in New York and still continues to make music and is working at BBDO New York.\n\nEarly on, Rolfe wanted to be a producer and even worked on a film in high school. His first shoot was for an account called \"truth,\" which represented an anti-tobacco initiative for the state of Florida.\n\nCareer \nDavid Rolfe is best known for performing five English openings for Pokémon in addition to playing the guitar in the original Pokémon theme. He was later invited to sing the theme songs for seasons 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. He left the show when 4Kids Entertainment lost the right to dub the Pokémon anime since he was working under 4Kids at the time. Rolfe and fellow 4Kids colleague John Siegler were unable to move to the company that took over the dub, TAJ Productions. Since then, Rolfe has been working under a record label from Warner Chappell Music and is still working to make music. He is currently working at BBDO as the Director of Integrated Production.\n\nAwards \nOn May 16th of 2017, David Rolfe and Greg Hahn from BBDO New York won the 21st Webby Award for agency of the year.\n\nFilmography\nRolfe has been credited for various films and songs featured under a broad variety of genres.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n David Rolfe at BBDO New York\n \n I'm History\n David Rolfe and Greg Hahn receiving the Webby Ward in 2017\n\n1968 births\nLiving people\nAmerican male singers\nSingers from New York City",
", is a Japanese pop singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Fukui, Japan. She currently sings under the pseudonym Tiger Fake Fur.\n\nBiography\n\nEarly life \nKawamoto grew up hearing her mother playing the piano. Aside from learning piano, she also studied ballet for about two years and joined the boys' and girls' chorus and took flute lessons. Her life was changed upon seeing a rock festival held in the nearby Prefectural Hall in her high school days. Kawamoto entered the Jin-ai Women's College music department, piano department and formed a band. After graduating from college, Kawamoto found a job at a company and became a piano teacher. However, since she only received a salary of 40,000 yen, she got fed up with her job and quit. Still, she continued to teach piano in her parents' house. She earned her livelihood working at a wedding hall, during which time she continued to try forming a band.\n\nKawamoto participated in \"AIDS against FUKUI\" held in Fukui as a band. She wrote the song and made all the members in the hall sing on the pretext of being elected to the executive committee. Because of that, she was invited to Sony’s \"Showcase\" where amateurs perform live in audition style. Since she was pleased with Tokyo, she saved 1 million yen within half a year, and went to Tokyo at the age of 21. She had a feeling that they liked her performance, but her position was still ambiguous for a while. She worked hard at composition while working part-time in a strange city. Although poor, she lived happily.\n\nMajor label days \nBecause Kawamoto often went to the head office of Sony Music Entertainment Japan, she got to know the staff of the management office, and she signed a contract with them at the age of 22.\n\nIt was decided that Kawamoto would release a CD from the second production department of Sony.\nShe practised acoustic guitar hard to reproduce the sound of the demo tape of her debut single \"Ai no Sainō\" which Yasuyuki Okamura produced.\nShe was given the stage name of \"Makoto Kawamoto\" and made her debut as a singer.\nShe lost weight as the result of pressure from appearing on TV programs or radio programs, and from pressure of composing music.\n\nKawamoto released her 2nd single \"DNA\", for which she wrote words and music herself, and her 3rd single \"1/2\" which were tied to popular anime Rurouni Kenshin, and her first album Kawamoto Makoto.\nHowever, she encountered problems when she found it difficult to write songs after that, and she occasionally confined herself in a hotel.\nShe did not agree with the record label's plan for her activities, due to pressure, she got out of shape and went home temporarily.\nAlthough she thought she might retire as a musician, she was retained by Sony for two more years, and she returned to Tokyo.\nHowever, she came to devote herself to live performances without releasing a new song after she released the single \"Blossom\" in 2001.\nShe came to find pleasure in her work and began to think that she might continue it for a while.\nHowever, after talking it over, she decided not to renew the contract with Sony.\nIn October 2002, she left.\nIn April 2003, her contract with Antinos Records expired and she became a freelancer.\n\nIndependent music \nIn 2005, Kawamoto sang the commercial song of Kanebo \"ALLIE\", which was Maria Anzai's cover song \".\"\nHowever, it is not released at present.\n\nIn 2005, Kawamoto formed \"MihoMihoMakoto\" with Miho Asahi and Miho Moribayashi, and they performed in the concerts.\n\nOn January 25, 2006, Kawamoto announced that she finished music activity with \"Makoto Kawamoto\" name in her homepage.\n\nOn April 24, 2006, Kawamoto announced that she changed her name to \"Tiger Fake Fur\" with her blog.\nWhen she appeared on the live by request of her acquaintance before, it was difficult for her to use the name of \"Makoto Kawamoto.\" Under such a circumstance, she could not but use the alias.\nShe introduced herself as \"Tiger Carpet\" at first, but she said that she felt sorry for a dead tiger, and renamed it to \"Tiger Fake Fur.\"\n\nOn July 5, 2006, Kawamoto released a CD as time-limited group of 3 chorus unit \"MihoMihoMakoto\" after an interval of five years, and she resumed musical activities completely.\n\nOn August 9, 2006, Kawamoto released new 1st single \"Yagi-ō no Theme\" in the \"Tiger Fake Fur\" name from HMJM(hamajim) Records.\n\nRecently Kawamoto gives a concert in Tokyo and her hometown, Fukui wherever her feet led her, and she enjoys it.\n\nIn 2009, Kawamoto sang \"Hontou no Hanashi\" in documentary film \"An'nyon Yumika\".\n\nIt is announced that Kawamoto will release her 3rd solo album \"\" which she produces for herself on February 19, 2010.\n\nTopics \nIn the 1990s, she often went to various Southeast Asian countries, especially to Philippines, and made her music videos there. According to her, she traveled to Southeast Asia especially Philippines many times during the 1990s, to absorb \"fashionable atmospheres\". For this reason, her music videos often contain those landscapes and people.\n\nDiscography\n\nSingles\n\nAi no Sainō \n is Makoto Kawamoto's 1st single released on May 2, 1996. The English title is \"sense of love.\"\n\nDNA \nDNA is Makoto Kawamoto's 2nd single released on September 2, 1996.\n\n1/2 \n is Makoto Kawamoto's 3rd single released on March 21, 1997.\n\nSakura \n is Makoto Kawamoto's 4th single released on April 1, 1998.\n\nPika Pika \n is Makoto Kawamoto's 5th single released on April 1, 1999.\n\nBinetsu \n is Makoto Kawamoto's 6th single released on January 21, 2000.\n\nFragile \nFragile is Makoto Kawamoto's 7th single released on April 26, 2000.\n\nGimmeshelter \nGimmeshelter is Makoto Kawamoto's 8th single released on March 3, 2001.\n\nBlossom \nBlossom is Makoto Kawamoto's 9th single released on September 30, 2001.\n\nYagi-ō no Theme \n is Makoto Kawamoto's 10th single released on August 9, 2006, and is also the 1st single under Tiger Fake Fur name. This song was written for the musical \"\" which Kawamoto wrote herself and she also played a role in.\n\nFairy Tunes \n is Makoto Kawamoto's 11th single released on June 22, 2011, under the name of \"Makoto Kawamoto feat. Tiger Fake Fur\".\n\nAlbums\n\nKawamoto Makoto \nKawamoto Makoto is Makoto Kawamoto's 1st album released on June 26, 1997. All songs written by Makoto Kawamoto without No. 2.\n\ngobbledygook \ngobbledygook is Makoto Kawamoto's 2nd album released on March 3, 2001. All songs written by Makoto Kawamoto without No. 5, #7.\n\nOngaku no Sekai e Youkoso \nOngaku no Sekai e Youkoso is Makoto Kawamoto's 3rd album released on February 19, 2010, by My Best Records. All songs written and produced by Makoto Kawamoto.\n\nThe Complete Singles Collection 1996～2001 \nThe Complete Singles Collection 1996～2001 is Makoto Kawamoto's Greatest hits album released on February 19, 2010, by SMDR GT Music (Sony Music Direct).\n\nCollaborations\n\nMihoMihoMakoto \n is the time-limited music group which Miho Asahi, Miho Moribayashi and Makoto Kawamoto formed, and is their 1st album's title released on July 5, 2006.\n\nGuest appearance \n Sparks Go Go\n – B side song of Sparks Go Go's single released on March 1, 1998. Kawamoto participated in it as a background vocalist.\n\nJiro Miwa\n – From his album Sour Lemon released on June 2, 2010. Kawamoto participated in it as a background vocalist and also appeared on the music clip.\n\n Chappie\n Welcoming Morning (March 9, 1999) – as a background vocalist\n Happyending Soulwriter's Council Band (October 10, 1999) – words： pal@pop, music： Makoto Kawamoto, arrangement： pal@pop & Makoto Kawamoto\n\nCM songs \n – Kanebo \"ALLIE\" (2005)\n ~song for boys – Fancl \"Calolimit\" (2010)\n\nNon-recording \n Namida no Taiyō\n (2005) is a cover song and a song in adverts of the cosmetics \"Allie\" of Kanebo.\n\nVHS / DVD\n\nWasuresōdatta \n is a video album (VHS) released on July 21, 1997, by Sony record.\n\nSōtai \n is a concert tour video (VHS) released on December 12, 1997, by Sony record.\n\nten.cut.plus.clip 1996–2001 \nten.cut.plus.clip 1996–2001 is a video album (DVD) released on March 6, 2002, by Epic Record Japan. DVD contains music clips and special videos.\n\nTie-ins \n \"Ai no Sainō\": Count Down TV (TBS) the ending theme\n \"DNA\": Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ (Fuji Television) the ending theme (October to December 1996).\n \"1/2\": Rurouni Kenshin (Fuji Television) 2nd opening theme (Anime television series)\n \"Binetsu\": Koi no Kami-sama (TBS) theme song (TV drama)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official page\n \n\n1974 births\nLiving people\nActors from Fukui Prefecture\nJapanese women pop singers\nJapanese-language singers\nJapanese multi-instrumentalists\nJapanese women singer-songwriters\nJapanese singer-songwriters\nSony Music Entertainment Japan artists\nMusicians from Fukui Prefecture\n21st-century Japanese singers\n21st-century Japanese women singers"
] |
[
"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017."
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
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Did this song go high on charts?
| 3 |
Did Lorde's song titled "Liability" go high on charts?
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Lorde
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In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
| false |
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"\"Where Did We Go Wrong\" is a song by American recording artists Toni Braxton and Babyface. It was written by Braxton and Babyface for their collaborative studio album Love, Marriage & Divorce (2014), while production was helmed by latter. The song was released on December 17, 2013 as the second single from the album. \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" peaked at number 11 on the US Adult R&B Songs and was ranked 38th on the chart's year-end listing.\n\nCommercial performance\n\"Where Did We Go Wrong\" peaked at number 11 on the US Adult R&B Songs on May 3, 2014, and entered the top 40 of the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. Billboard ranked the song 38th on the 2014 Adult R&B Songs year-end chart.\n\nPromotion\nBraxton and Babyface performed \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" on American morning television show Good Morning America on July 2, 2014.\n\nCredits and personnel \nCredits adapted from the liner notes of Love, Marriage & Divorce.\n\nPaul Boutin – mixing, recording\nToni Braxton – vocals, writer\nAntonio Dixon – percussion\nKenneth \"Babyface\" Edmonds – bass, guitar, producer, vocals, writer\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2013 singles\nToni Braxton songs\nSongs written by Toni Braxton\nContemporary R&B ballads\n2013 songs\nSongs written by Babyface (musician)\nMotown singles\nSong recordings produced by Babyface (musician)\nBabyface (musician) songs\nVocal duets",
"\"Don't Let Go\" is a song by Scottish singer-songwriter David Sneddon, released as a single on 21 April 2003. Written by Sneddon and Scott MacAlister, the song reached 3 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 36 in Ireland. It was the second single and follow up to Sneddon's debut number-one hit, \"Stop Living the Lie\".\n\nThe song was included on Sneddon's debut album, Seven Years – Ten Weeks. The B-sides to this song – \"She Needs to Know\", \"The Longest Time\" and \"Smile Again\" – did not appear on the album.\n\nTrack listings\nUK CD1\n \"Don't Let Go\"\n \"She Needs to Know\"\n \"The Longest Time\"\n \"Don't Let Go\" (CD-ROM video)\n\nUK CD2\n \"Don't Let Go\"\n \"Smile Again\"\n \"Stop Living the Lie\" (CD-ROM video)\n\nUK cassette single\n \"Don't Let Go\"\n \"Smile Again\"\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2003 singles\n2003 songs\nDavid Sneddon songs\nMercury Records singles\nNumber-one singles in Scotland\nSong recordings produced by Hugh Padgham\nSongs written by David Sneddon\nSongs written by Scott MacAlister"
] |
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"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did this song go high on charts?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
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Did she have any drama or controversy?
| 4 |
Did Lorde have any drama or controversy?
|
Lorde
|
In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
| false |
[
"Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo is a 2019 French erotic drama film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. It premiered In Competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival where it was widely panned. The film is a sequel to Kechiche's 2017 film Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno. Like its predecessor, the film is an adaptation of the French novel La Blessure, la vraie written by François Bégaudeau. As its title suggests, the film is an interlude with a third and final film in the works. As of 2021, because of the ongoing legal battles of Kechiche's production company the film remains unseen outside of its Cannes premiere, with controversy also surrounding its treatment of lead actress Ophélie Bau. The third and final film, which has been reported as complete, is also in jeopardy.\n\nPlot\nIn 1994, Ophélie discovers she is pregnant with her lover's child even though she is engaged and due to marry her fiancé soon. With summer at a close she contemplates going to Paris to have an abortion. She and her friends decide to spend a night at a club in Sète where she has sex with her other friend.\n\nCast\n Shaïn Boumedine as Amin \n Ophélie Bau as Ophélie \n Salim Kechiouche as Tony\n Alexia Chardard as Charlotte \n Lou Luttiau as Céline\n Hafsia Herzi as Camélia\n\nProduction\nThe decision to split this film apart from the film Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno caused Kechiche's producers to withdraw funds for post-production for both films in 2017. Kechiche did eventually find the funds necessary to finish both films, in part by auctioning off the Palme d'or he won for Blue Is the Warmest Colour. However before a planned third film could be completed Kechiche's production company became financially insolvent calling into question his ability to complete the final Mektoub film.\n\nControversy\nThe film featured a 13-minute unsimulated sex scene where actress Ophélie Bau receives oral sex from actor Roméo de Lacour and is brought to orgasm. Shortly before the film premiered at Cannes a report broke that Kechiche pressured the actors involved to consume alcohol to finish the scene despite their reluctance to do so. Bau attended the premiere of the film but left before the screening and did not attend a press conference for the film. In 2020 she revealed that she refused to attend the screening because she had requested Kechiche allow her to view the sex scene in question at a private screening before the film was publicly shown, a request which he denied.\n\nReception\nOn review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: \"Joyless and distastefully photographed, Abdellatif Kechiche's second chapter in his romantic epic is too enamored with derrière to offer audiences a reason to care.\" Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 10 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating \"overwhelming dislike\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2019 films\n2019 drama films\n2010s erotic drama films\nFrench films\nFrench erotic drama films\nFrench sequel films\nFilms directed by Abdel Kechiche\nPathé films",
"The following is a list of episodes of the South Korean TV program Let's Eat Dinner Together. (episode 164), the members and guests dined successfully with 298 families, including eight families abroad (three in Japan, three in Russia and four in Hawaii).\n\n – Mission success: Before 20:00 (KST), a family invites the cast / guest (if any) into the house for dinner.\n – Mission partially failed: Between 20:00 to 21:30, the cast / guest (if any) managed to have dinner with local resident/s in a convenience store.\n – Mission completely failed.\n\nEpisodes\n\n2016\n\n2017\n\nRemark\nOn August 9, 2017, SHINee's Onew and Han Ye-ri completed the recording for this show somewhere in Seoul to promote their new drama Age of Youth 2, and the episode is just waiting for the airing time. However, due to Onew's controversy of sexual harassment on August 12, 2017 and the pressure from public after, he decided to leave the drama and the production team of this show decided to indefinitely postpone their episode's broadcast.\n\n2018\n\n2019\n\nRemark\nJin Goo and Kim Byeong-ok completed the recording for this show in Hwigyeong-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul to promote their new drama Legal High, and the episode was set to be aired on February 13, 2019. However, due to Kim Byeong-ok's controversy of drink-driving on February 12, 2019, the production team of this show decided to cancel the broadcast of this episode and he subsequently stepped down from the drama.\n\n2020\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nLists of variety television series episodes\nLists of South Korean television series episodes"
] |
[
"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did this song go high on charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she have any drama or controversy?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
|
What is Melodrama?
| 5 |
When did Lorde reveal her second album Melodrama?
|
Lorde
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In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
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Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March.
|
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
| false |
[
"Korean melodrama refers to a subgenre of melodrama, which drew largely on native Korean narrative and theatrical forms through adaptations of traditional folk tales and pansori. This genre also drew its influences from Japanese theatrical \"shimpa\" and early Hollywood films.\n\nThe term melodrama originally stems from the Greek word melos, meaning music. However, in contemporary Korean melodramas, minimal music has replaced the typical throbbing and seductive tunes. Fifty to seventy percent of films produced in Korea and classified as melodramas and they typically portray the neglected corners of society and its exaggerated feelings and circumstances work to arouse empathy in the viewer.\n\nKorean vs. Western \nIn contrast to Western Melodrama, the concept of suffering is a fundamental component. It is partly captured in the word han, which is a deep-seated feeling of sorrow, bitterness, or despair that originates in oppression or injustice which accumulates over time and remains unexpressed in the heart. It is believed by some to be a distinguishing characteristic of the Korean culture. Another distinguishing characteristic of Korean melodrama is the emphasis on family. While Western Melodrama tends to focus on the individual, the portrayal of the self in relation to the family in Korean Melodrama is significant. Early melodramatic texts typically dramatize the moral superiority of old values.\n\nIn American melodramas, restages of social and cultural values are also pivotal. However, there is more of a tendency to evaluate the rapid transformation of social relations by looking back and consulting the old order of things. In typical endings, characters whose world has collapsed around them usually find another form of personal satisfaction and re-invest their faith in the typical American dream: a classic Hollywood happy ending. Contrast this to Korean melodramas, where the main characters don't recover. When Korean melodrama characters realize they've lost it all, the film usually takes them back to a fleeting memory of past happiness and then ends, eschewing resolution.\n\nHistory \nMelodrama in Korea has been a dominant genre in the film industry since 1919. With early influences stemming from the Japanese theatrical shimpa (adapted from western melodrama), traditional folk tales such as pansori (an oral narrative poetry expressed in song) and Hollywood, Korean melodrama evolved from the 1920s up until the twenty first century.\n\nTimeline \n 1910-45: Japanese colonialism subjected Koreans to violence, humiliation, and mass displacements. However, the Japanese simultaneously introduced shimpa. This new form of theater became widespread by the 1920s and greatly influenced Korean melodrama. Plots commonly revolving around heterosexual love, class differences, social change, and triumphing protagonists were central in both Japanese and Korean melodramas.\n 1950s: Hollywood films entered the Korean Film industry when the U.S. occupied Korea after World War II. There was a Korean Cinema boom and melodramas became very popular. During this time melodramas focused either on modernization or the issue of \"free love\"\n 1960s: Melodramas reached the peak of their popularity and focused on social issues such as highlighting economic struggles and class differences that divided society. Student uprisings were frequent and more grassroots protests for political and economic justice were prevalent which influenced the narration of Korean melodramas.\n 1970s: Melodramas reached its low point for the film industry. Melodramas focused on the mood of the society in general, revolving around women who served alcohol or worked as prostitutes\n 1980s: After a relaxation of censorship, melodramas depicted contemporary issues such as Korea's rapid development and the effects this had on the poor.\n 1990s: Melodramas tended to focus on romantic comedies and action pictures. Also a new concept of melodrama began to form. In 1998, Christmas in August redefined Korean melodrama.\n\nCentral features in Korean melodrama \nAccording to \"Melodrama Revised,\" by Linda Williams, melodramas typically portrays five aspects.\n Melodrama begins, and wants to end, in a space of innocence\n Melodrama focuses on victim-heroes and the recognition of their virtue\n Melodrama appears modern by borrowing from realism, but realism serves the melodramatic passion and action\n Melodrama involves a dialectic of passion and action – a give and take of “too late” and “in the nick of time”\n Melodrama presents characters who embody primary psychic roles organized in Manichaean conflicts between good and evil\n\nReferences\n Contemporary Korean Cinema\n The Korea Society\n South Korean Golden Age, Melodrama\n Genrebending in Contemporary Korean Cinema\n\nExternal links\n Linda Williams\n Korean Film\n Korean Society\n Tiger Cinema\n\nFilm genres\nCinema of Korea",
"80 Million Women Want—? (alternate title: What 80 Million Women Want) is a 1913 American silent melodrama film. It was produced by Unique Film Co. in partnership with the Women's Political Union. The film featured cameos by prominent suffragists, including Emmeline Pankhurst and Harriot Stanton Blatch.\n\nPlot\n\nSee also \n Women's suffrage in film\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1913 films"
] |
[
"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did this song go high on charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she have any drama or controversy?",
"I don't know.",
"What is Melodrama?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March."
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
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What are some of the singles?
| 6 |
What are some of the singles from Lorde's album titled Melodrama?
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Lorde
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In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
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She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017.
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Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
| false |
[
"Memorabilia – The Singles is a compilation album of songs by the British singer/songwriter Marc Almond, both as a solo artist and with his partner Dave Ball as the synthpop duo Soft Cell. It was released in 1991 and reached number eight in the UK Albums Chart. The album was promoted by the singles \"Say Hello, Wave Goodbye '91\" and \"Tainted Love '91\".\n\nThe majority of the Soft Cell singles on this compilation are not the original versions and have new re-recorded vocals and some new musical recordings and remixing, with the exception of \"Torch\" and \"Soul Inside\".\n\nThe version of \"Soul Inside\" is unique to this recording, as is \"Tears Run Rings\", which is an edited version of the Justin Strauss remix.\n\nThe compilation was partly assembled (by Stevo from Some Bizarre. While almost every Soft Cell single (to that date) was included in the package, the compilers opted to overlook all of Almond's solo and Mambas work up to 1988 except for his 1985 collaboration with Bronski Beat.\n\nThe compilation was released as an LP, CD, cassette and VHS video in May 1991, receiving positive reviews. The artwork was designed by Big-Active Limited with a cover photograph by Richard Haughton.\n\nReception\n\nMemorabilia – The Singles received good reviews from the majority of critics.\n\nTrack listing\n\nLP\n\nCD and cassette\n\nMemorabilia – The Video Singles\nA 14-track video compilation, Memorabilia – The Video Singles, was released with a slightly different track listing. \"What\" was accidentally left off the printed track listing on the outer cover of some releases of Memorabilia – The Video Singles, but is actually included on the videocassette itself.\n\"Memorabilia\"\n\"Tainted Love '91\"\n\"Bedsitter\"\n\"Torch\"\n\"What\"\n\"Say Hello, Wave Goodbye '91\"\n\"Soul Inside\"\n\"Where the Heart Is\"\n\"I Feel Love (Medley)\"\n\"Tears Run Rings\"\n\"A Love Spurned\"\n\"Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart\"\n\"The Stars We Are\" (Annie Hogan, Marc Almond)\n\"Waifs and Strays\"\n\nReferences\n\nSoft Cell albums\nMarc Almond albums\n1991 compilation albums",
"\"Get Down Tonight\" is a song released in 1975 on the self-titled album by the disco group KC and the Sunshine Band. The song became widely successful, becoming the first of their five No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. It also reached the top of the Hot Soul Singles chart and was an international chart hit, reaching No. 1 in Canada and charting in Australia (No. 44), Belgium (No. 11), the Netherlands (No. 5), and the UK (No. 21).\n\nComposition\nThe song displays some of the signature characteristics of the disco era such as a fast tempo and repeating lyrics. The song also features a distinctive introduction, employing a guitar solo rendered at double-speed.\n\nThe song was originally titled \"What You Want Is What You Get\" before KC changed the title to \"Get Down Tonight\".\n\nSampling\nIn 1998, the song was sampled by the house production act Bamboo for the hit single \"Bamboogie\". The song reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart in January 1998.\n\nChart performance\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 1975\nList of Cash Box Top 100 number-one singles of 1975\nList of number-one R&B singles of 1975 (U.S.)\nList of number-one singles of 1975 (Canada)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n at TopPop\n\n1975 singles\n1975 songs\nKC and the Sunshine Band songs\nBillboard Hot 100 number-one singles\nCashbox number-one singles\nRPM Top Singles number-one singles\nSongs written by Harry Wayne Casey\nSongs written by Richard Finch (musician)\nSongs about dancing\nTK Records singles"
] |
[
"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did this song go high on charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she have any drama or controversy?",
"I don't know.",
"What is Melodrama?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March.",
"What are some of the singles?",
"She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017."
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
|
Did it make the charts?
| 7 |
Did Lorde's album Melodrama make the charts?
|
Lorde
|
In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
|
Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017,
|
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
| false |
[
"The Proud One is the seventh studio album released by The Osmonds in 1975. Two singles, \"The Proud One\" and \"I'm Still Gonna Need You\" were released from the album. The album peaked at No. 160 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, a precipitous drop from their previous albums.\n\nThe title track gave the quintet its last top 40 hit in the US to date as well as its first and only number-one on the easy listening charts. \"I'm Still Gonna Need You\" did not make the Billboard Hot 100 but did make the top 40 in the UK and appeared on the easy listening charts.\n\nThe UK version of the album, released with the same tracks but under the title I'm Still Gonna Need You, reached No. 19 on the UK Albums Chart, their last studio album to make an appearance on the chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nhttp://osmondmania.com/Discography2/Album_Pages/ProudOne.html\n\nThe Osmonds albums\n1975 albums\nAlbums produced by Mike Curb\nMGM Records albums",
"\"Make Me Crazy\" is the second and final single by Scandal'us from their debut album Startin' Somethin'. It did not live up to the success of their debut single, \"Me, Myself & I\", only managing to debut and peak at No. 30 on the Australian ARIA Charts. This was the last release from the band before they broke up in 2002.\n\nTrack listing\n Maxi Single\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (3:15)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (Crazy Nights Mix) (3:30)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (Wired Meshmix)\t(3:26)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (KCB Klubbmix) (3:34)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (Karaoke Mix) (3:17)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\nWarner Music Group singles\n2001 songs"
] |
[
"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did this song go high on charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she have any drama or controversy?",
"I don't know.",
"What is Melodrama?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March.",
"What are some of the singles?",
"She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did it make the charts?",
"Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017,"
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
|
Any other interesting information?
| 8 |
Any other interesting information about Lorde other than the Melodrama World Tour?
|
Lorde
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In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
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The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017,
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Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
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[
"A narrative technique (known for literary fictional narratives as a literary technique, literary device, or fictional device) is any of several specific methods the creator of a narrative uses to convey what they want—in other words, a strategy used in the making of a narrative to relay information to the audience and particularly to develop the narrative, usually in order to make it more complete, complex, or interesting. Literary techniques are distinguished from literary elements, which exist inherently in works of writing.\n\nSetting\n\nPlots\n\nPerspective\n\nStyle\n\nTheme\n\nCharacter\n\nSee also \n Plot device\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n \n\n \nNarratology\nPoetic devices\nStyle (fiction)",
"SYSTAT was a command on the DEC TOPS-10 and RSTS/E computer operating systems by which one obtained the current general status of the running operating system. The commands showed the logged-on users, processes, I/O, and other interesting system management information.\n\nReferences\n\nDigital Equipment Corporation"
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"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did this song go high on charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she have any drama or controversy?",
"I don't know.",
"What is Melodrama?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March.",
"What are some of the singles?",
"She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did it make the charts?",
"Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017,",
"Any other interesting information?",
"The final promotional single, \"Sober\", was released on 9 June 2017,"
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C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
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How did that song do?
| 9 |
How did Lorde's song "Sober" do?
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Lorde
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In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
|
and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017.
|
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
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"How Do You Do may refer to:\n\nHow Do You Do (Miyuki Nakajima album)\nHow Do You Do (Mayer Hawthorne album)\n\"How Do You Do!\", a song by Roxette\n\"How Do You Do?\" (beFour song)\n\"How Do You Do\" (Mouth & MacNeal song)\n\"How Do You Do\" (Shakira song)\n\"How Do You Do?\", a song by the Boomtown Rats released as the B-side to \"Like Clockwork\"\n\"How Do You Do?\", a song from the Disney film Song of the South\n\"How Do You Do?\", a song from the Wee Sing film The Marvelous Musical Mansion\n\nSee also\n How Are You (disambiguation)\n How Have You Been (disambiguation)\n How You Been (disambiguation)",
"How Do You Sleep? may refer to:\n\n \"How Do You Sleep?\" (John Lennon song), 1971\n\"How Do You Sleep?\" (Jesse McCartney song), 2009\n\"How Do You Sleep?\" (Sam Smith song), 2019\n\"How Do You Sleep?\", a 2017 song by LCD Soundsystem from American Dream\n\"How Do You Sleep\", a song by The Stone Roses from their 1994 album Second Coming"
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"Lorde",
"2016-present: Melodrama",
"What did she do in 2016?",
"In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland.",
"Is she still working on music?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did this song go high on charts?",
"I don't know.",
"Did she have any drama or controversy?",
"I don't know.",
"What is Melodrama?",
"Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March.",
"What are some of the singles?",
"She released a new song from the album titled \"Liability\" on 9 March 2017.",
"Did it make the charts?",
"Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017,",
"Any other interesting information?",
"The final promotional single, \"Sober\", was released on 9 June 2017,",
"How did that song do?",
"and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017."
] |
C_23779b61c9fd4fa2b4cc627bd56a2586_0
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Is she touring presently?
| 10 |
Is Lorde touring presently?
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Lorde
|
In January 2016, Lorde purchased a $2.84 million home in Herne Bay, Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards, she gave a performance of "Life on Mars" in tribute to the late English singer David Bowie. According to Billboard, Lorde said she'd be writing new material in December 2013. While responding to a fan on her Instagram account in August 2016, she said that the record had been written and they were in production stages. In November, she posted a note on her Facebook account stating: "Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies, and this record - well, this one is about what comes next. [...] The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world." On 16 February 2017, her recording label, Republic Records, published a date of 3/7 under "Confidential Title" that revealed her much anticipated sophomore record, which later was cleared by the label. On 26 February, Lorde teased her new music in New Zealand in an ad with the dates 3.2.17 NYC and 3.3.17 NZ. Two days prior to the release, it was revealed that her debut single from her second album would be "Green Light". Lorde revealed the title of her second album, Melodrama on 2 March. She released a new song from the album titled "Liability" on 9 March 2017. Lorde performed "Green Light" and "Liability" publicly for the first time as the musical guest on 11 March 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live. She revealed the 11 tracks of the album in May. The second single, "Perfect Places" was released on 2 June 2017. Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017, with Khalid acting as support for the European portion of the tour. The final promotional single, "Sober", was released on 9 June 2017, and the album Melodrama was released on 16 June 2017. Two months later, a remix of "Homemade Dynamite", featuring vocals from Khalid, Post Malone and SZA was released on the third single from the album. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. CANNOTANSWER
|
Six days later, the Melodrama World Tour was announced, beginning in Manchester on 26 September 2017,
|
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from the British aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.
Born in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna and raised in neighbouring Devonport, Lorde expressed interest in performing at local venues in her early teens. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and collaborated with producer Joel Little in 2011 to start recording material. Initially self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud, UMG commercially released the pair's first collaborative effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club, in 2013. The EP's international chart-topping single "Royals" helped Lorde rise to prominence.
Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated the soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and recorded several tracks, including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama (2017) received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, while her latest work, Solar Power (2021), entered the charts in various countries and polarized both critics and public due to its departure from Lorde's previous sound.
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde has sold over five million albums worldwide.
Life and career
1996–2009: Early life
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996 in Takapuna, Auckland, to poet Sonja Yelich () and civil engineer Vic O'Connor. Her mother was born to Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia, while her father is of Irish descent. They announced their engagement in 2014, after a 30-year relationship, and in 2017, they married in a private ceremony in Cheltenham Beach. Lorde holds dual New Zealand and Croatian citizenship.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an older sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in the nearby Auckland suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M.T. Anderson as well as authors J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age 6, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School in her early teens. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007. Lorde and her Belmont team were named the runner-up in the 2009 Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals, a global literature competition for students aged 10 to 14.
2009–2011: Career beginnings
In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo. In August that year, Lorde and McDonald made a guest appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". McDonald's father then sent his recordings of the duo covering "Mama Do" and Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" to Universal Music Group (UMG)'s A&R executive Scott Maclachlan. Maclachlan subsequently signed her to UMG for development.
Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate School band Extreme; the band placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals at the Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Auckland on 18 November 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duet called "Ella & Louis" and performed covers live on a regular basis at local venues, including cafés in Auckland and the Victoria Theatre in Devonport. In 2011, UMG hired vocal coach Frances Dickinson to give her singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan attempted to partner Lorde with several different producers and songwriters, but without success. As she began writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
2012–2015: Pure Heroine
When Lorde and Little had finished their first collaborative effort, The Love Club EP, Maclachlan applauded it as a "strong piece of music", but worried if the EP could profit because Lorde was obscure at the time. In November 2012, the singer self-released the EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. UMG commercially released The Love Club in March 2013 after it had been downloaded 60,000 times, which signaled that Lorde had attracted a range of audiences. It peaked at number two in New Zealand and Australia. "Royals", the EP's single, helped Lorde rise to prominence after it became a critical and commercial success, selling more than 10 million units worldwide. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Lorde, then aged 16, the youngest artist to earn a number-one single in the United States since Tiffany in 1987, and has since been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The track won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year at the 56th ceremony. From late 2013 to early 2016, Lorde was in a relationship with New Zealand photographer James Lowe.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and has sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at festivals including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying soundtrack for the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
2016–2018: Melodrama
In January 2016, Lorde relocated to Herne Bay, an affluent suburb in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde and David Bowie's final touring band gave a tribute performance of his 1971 song "Life on Mars". Pianist Mike Garson, a frequent band member for Bowie, explained that Bowie's family and management selected Lorde because he admired her and felt she was "the future of music". Later that year, Lorde co-wrote "Heartlines", a song by New Zealand music duo Broods from their 2016 album Conscious.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada. Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde attempted to showcase her maturity as a songwriter and incorporated her post-breakup introspection. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
2019–present: Going South and Solar Power
Lorde revealed on 20 May 2020 that she started working on her third studio album with Antonoff following the death of her dog Pearl. In November 2020, she announced the release of Going South, a book documenting her January 2019 visit to Antarctica with photos taken by photographer Harriet Were.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June 2021, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" was released on 21 July as the album's second single. "Mood Ring" was released on 17 August as the album's third single.
Lorde released on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in te reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Dame Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand based charities: Forest and Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.
Artistry
Influences
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul musicians Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Otis Redding, whose music she admires for "harvesting their suffering." She also listened to her parents' favourite records by the likes of Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac in her early years. During production of Pure Heroine, Lorde cited influences from electronic music producers, including SBTRKT, Grimes, and Sleigh Bells, impressed by "their vocals in a really interesting way, whether it might be chopping up a vocal part or really lash or layering a vocal." Lorde also stated that she was inspired by the initially hidden identities of Burial and the Weeknd, explaining, "I feel like mystery is more interesting." Other inspirations include Grace Jones, James Blake, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, the Smiths, Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Kanye West, Prince, and David Bowie.
Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures. When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence + the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, Lorde stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Musical style and songwriting
Lorde is noted for her unconventional pop sound and introspective songwriting. In a 2017 interview with NME, she declared "I don't think about staying in my genre lane". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterised her style as primarily electropop. Upon the release of Pure Heroine, contemporary critics described her music as electropop, art pop, dream pop, indie pop, and indie-electro, with influences of hip hop. Melodrama was a departure from the hip hop-oriented minimalist style of its predecessor, incorporating piano instrumentation and maximalist electronic beats.
Prior to the release of Melodrama, Lorde only utilised her vocals and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, elaborating, "[My] voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important". PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she employed a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage on select dates. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde revealed via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major or minor chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Public image and impact
Lorde's stage name bears her fascination with "royals and aristocracy"; she added an "e" after the name Lord, which she felt was too masculine, to make it more feminine. She described her public image as something that "naturally" came to her and was identical to her real life personality. Lorde identifies as a feminist. The New Zealand Herald opined that her feminist ideology was different from her contemporaries due to Lorde's disinterest in sexualised performances. She proclaimed herself in an interview with V magazine as a "hugely sex-positive person", saying, "I have nothing against anyone getting naked. ... I just don't think it really would complement my music in any way or help me tell a story any better".
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation. Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s, and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists. She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to contemporary stage performers. The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence [is] more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde's works have directly influenced several contemporary artists, including Alessia Cara, Amanda Palmer, Amandla Stenberg, Benee, Billie Eilish, Charlotte Lawrence, Charly Bliss, Chelsea Jade, Conan Gray, Courtney Love, Cub Sport, Daniel Johns, Daya, Elton John, Finneas, Fletcher, Gayle, Gracey, Gracie Abrams, Griff, Holly Humberstone, Isaac Dunbar, James Bay, Khalid, K.Flay, Mallrat, Maisie Peters, Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Sigrid, Stevie Nicks, Tessa Violet, the Aces, Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Troye Sivan, Xylø, and Yungblud.
Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
Philanthropy
Lorde has been involved in several philanthropic causes. "The Love Club" was included in the 2013 charity album Songs for the Philippines to support the people in the Philippines who suffered from Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing", a charity single, as part of the supergroup Kiwis Cure Batten. All sales from the song went towards research for the cure of Batten disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Later that year, the singer was featured in the compilation album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II to raise funds for the preservation of the Tibetan culture. The following year, Lorde made a NZ$20,000 donation to Fuel the Need, a New Zealand charity that provides lunches for underprivileged schoolchildren. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital to fund the purchase of "five new portable neurology monitors." Lorde became a patron of MusicHelps, formerly the New Zealand Music Foundation, a musical charity helping New Zealanders who are vulnerable to or experiencing serious health issues, in November 2018.
Accolades and achievements
After her breakthrough, Lorde won four New Zealand Music Awards at the 2013 ceremony. The single "Royals" earned the APRA Silver Scroll Award, and two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as a songwriter for "Yellow Flicker Beat". Her second studio album Melodrama received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony. Lorde has received two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. The singer has also won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards. She has sold over five million albums worldwide as of June 2017 and 15 million certified single units in the United States.
Discography
Pure Heroine (2013)
Melodrama (2017)
Solar Power (2021)
Bibliography
Going South (2021)
Filmography
Tours
Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
References
Notes
External links
1996 births
Living people
21st-century New Zealand women singers
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
APRA Award winners
Art pop musicians
Brit Award winners
Child pop musicians
Dream pop musicians
Electropop musicians
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Musicians from Auckland
Lorde
New Zealand women singer-songwriters
New Zealand feminists
New Zealand people of Croatian descent
New Zealand people of Irish descent
New Zealand women in electronic music
People educated at Takapuna Grammar School
Sex-positive feminists
Universal Music Group artists
Shorty Award winners
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients
Māori-language singers
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"Órbita – Bicicletas Portuguesas, Lda. is an international bicycle manufacturer headquartered in Águeda, Portugal. The bicycles produced are branded as Órbita or Orbita (in some countries).\n\nThe company was created on 2 February 1971 and is 95% owned by the Miralago S.A group.\n\nÓrbita manufactures a wide range of bicycle types including utility, mountain, racing, touring, hybrid, cruiser and BMX bikes. These include specific models for women, for men, for children, vintage bikes, two rider bikes, tricycles and folding bikes.\n\n70% of Órbita's production is exported and the rest is destined to the Portuguese market. Órbita bikes are presently sold in several countries of Europe, Africa and North America.\n\nModels presently in production\n\nExternal links \n\nUSA Official supply website\n\nReferences\n\nVehicle manufacturing companies established in 1971\nPortuguese brands\nMountain bike manufacturers\nCycle manufacturers of Portugal\nCycle parts manufacturers\nPortuguese companies established in 1971",
"Supriya Jatav (born on 20 October 1991) is an Indian Karateka. She was born in Dahod, Gujarat, India. Her mother Meena Jatav and father Amar Singh Jatav is a retired army officer. She is presently coached under the guidance of Jaidev Sharma. From 2002 to 2006, she was coached and had played under the banner of Sports Authority of India. She presently represents and works with the Department of Sports and Youth Welfare, Government of Madhya Pradesh.\n\nShe is Kumite Karate athlete from India to achieve a medal in the three consecutive Commonwealth Karate Championships in Kumite Event. She is the first Indian to win the US Open Karate Championship in the elite division in 2019. Supriya Jatav won the national championship since 2010 till 2020. She has won the highest state awards for sports from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.\n\nAwards and Recognition\n\nInternational and World Championships\n\nCommonwealth Karate Championship\n\nAsian Championship\n\nSouth Asian Championship\n\nReferences\n\nIndian female karateka\nSportspeople from Ahmedabad\n1991 births\nLiving people\nIndian female martial artists\nSportswomen from Gujarat\n21st-century Indian women\n21st-century Indian people\nSportspeople from Gujarat"
] |
[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)"
] |
C_0721df31d4f147aabc781cfde6dfde49_1
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How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?
| 1 |
How many Albums were sold of Departure of Borland?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways.
|
Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
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"Duke Lion Fights the Terror!! is the debut album by Big Dumb Face. The album is noted for its comedic lyrics and shifts in musical style, encompassing multiple genres of music.\n\nReleased on March 6, 2001, the album was recorded while Wes Borland was still a member of the nu metal band Limp Bizkit, shortly before his brief departure from that band. Duke Lion Fights the Terror!! received mixed reviews, with reviewers unfavorably comparing the album's music to that of Ween, which Big Dumb Face was influenced by.\n\nProduction\nThe album was recorded for Flip/Interscope Records, the labels of Wes Borland's other band, Limp Bizkit, and Flawless Records, a vanity label formed as a Geffen subsidiary by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, who served as an executive producer for Duke Lion Fights the Terror!!\n\nThe album was recorded while Borland was still a member of Limp Bizkit, prior to his brief departure from that band.\n\nThe song \"Organ Splitter\" incorporates a sample from the 1983 Canadian comedy film Strange Brew. Wes Borland performed most of the instruments and vocals on the album, with the band's co-founder Scott Borland playing keyboards, providing backup vocals and turntable scratching on the album's final track, \"It's Right In Here\".\n\nMusic and lyrics \n\nThe musical style of Duke Lion Fights the Terror!! was influenced by Ween and Mr. Bungle. Wes Borland stated that the album's music is \"really silly and idiotic and bizarre. [...] It's nothing but stupid [...] just all these retarded songs.\"\n\nDeseret News writer Scott Iwasaki described the album's music as \"riotous meanderings that tap into early grindcore grooves and Captain Beefheart psychedelia\".\n\nReception \nReviews of Duke Lion Fights the Terror!! were mixed. Allmusic writer Kieran McCarthy dismissed Duke Lion Fights the Terror as \"a mediocre Ween rip-off\", while Entertainment Weekly writer Robert Cherry wrote, \"Dumb? Check. Big? Not likely. But at least Duke Lion Fights the Terror isn't only about the nookie.\"\n\nHowever, a positive review appeared in the Deseret News in which writer Scott Iwasaki, giving the album three stars, stated, \"Duke Lion Fights the Terror!! captures Borland, as Big Dumb Face, at his most spontaneous\". Bloody Good Horror writer D.M, in a mixed to favorable review, wrote, \"The album’s concept is so scattershot that it’s unfathomable to call the album a cohesive whole.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\"Burgalveist\" – 2:47\n\"Duke Lion\" – 2:00\n\"Kali Is the Sweethog\" – 2:45\n\"Blood Red Head on Fire\" – 3:42\n\"Space Adventure\" – 2:40\n\"Fightin' Stance\" – 2:32\n\"Organ Splitter\" – 2:10\n\"Mighty Penus Laser\" – 5:31\n\"Robot\" – 1:03\n\"Rebel\" – 3:26\n\"Voices in the Wall\" – 2:58\n\"It's Right in Here\" – 19:43\n\nPersonnel\nWes Borland - vocals, guitars, electric bass, banjo\nScott Borland - keyboards, turntables, vocals\nKyle Weeks - vocals, bongos, sampling\nGreg Isabelle - drums, vocals\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 debut albums\nBig Dumb Face albums\nFlip Records (1994) albums\nInterscope Records albums",
"Borland Software Corporation was a computer technology company founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn. Its main business was the development and sale of software development and software deployment products. Borland was first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, then in Cupertino, California and then in Austin, Texas. In 2009 the company became a full subsidiary of the British firm Micro Focus International plc.\n\nHistory\n\nThe 1980s: Foundations\nBorland Ltd. was founded in August 1981 by three Danish citizens, Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, and Mogens Glad, to develop products like Word Index for the CP/M operating system using an off-the-shelf company. However, response to the company's products at the CP/M-82 show in San Francisco showed that a U.S. company would be needed to reach the American market. They met Philippe Kahn, who had just moved to Silicon Valley, and who had been a key developer of the Micral. The three Danes had embarked, at first successfully, on marketing software first from Denmark, and later from Ireland, before running into some challenges at the time when they met Philippe Kahn. Kahn was chairman, president, and CEO of Borland Inc. from its inception in 1983 until 1995. Main shareholders at the incorporation of Borland were Niels Jensen (250,000 shares), Ole Henriksen (160,000), Mogens Glad (100,000), and Kahn (80,000).\n\nBorland International, Inc. era\nBorland developed a series of software development tools. Its first product was Turbo Pascal in 1983, developed by Anders Hejlsberg (who later developed .NET and C# for Microsoft) and before Borland acquired the product sold in Scandinavia under the name of Compas Pascal. 1984 saw the launch of Borland Sidekick, a time organization, notebook, and calculator utility that was an early terminate-and-stay-resident program (TSR) for DOS operating systems.\n\nBy the mid-1980s the company had the largest exhibit at the 1985 West Coast Computer Faire other than IBM or AT&T. Bruce Webster reported that \"the legend of Turbo Pascal has by now reached mythic proportions, as evidenced by the number of firms that, in marketing meetings, make plans to become 'the next Borland'\". After Turbo Pascal and Sidekick the company launched other applications such as SuperKey and Lightning, all developed in Denmark. While the Danes remained majority shareholders, board members included Kahn, Tim Berry, John Nash, and David Heller. With the assistance of John Nash and David Heller, both British members of the Borland Board, the company was taken public on London's Unlisted Securities Market (USM) in 1986. Schroders was the lead investment banker. According to the London IPO filings, the management team was Philippe Kahn as president, Spencer Ozawa as VP of Operations, Marie Bourget as CFO, and Spencer Leyton as VP of sales and business development, while all software development was continuing to take place in Denmark and later London as the Danish co-founders moved there. A first US IPO followed in 1989 after Ben Rosen joined the Borland board with Goldman Sachs as the lead banker and a second offering in 1991 with Lazard as the lead banker.\n\nIn 1985 Borland acquired Analytica and its Reflex database product. The engineering team of Analytica, managed by Brad Silverberg and including Reflex co-founder Adam Bosworth, became the core of Borland's engineering team in the USA. Brad Silverberg was VP of engineering until he left in early 1990 to head up the Personal Systems division at Microsoft. Adam Bosworth initiated and headed up the Quattro project until moving to Microsoft later in 1990 to take over the project which eventually became Access.\n\nIn 1987 Borland purchased Wizard Systems and incorporated portions of the Wizard C technology into Turbo C. Bob Jervis, the author of Wizard C became a Borland employee. Turbo C was released on May 18, 1987. This apparently drove a wedge between Borland and Niels Jensen and the other members of his team who had been working on a brand new series of compilers at their London development centre. An agreement was reached and they spun off a company called Jensen & Partners International(JPI), later TopSpeed. JPI first launched a MS-DOS compiler named JPI Modula-2, that later became TopSpeed Modula-2, and followed up with TopSpeed C, TopSpeed C++ and TopSpeed Pascal compilers for both the MS-DOS and OS/2 operating systems. The TopSpeed compiler technology exists today as the underlying technology of the Clarion 4GL programming language, a Windows development tool.\n\nIn September 1987 Borland purchased Ansa-Software, including their Paradox (version 2.0) database management tool. Richard Schwartz, a cofounder of Ansa, became Borland's CTO and Ben Rosen joined the Borland board.\n\nThe Quattro Pro spreadsheet was launched in 1989 with, at the time, an improvement and charting capabilities. Lotus Development, under the leadership of Jim Manzi sued Borland for copyright infringement (see Look and feel). The litigation, Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Borland Int'l, Inc., brought forward Borland's open standards position as opposed to Lotus' closed approach. Borland, under Kahn's leadership took a position of principle and announced that they would defend against Lotus' legal position and \"fight for programmer's rights\". After a decision in favor of Borland by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the case went to the United States Supreme Court. Because Justice John Paul Stevens had recused himself, only eight Justices heard the case, and it ended in a 4–4 tie. As a result, the First Circuit decision remained standing, but the Supreme Court result, being a tie, did not bind any other court and set no national precedent.\n\nAdditionally, Borland's approach towards software piracy and intellectual property (IP) included its \"Borland no-nonsense license agreement\". This allowed the developer/user to utilize its products \"just like a book\"; he or she was allowed to make multiple copies of a program, as long as only one copy was in use at any point in time.\n\nThe 1990s: Rise and change\nIn September 1991 Borland purchased Ashton-Tate, bringing the dBASE and InterBase databases to the house, in an all-stock transaction. Competition with Microsoft was fierce. Microsoft launched the competing database Microsoft Access and bought the dBASE clone FoxPro in 1992, undercutting Borland's prices. During the early 1990s Borland's implementation of C and C++ outsold Microsoft's. Borland survived as a company, but no longer had the dominance in software tools that it once had. It went through a radical transition in products, financing, and staff, and became a very different company from the one which challenged Microsoft and Lotus in the early 1990s.\n\nThe internal problems that arose with the Ashton-Tate merger were a large part of the downfall. Ashton-Tate's product portfolio proved to be weak, with no provision for evolution into the GUI environment of Windows. Almost all product lines were discontinued. The consolidation of duplicate support and development offices was costly and disruptive. Worst of all, the highest revenue earner of the combined company was dBASE with no Windows version ready. Borland had an internal project to clone dBASE which was intended to run on Windows and was part of the strategy of the acquisition, but by late 1992 this was abandoned due to technical flaws and the company had to constitute a replacement team (the ObjectVision team, redeployed) headed by Bill Turpin to redo the job. Borland lacked the financial strength to project its marketing and move internal resources off other products to shore up the dBASE/W effort. Layoffs occurred in 1993 to keep the company afloat, the third instance of this in five years. By the time dBASE for Windows eventually shipped, the developer community had moved on to other products such as Clipper or FoxBase, and dBASE never regained a significant share of Ashton-Tate's former market. This happened against the backdrop of the rise in Microsoft's combined Office product marketing.\n\nA change in market conditions also contributed to Borland's fall from prominence. In the 1980s, companies had few people who understood the growing personal computer phenomenon, and so most technical people were given free rein to purchase whatever software they thought they needed. Borland had done an excellent job marketing to those with a highly technical bent. By the mid-1990s, however, companies were beginning to ask what the return was on the investment they had made in this loosely controlled PC software buying spree. Company executives were starting to ask questions that were hard for technically minded staff to answer, and so corporate standards began to be created. This required new kinds of marketing and support materials from software vendors, but Borland remained focused on the technical side of its products.\n\nDuring 1993 Borland explored ties with WordPerfect as a possible way to form a suite of programs to rival Microsoft's nascent integration strategy. WordPerfect itself was struggling with a late and troubled transition to Windows. The eventual joint company effort, named Borland Office for Windows (a combination of the WordPerfect word processor, Quattro Pro spreadsheet and Paradox database) was introduced at the 1993 Comdex computer show. Borland Office never made significant in-roads against Microsoft Office. WordPerfect was then bought by Novell. In October 1994, Borland sold Quattro Pro and rights to sell up to million copies of Paradox to Novell for $140 million in cash, repositioning the company on its core software development tools and the Interbase database engine and shifting toward client-server scenarios in corporate applications. This later proved a good foundation for the shift to web development tools.\n\nPhilippe Kahn and the Borland board disagreed on how to focus the company, and Kahn resigned as chairman, CEO and president, after 12 years, in January 1995. Kahn remained on the board until November 7, 1996. Borland named Gary Wetsel as CEO, but he resigned in July 1996. William F. Miller was interim CEO until September of that year, when Whitney G. Lynn became interim president and CEO (along with other executive changes), followed by a succession of CEOs including Dale Fuller and Tod Nielsen.\n\nThe Delphi 1 rapid application development (RAD) environment was launched in 1995, under the leadership of Anders Hejlsberg.\n\nIn 1996 Borland acquired Open Environment Corporation, a Cambridge-based company founded by John J. Donovan.\n\nOn November 25, 1996, Del Yocam was hired as Borland CEO and chairman.\n\nIn 1997, Borland sold Paradox to Corel, but retained all development rights for the core BDE. In November 1997, Borland acquired Visigenic, a middleware company that was focused on implementations of CORBA.\n\nInprise Corporation era\nIn April 1998 Borland International, Inc. announced it had become Inprise Corporation.\n\nFor a number of years (both before and during the Inprise name) Borland suffered from serious financial losses and poor public image. When the name was changed to Inprise, many thought Borland had gone out of business. In March 1999, dBase was sold to KSoft, Inc. which was soon renamed to dBASE Inc. (In 2004 dBASE Inc. was renamed to DataBased Intelligence, Inc.).\n\nIn 1999, Dale L. Fuller replaced Yocam. At this time Fuller's title was \"interim president and CEO.\" The \"interim\" was dropped in December 2000. Keith Gottfried served in senior executive positions with the company from 2000 to 2004.\n\nA proposed merger between Inprise and Corel was announced in February 2000, aimed at producing Linux-based products. The scheme was abandoned when Corel's shares fell and it became clear that there was really no strategic fit.\n\nInterBase 6.0 was made available as open-source software in July 2000.\n\nIn November 2000, Inprise Corporation announced the company intended to officially change its name to Borland Software Corporation. The legal name of the company would continue to be Inprise Corporation until the completion of renaming process during the first quarter of 2001. Once the name change was completed, the company would also expect to change its Nasdaq market symbol from 'INPR' to 'BORL'.\n\nBorland Software Corporation era\nOn January 2, 2001, Borland Software Corporation announced it has completed its name change from Inprise Corporation. Effective at the open of trading on Nasdaq, the company's Nasdaq market symbol would also be changed from 'INPR' to 'BORL'.\n\nUnder the Borland name and a new management team headed by president and CEO Dale L. Fuller, a now-smaller and profitable Borland refocused on Delphi, and created a version of Delphi and C++ Builder for Linux, both under the name Kylix. This brought Borland's expertise in integrated development environments to the Linux platform for the first time. Kylix was launched in 2001.\n\nPlans to spin off the InterBase division as a separate company were abandoned after Borland and the people who were to run the new company could not agree on terms for the separation. Borland stopped open-source releases of InterBase and has developed and sold new versions at a fast pace.\n\nIn 2001 Delphi 6 became the first integrated development environment to support web services. All of the company's development platforms now support web services.\n\nC#Builder was released in 2003 as a native C# development tool, competing with Visual Studio .NET. By the 2005 release, C#Builder, Delphi for Win32, and Delphi for .NET was combined into a single IDE called \"Borland Developer Studio\" (though the combined IDE is still popularly known as \"Delphi\"). In late 2002 Borland purchased design tool vendor TogetherSoft and tool publisher Starbase, makers of the StarTeam configuration management tool and the CaliberRM requirements management tool (eventually, CaliberRM was renamed as \"Caliber\"). The latest releases of JBuilder and Delphi integrate these tools to give developers a broader set of tools for development.\n\nFormer CEO Dale Fuller quit in July 2005, but remained on the board of directors. Former COO Scott Arnold took the title of interim president and chief executive officer until November 8, 2005, when it was announced that Tod Nielsen would take over as CEO effective November 9, 2005. Nielsen remained with the company until January 2009, when he accepted the position of chief operating officer at VMware; CFO Erik Prusch then took over as acting president and CEO.\n\nIn early 2007 Borland announced new branding for its focus around open application life-cycle management. In April 2007 Borland announced that it would relocate its headquarters and development facilities to Austin, Texas. It also has development centers at Singapore, Santa Ana, California, and Linz, Austria.\n\nOn May 6, 2009, the company announced it was to be acquired by Micro Focus for $75 million. The transaction was approved by Borland shareholders on July 22, 2009, with Micro Focus acquiring the company for $1.50/share. Following Micro Focus shareholder approval and the required corporate filings, the transaction was completed in late July 2009. It was estimated to have 750 employees at the time.\n\nOn April 5, 2015, Micro Focus announced the completion of integrating Attachmate Group of companies that was merged in November 20, 2014. During the integration period, the affected companies was merged into a single organization. In the announced reorganization, Borland products would be part of Micro Focus portfolio.\n\nSubsidiaries\nLegadero: In October 2005, Borland acquired Legadero, in order to add its IT management and governance suite, called Tempo, to the Borland product line.\nCodegear: On February 8, 2006, Borland announced the divestiture of their IDE division, including Delphi, JBuilder, and InterBase. At the same time they announced the planned acquisition of Segue Software, a maker of software test and quality tools, in order to concentrate on application life-cycle management (ALM). On March 20, 2006, Borland announced its acquisition of Gauntlet Systems, a provider of technology that screens software under development for quality and security. On November 14, 2006, Borland announced its decision to separate the developer tools group into a wholly owned subsidiary. The newly formed operation, CodeGear, was responsible for four IDE product lines. On May 7, 2008, Borland announced the sale of CodeGear division to Embarcadero Technologies for an expected $23 million price and $7 million in CodeGear accounts receivables retained by Borland.\n\nProducts\n\nRecent\nThe products acquired from Segue Software include Silk Central, Silk Performer, and Silk Test. The Silk line was first announced in 1997. Other programs are:\n\nHistorical products\n\nUnreleased software\n Turbo Modula-2: Later sold by TopSpeed as TopSpeed Modula-2.\n\nMarketing\n CB Magazine: It is an official magazine by Borland Japan. The magazine was republished on April 3, 1997.\n\nRenaming to Inprise Corporation\nAlong with renaming from Borland International, Inc. to Inprise Corporation, the company refocused its efforts on targeting enterprise applications development. Borland hired marketing firm Lexicon Branding to come up with a new name for the company. Yocam explained that the new name, Inprise, was meant to evoke \"integrating the enterprise\". The idea was to integrate Borland's tools, Delphi, C++ Builder, and JBuilder with enterprise environment software, including Visigenic's implementations of CORBA, Visibroker for C++ and Java, and the new product, Application Server.\n\nFrank Borland\nFrank Borland is a mascot character for Borland products. According to Philippe Kahn, the mascot first appeared in advertisements and cover of Borland Sidekick 1.0 manual, which was in 1984 during Borland International, Inc. era. Frank Borland also appeared in Turbo Tutor - A Turbo Pascal Tutorial, Borland JBuilder 2.\n\nA live action version of Frank Borland was made after Micro Focus plc had acquired Borland Software Corporation. This version was created by True Agency Limited. An introductory film was also made about the mascot.\n\nSee also\n List of file formats (alphabetical)\n Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International, Inc.\n\nCitations\n\nGeneral references\n\nExternal links\n Borland International, Inc.\n Inprise Corporation\n Borland Software Corporation\n Micro Focus Borland site\n\n \n1983 establishments in California\n2009 mergers and acquisitions\nAmerican companies established in 1983\nAmerican subsidiaries of foreign companies\nCompanies based in Austin, Texas\nMicro Focus International\nSoftware companies based in Texas\nSoftware companies established in 1983\nSoftware companies of the United States"
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[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)",
"How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?",
"\"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways."
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When did Borland depart?
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When did Wes Borland depart Limp Bizkit?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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In October 2001,
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Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
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[
"Borland is a surname of Scottish origin. The Borland ancestors came to Scotland with the Normans in the 11th Century\n\nNotable people with the surname include:\n\nAdrian Borland (1957–1999), English singer\nAlbert Borland (1901–1961), South African cricketer\nBilly Borland (1888–1915), Scottish footballer\nBruce Borland (1958–1999), American golf course designer\nCarroll Borland (1914–1994), American professor\nCharles Borland (contemporary), American actor\nCharles Borland Jr. (1786–1852), American politician\nChris Borland (born 1990), American football player\nChristine Borland (born 1965), Scottish artist\nFrank Borland (1925–2013), Canadian soldier\nHal Borland (1900–1978), American journalist and author\nJames A. Borland (born 1944), American evangelical professor\nJimmy Borland (1910–1970), English professional ice hockey player\nJohn Borland (born 1977), English footballer\nJohn Borland (Scottish footballer) (born 1951), Scottish footballer\nJohnny Borland (1925–1990), New Zealand high jumper and athletics administrator\nKathy Borland (born 1962), American film producer\nKevin Borland (1926–2000), Australian architect\nKyle Borland (born 1961), American football player\nPolly Borland (born 1959), Australian photographer\nScott Borland (contemporary, born 1979), American musician\nSolon Borland (1808–1864), American newspaperman and politician\nToby Borland (born 1969), American professional baseball player\nTom Borland (1933–2013), American professional baseball player\nTuf Borland (born 1998), American football player\nW. S. Borland (1878–1959), American football and baseball coach\nWes Borland (born 1975), American musician and rock guitarist\nWilliam Borland (darts player) (born 1996), Scottish darts player\nWilliam Borland (loyalist) (1969–2016), Northern Irish former footballer\nWilliam Patterson Borland (1867–1919), American politician\nWillie Borland (born 1952), Scottish footballer\n\nCharacters \nAl Borland, character on the American television series Home Improvement\n\nSee also \n Borland (disambiguation)\n\nReferences\n\nSurnames of Scottish origin",
"Borland is an American software company.\n\nBorland may also refer to:\n\nBorland (surname), a Scottish surname\nBorland Racing Developments, Australian racecar constructor\nBorland Amendment, US law\n\nPlaces \nBorland, Pleasants County, West Virginia, unincorporated community\nMount Borland, mountain in Antarctica\nLands of Borland, estate in Scotland\n\nSee also\nBorland C (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)",
"How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?",
"\"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways.",
"When did Borland depart?",
"In October 2001,"
] |
C_0721df31d4f147aabc781cfde6dfde49_1
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Was Results May Vary successful?
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Was the album Results May Vary by Limp Bizkit successful?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
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Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
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"Build a Bridge may refer to:\n\n\"Build a Bridge\", a song by Limp Bizkit from their 2003 album Results May Vary\n\"Build a Bridge\", a song by Mavis Staples from her 2017 album If All I Was Was Black",
"Results May Vary is the fourth studio album by American rap rock band Limp Bizkit, released on September 23, 2003, through Flip and Interscope Records. It is the band's only release under the sole-leadership of vocalist Fred Durst after the temporary departure of guitarist Wes Borland, who left in 2001. Guitarist Mike Smith of Snot was brought in to replace Borland, although his time with the band was brief, and Durst along with a number of guests ended up handling the majority of the album's guitar work.\n\nThe album differed from Limp Bizkit's established sound up until that point; although the album still featured elements of hip hop and nu metal, it also branched out into other musical styles, including alternative rock, acoustic, funk, jazz, and emo. It also featured less rapping and more introspective lyrics related to heartbreak, bullying, and self-pity. An alleged affair with Britney Spears by Durst (denied by Spears) during collaborating sessions for her 2003 album In the Zone and resulting rejection by Spears was also cited as an inspiration for some of the album's material. To promote the album, music videos featuring high-profile actors were created for \"Eat You Alive\" and a cover of The Who's \"Behind Blue Eyes\"; the former featuring Thora Birch and Bill Paxton and the latter featuring Halle Berry.\n\nUpon its release, Results May Vary peaked at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, selling at least 325,000 copies in its first week of sales. While the album still eventually went platinum, both the debut and lifetime sales were still well below prior albums Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000). Results May Vary sold at least 1.3 million copies in the United States, and received mainly negative critical reception as well. Results May Vary was Limp Bizkit's last studio album released before they went on hiatus for three years, starting from 2006 to 2009.\n\nBackground and recording\n\nIn October 2001, Fred Durst posted on the band's website: \"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors.\" Borland explained why he left Limp Bizkit; he said: \"I could have probably gone on and still played the part of the guitar player of Limp Bizkit, but musically I was kind of bored. If I was to continue, it would have been about the money and not about the true music, and I don't want to lie to myself, or to them or to fans of Limp Bizkit.\"\n\nAccording to Durst, Limp Bizkit would \"comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man\" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, \"Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is\", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith. \"Mike brought in a breath of fresh air,\" Durst said. \"Creatively, it fit like a glove. It made life easier and more positive. It made us look forward to getting together as a band so much more. The positive effect he had on me just made the whole experience of Limp Bizkit feel like a brand-new entity.\" Before Smith replaced Borland, Durst played a great deal of guitar. Jon Wiederhorn of MTV wrote, \"Limp Bizkit jammed with four finalists after their much-publicized guitarist audition tour, but now it looks like Fred Durst might be taking a cue from his Puddle of Mudd pal Wes Scantlin and handling both vocal and guitar duties himself.\"\n\nAfter a later falling-out with Smith, Durst told a fansite: \"We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally.\" Limp Bizkit scrapped many of Smith's sessions, recording another album that was also scrapped.\n\nBefore the introduction of Results May Vary track listing, Page Hamilton of Helmet and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer recorded songs with Limp Bizkit for the album; Al Jourgensen of Ministry also joined the band in the studio. The contributions of all three were omitted from the finished album. Bubba Sparxxx joined Durst in a Los Angeles studio, but his contributions also did not make the album. Durst wrote over 30 songs with Limp Bizkit drummer John Otto and the band's bassist, Sam Rivers. During production of Results May Vary, Durst listened to the Cure, Patsy Cline, Mazzy Star and classical music.\n\nTitle\nDuring production, the album's title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and then to Results May Vary. Other working titles were Less Is More, Fetus More, Surrender and The Search for Teddy Swoes. The finished product assembled songs from a number of sessions. On August 20, 2003, Fred Durst posted on the Limp Bizkit website: \"The album title is Results May Vary. Like a prescription drug, each persons reaction to the ingredients will be different.\"\n\nMusic and lyrics\n\nResults May Vary was recorded under the leadership of Durst, who influenced a direction differing from Limp Bizkit's established sound. Although the album features elements of rap metal and rap rock, it is noted for music experimenting with other genres: psychedelia, alternative rock, hard rock, jazz, acoustic and funk. Results May Vary, more melodic than previous Limp Bizkit albums, has been compared to John Mayer, Bon Jovi, Primus, Linkin Park, Staind and Jane's Addiction (including the Jane's Addiction's album Nothing's Shocking). With a change in the band's sound, Results May Vary has less rapping, more singing and more melody (including power ballads) than previous Limp Bizkit albums. The Observer called the album Limp Bizkit's \"safest, most pedestrian-sounding record yet\", and Joe D'Angelo of MTV described the album as the band's \"most personal album by far\". According to D'Angelo, a third of the album's content shows Durst \"having actual feelings other than rage, angst and conceit under his omnipresent ball cap.\" Durst described Results May Vary as \"more sad, more deep, drone-y\", and the album demonstrates his \"milder, more sensitive streak\". Although the songs on Results May Vary are emotional and expressive, except for \"Eat You Alive\", screaming is largely absent.\n\nDurst's controversy with Britney Spears provided lyrical inspiration for Results May Vary. There were rumors that Durst and Spears were in a relationship. Durst wrote three songs for Spears' 2003 album In the Zone. Durst and Spears worked on those songs in a studio. After Spears denied the relationship, Durst refused to allow those three songs to appear on Spears' 2003 album In the Zone. Results May Vary features a cover of The Who's \"Behind Blue Eyes\" with a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. \"Gimme the Mic\" includes lyrics from the Beastie Boys' \"Pass the Mic\" and Eric B. & Rakim's \"Microphone Fiend\", and \"Let Me Down\" samples Steve Miller's \"Take the Money and Run\". \"Head for the Barricade\" borrows from the song \"Stick 'Em\" by the Fat Boys. \"Phenomenon\" borrows the line, \"Once again back it's the incredible\", from \"Bring the Noise\" by Public Enemy. The album demonstrates Limp Bizkit's gloomy side, with more-serious, less-confident lyrics than previous songs. Lyrical topics include bullying, Durst's past, self-pity, betrayal, childhood pain, heartbreak, feeling misunderstood, love and Durst's views on MTV and radio. About \"Down Another Day\", Joe D'Angelo of MTV found it difficult to believe that lyrics that were similar to Mayer's could come from Durst, whom, according to D'Angelo, had recently \"likened himself to a chainsaw and threatened to skin your ass raw\". \"Eat You Alive\" was reportedly about Britney Spears (rumored to be involved with Durst) or Angelina Jolie (whom Durst admired). According to Durst, \"The scream in 'Eat You Alive' is like an animalistic, sexual, crazy, primitive roar\", and the desire which came with this behavior. Durst said that \"Just Drop Dead\" was not (as had been speculated) about Britney Spears, but was inspired by his experience with her and other women. Also, Durst said that \"Just Drop Dead\" is \"about a girl who acts like a whore\". According to Durst, \"'Underneath the Gun' is about suicide and the struggle you can have when ending your life becomes an option\".\n\nCommercial performance\n\nPromotion\n\nTo promote Results May Vary, Durst filmed music videos for \"Eat You Alive\" and \"Behind Blue Eyes\" featuring Thora Birch and Halle Berry, respectively. The video for \"Eat You Alive\" appeared on MTV before Results May Vary was released, and the album was featured on Total Request Live. Limp Bizkit were going to record a music video for Results May Vary song \"Build a Bridge\". However, no music video for \"Build a Bridge\" was recorded. Limp Bizkit performed \"Crack Addict\" and \"Rollin'\" during WrestleMania XIX with guitarists Mike Smith and Brian Welch, and \"Crack Addict\" was played on television commercials for the event. Although \"Crack Addict\" was the planned first single from Results May Vary, the song was omitted from the album.\n\nReleased on September 23, 2003, Results May Vary peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 with sales of at least 325,000 copies in its first week of being released, ending Limp Bizkit's number-one streak on the chart. In three weeks of being released, the album had sold at least 500,000 copies. After thirteen weeks, Results May Vary sold at least 1,000,000 copies. Results May Vary was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on June 3, 2008 and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on October 10, 2003. Results May Vary had sales of 1,337,356 copies in the United States. The album's cover of \"Behind Blue Eyes\" peaked at number 71 on the Billboard Hot 100, peaked at number 25 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, and was certified gold by the RIAA on January 26, 2005. \"Eat You Alive\" peaked at number 16 on the Mainstream Rock chart and number 20 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and \"Almost Over\" peaked at number 33 on the Mainstream Rock chart, despite not receiving a single release. Results May Vary had less mainstream success than previous Limp Bizkit albums such as Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.\n\nTouring\nAfter the release of Results May Vary, Limp Bizkit joined the band Korn on a tour called the Back 2 Basics Tour. The Back 2 Basics Tour, which was sponsored by Xbox, was scheduled for November 2003. However, during a concert at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, Durst was hit by an object thrown from the crowd. Durst finished the remaining two songs of Limp Bizkit's set and after the concert, Durst had seven stitches administered by a private physician. During the end of 2003, Limp Bizkit cancelled their tour dates in Southeast Asia after there was a United States Department of State warning of increased security threats abroad. Limp Bizkit planned to play shows in Bali, Bangkok and Manila. However, after a terrorist bombing in Istanbul, Turkey occurred, the United States Department of State issued a travel advisory, and Limp Bizkit cancelled the shows in Southeast Asia. Although they did not perform in Southeast Asia, Limp Bizkit did perform in South Korea and Japan. In January 2004, there were rumors that Limp Bizkit were going to tour with the rock band Kiss, although the band was unable to, citing scheduling conflicts.\n\nCritical reception\n\nCritical reception of Results May Vary was mainly negative. The album holds a score of 33 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating \"generally unfavorable reviews\". This is the third lowest score on Metacritic, above The Bloodhound Gang's Hefty Fine and Kevin Federline's album Playing with Fire. According to AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine, \"the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?\". In a review of Limp Bizkit's Greatest Hitz compilation, Erlewine called \"Behind Blue Eyes\" the worst in the band's \"never-ending series of embarrassing covers\". Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian wrote, \"Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?\". Stylus criticized Results May Vary, calling it \"an album that can only be described as abysmal\". Rob O'Connor of Yahoo! Launch also criticized Results May Vary: \"No, Fred, the results don't vary. The results are consistent throughout your new album—consistently crappy.\" Kitty Empire of The Guardian wrote, \"Limp Bizkit have decided to expose their tender side. They really shouldn't have bothered [...] having seen Limp Bizkit's 'other side', you want the old, unapologetic, meathead version back\". Scott Mervis of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also criticized Results May Vary: \"Results May Vary has a few highlights — 'Almost Over' (very Everlast) and 'Phenomenon' (very Primus) — but way too few to justify all the time and energy spent\".\n\nAlthough Results May Vary received primarily negative reviews, according to Spin, the album \"isn't all that horrible\". Some others were not so negative towards Results May Vary. Tom Day of MusicOMH wrote, \"Ultimately, this album is neither crap nor blindingly good, and results do indeed vary\". The Sun-Sentinel gave Results May Vary a positive review, calling Lethal's work \"phenomenal\", and praising \"Behind Blue Eyes\" and the soft-to-heavy progression of \"Build a Bridge\". Steve Appleford of the Chicago Tribune gave Results May Vary a mixed review, writing: \"The music achieves some surprising sophistication with new textures both acoustic and electronic. Durst also is not so obnoxious nearly so often; at the same time, his songs too often lack the harsh melodic spark that once turned his ravings into pop hits\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nLimp Bizkit\n\nDJ Lethal – turntables, keyboards, samples,programming, sound development, producer, composer\nFred Durst – vocals, concept, art direction,cover design, guitar, photography, producer, composer, lyrics\nJohn Otto – drums, percussion, beats, composer\nSam Rivers – bass, composer, guitar\nMike Smith – guitar, composer\n\nArtwork\n\nCory Durst – photography\nJim Marshall – photography\n\nComposers and additional musicians\n\nMichael \"Elvis\" Baskette – guitar\nSnoop Dogg – vocals on\"Red Light–Green Light\", composer, lyrics\nBrian \"Head\" Welch – guitar on\"Build a Bridge\"\nRandy Pereira – guitar on\"Behind Blue Eyes\"\nArthur Baker – composer\nRoger Ball – composer\nEric Barrier – composer\n\nMolly Duncan – composer\nWilliam Griffin – composer\nPrince Markie Dee – composer\nJohn Robie – composer\nPete Townshend – composer\nEllis Williams – composer\n\nProduction and assistance\n\nJ.D. Andrew – assistant\nMichael \"Elvis\" Baskette – engineer\nBilly Bowers – engineer\nJason Carson – engineer\nSergio Chavez – assistant\nJason Dale – engineer\nTerry Date – engineer, producer\nCory Durst – photography\nNeal Ferrazzani – assistant\nDave Holdredge – digital editing, engineer\nBrian Humphrey – assistant\nJun Ishizeki – assistant\nAaron Lepley – assistant\n\nStephen Marcussen – mastering\nJohn Morrical – assistant\nBrendan O'Brien – mixing\nZack Odom – assistant\nMichael Patterson – mixing\nSteve Robillard – assistant\nRick Rubin – producer\nAndrew Scheps – engineer\nJordan Schur – executive producer\nJason Spears – assistant\nMark Valentine – assistant\nStewart Whitmore – digital editing\nUlrich Wild – engineer\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLimp Bizkit albums\nRap rock albums by American artists\nAlternative rock albums by American artists\n2003 albums\nAlbums produced by Fred Durst\nAlbums produced by Rick Rubin\nFlip Records (1994) albums\nAlbums produced by Terry Date"
] |
[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)",
"How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?",
"\"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways.",
"When did Borland depart?",
"In October 2001,",
"Was Results May Vary successful?",
"Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200."
] |
C_0721df31d4f147aabc781cfde6dfde49_1
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What interesting facts can you tell me about the departure of Borland?
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What interesting facts can you tell me about the departure of Wes Borland from Limp Bizkit?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland.
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Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
| true |
[
"\"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" is the title of a number-one R&B single by singer Tevin Campbell. To date, the single is Campbell's biggest hit peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending one week at number-one on the US R&B chart. The hit song is also Tevin's one and only Adult Contemporary hit, where it peaked at number 43. The song showcases Campbell's four-octave vocal range from a low note of E2 to a D#6 during the bridge of the song.\n\nTrack listings\nUS 7\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental) – 5:00\n\n12\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (album version) – 5:02\n\nUK CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:16\n \"Goodbye\" (7\" Remix Edit) – 3:48\n \"Goodbye\" (Sidub and Listen) – 4:58\n \"Goodbye\" (Tevin's Dub Pt 1 & 2) – 6:53\n\nJapan CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:10\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental version) – 4:10\n\nGermany CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:10\n \"Just Ask Me\" (featuring Chubb Rock) – 4:07\n \"Tomorrow\" (A Better You, Better Me) – 4:46\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of number-one R&B singles of 1992 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\nTevin Campbell songs\n1991 singles\n1991 songs\nSongs written by Tevin Campbell\nSongs written by Narada Michael Walden\nSong recordings produced by Narada Michael Walden\nWarner Records singles\nContemporary R&B ballads\nPop ballads\nSoul ballads\n1990s ballads",
"\"Tell Me What You Want\" is the fourth single by English R&B band Loose Ends from their first studio album, A Little Spice, and was released in February 1984 by Virgin Records. The single reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n7” Single: VS658\n \"Tell Me What You Want) 3.35\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Dub Mix)\" 3.34\n\n12” Single: VS658-12\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Version)\" 6.11\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Dub Mix)\" 5.41\n\nU.S. only release - 12” Single: MCA23596 (released 1985)\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Extended Remix)\" 6.08 *\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Dub Version)\" 5.18\n\n* The U.S. Extended Remix version was released on CD on the U.S. Version of the 'A Little Spice' album (MCAD27141).\n\nThe Extended Version also featured on Side D of the limited gatefold sleeve version of 'Magic Touch'\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tell Me What You Want at Discogs.\n\n1984 singles\nLoose Ends (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Nick Martinelli\nSongs written by Carl McIntosh (musician)\nSongs written by Steve Nichol\n1984 songs\nVirgin Records singles"
] |
[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)",
"How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?",
"\"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways.",
"When did Borland depart?",
"In October 2001,",
"Was Results May Vary successful?",
"Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.",
"What interesting facts can you tell me about the departure of Borland?",
"Durst also stated that the band would \"comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man\" to replace Borland."
] |
C_0721df31d4f147aabc781cfde6dfde49_1
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Who replaced Borland?
| 5 |
Who replaced Wes Borland in Limp Bizkit?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith,
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Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
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[
"Borland C may refer to:\n Borland C++, a C++ compiler which followed and replaced Borland C\n Borland C, a 1990s C computer programming language compiler from Borland\n\nSee also\n Turbo C, the predecessor of Borland C proper",
"Borland C++ is a C and C++ IDE (integrated development environment) for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. It was the successor to Turbo C++ and included a better debugger, the Turbo Debugger, which was written in protected mode DOS.\n\nLibraries\nObject Windows Library (OWL): A set of C++ classes to make it easier to develop professional graphical Windows applications.\n\nTurbo Vision: A set of C++ classes to create professional applications in DOS. Those classes mimics some of the aspects of a Windows application like: dialog boxes, messages pumps, menus, accelerators, etc.\n\nBorland Graphics Interface: A library of functions for doing simple, presentation-style 2D graphics. Drivers were included for generic CGA, EGA and VGA capability, with support for a limited number of video-modes, but more advanced, third-party drivers were also available.\n\nAdd-ons\nBorland Power Pack for DOS: Used to create 16- and 32-bit protected mode DOS applications, which can access a limited scope of the Windows API and call functions in any Windows DLL.\n\nBorland Code Guard: Once installed and integrated within the IDE, Code Guard can insert instrumentation code in the final executable that can be used to monitor: pointer usage, API calls, how many times some function is called, and other features. If some error is found, a pop-up window appears, the debugger can stop, or a log is written to disk. Delivered for 16- and 32-bit applications.\n\nVersion history\n\nBorland C++ for MS-DOS, Windows\n2.0 (1991; MS-DOS)\n3.0 (1991): New compiler support to build Microsoft Windows applications.\n3.1 (1992): Introduction of Windows-based IDE and application frameworks (OWL 1.0, Turbovision 1.0)\n4.0 (1993; Windows 3.x): MS-DOS IDE supported no longer, included OWL 2.0.\n4.01 \n4.02 (1994)\n4.5\n4.51\n4.52 (1995): Official support for Windows 95, OWL 2.5. Last version\n4.53 \n5.0 (1996-03-26(base, Development Suite), 1996-06-25(Design Tools); Windows 3.x/95/NT 3.51): Basic version includes Borland C++ 4.52, ObjectWindows Library (OWL) 5.0, Sun's Java Development Kit, Borland Debugger for Java, native 32-bit ObjectScripting IDE, Visual Database Tools (VDBT). Development suite also includes CodeGuard 32/16, PVCS Version Manager, InstallShield Express, and AppAccelerator Just-in-Time for Java compiler. Development Suite with Design Tools version adds Scenario View Editor, Scenario View Editor, Object Model Editor to Development Suite edition. Supports compilation of Windows 3.1/95/NT 3.51 and DOS native executables, with Windows 3.1 integrated development environment supported via BC++ 4.52. It does not (officially) work on Windows NT 4.0 (which was still in development at that time). 3rd party tests exhibited some problems on NT 4.0. C++ compiler can support ObjectWindows Library (OWL) 5.0, Microsoft Foundation Classes 3.2/4.0 libraries.\n5.01 (1996-09-03(base, Development Suite, Design Tools)): Base version now includes ViewSoft's Power Charger for MFC demo, Borland Delphi 2.0 Trial Edition, DeltaPoint's QuickSite automatic web page creation and site management tool; with ObjectWindows Library (OWL) updated to 5.01. Design Tools edition includes Together/C++ object-oriented analysis and design tools (OOAD) over Development Suite edition.\n5.02 (1997-04-04): Final independent release of the Borland C++ IDE (subsequently replaced up by the C++Builder series), final release to support compilation to (real-mode) MS-DOS target. New features include Windows NT 4.0 operating system support, MFC 4.1 library support, code signing. All versions include full OWL and MFC source codes. Corresponding to Borland C++Builder 3, the CD version of Borland C++ is free by mailing the in-box coupon from C++Builder 3 Professional package. Registered Borland C++ 5 owners can receive update for discount.\n\nBorland C++ Compiler\n5.5 (2000-02-16; Windows 95/98/NT/2000): Based on Borland C++Builder 5, it is a freeware compiler without the IDE from the parent product. Includes Borland C++ Compiler v5.5, Borland Turbo Incremental Linker, Borland Resource Compiler / Binder, C++ Win32 Preprocessor, ANSI/OEM character set file conversion utility, Import Definitions utility to provide information about DLLs, Import Library utility to create import libraries from DLLs, Borland Turbo Dump, Librarian, Borland C/C++ Runtime Library, ANSI/ISO Standard Template Library (STL).\n\nC++Builder with C++ bundle\nBorland C++ Builder 4.0 + Borland C++ 5.02 (1999): Bundle combination to facilitate the migration to C++Builder.\n\nBorland C++ for OS/2\n Borland C++ 1.0 (1992) \n Borland C++ 1.5 (1992)\n Borland C++ 2.0 (1995-01-09 (base), 1995-06-01 (SMART toolset)): Supports OS/2 2.1 and Warp 3, OWL for Presentation Manager 2.0 library. SMART toolset edition includes Source Migration Analysis Reporting Toolset (SMART) developed by One Up Corporation for automatic migration of 16/32-bit Windows and 16-bit OS/2 codes to 32-bit OS/2.\n\nBorland C++ (Builder) Mobile Edition\nDesigned to be integrated with Borland C++Builder 6, initial release was to be released in late November 2002, and bundled with Borland C++Builder 6 Enterprise and Professional editions.\n\nOn April 29, 2003, Borland Software Corporation announced the release of Borland C++ Mobile Edition for Series 60, Nokia Edition. It includes a version of Borland C++Builder 6, Series 60 Software Development Kit (SDK) for Symbian OS, Nokia Edition (includes Nokia Series 60 emulator), C++ Mobile Edition plug-in.\n\nC++ Mobile Edition is also available as a separate plug-in for C++Builder 6, supporting all except Trial Editions.\n\nEvolution of Borland C++\nBorland C++ evolved in a number of steps:\nTurbo C++ → Borland C++ → Borland C++Builder → CodeGear C++Builder → Embarcadero C++Builder\n\nSee also\nTurbo C\nTurbo C++\nVisual C++\nC++Builder\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBorland International, Inc. Borland C++ for Windows pages: 2.0 for OS/2, 4.5, 5.0-5.01, 5.02\nInprise Corporation Borland C++ pages: C++ Compiler 5.5 \nBorland Software Corporation Borland C++ pages: C++ Compiler 5.5, C++ Mobile Edition\nBorland C++ Compiler (BCC32) Download\n\nBorland software\nC++ compilers\nIntegrated development environments\nDOS software"
] |
[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)",
"How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?",
"\"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways.",
"When did Borland depart?",
"In October 2001,",
"Was Results May Vary successful?",
"Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.",
"What interesting facts can you tell me about the departure of Borland?",
"Durst also stated that the band would \"comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man\" to replace Borland.",
"Who replaced Borland?",
"After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called \"Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is\", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith,"
] |
C_0721df31d4f147aabc781cfde6dfde49_1
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Can you tell me any interesting facts about Results May Vary?
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Can you tell me any interesting facts about the album Results May Vary by Limp Bizkit?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary.
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Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
| true |
[
"You Can Hold Me Down is the debut album by William Tell, first released on March 13, 2007 through Universal Records and New Door Records.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Jeannie\" (William Tell) 3:01\n \"Slipping Under (Sing Along to Your Favorite Song)\" (PJ Smith, William Tell) 3:34\n \"Trouble\" (William Tell) 2:55\n \"Fairfax (You’re Still the Same)\" (William Tell) 2:49\n \"Like You, Only Sweeter\" (Darren Tehrani, William Tell) 3:41\n \"Maybe Tonight\" (William Tell, Mike Green) 3:13\n \"Young at Heart\" (William Tell) 2:46\n \"Sounds\" (William Tell, PJ Smith) 3:05\n \"Just For You\" (William Tell, Mike Green) 3:33\n \"You Can Hold Me Down\" (William Tell, Darren Tehrani) 3:23\n\nBest Buy hidden track:\n<li> \"You Can Hold Me Down\" (Tell, Tehrani) – 9:31\n features the hidden track \"After All\", beginning at about 4:30\n\niTunes Store bonus track:\n<li> \"Yesterday is Calling\" (James Bourne, Smith) – 3:43\n\nTarget bonus track:\n<li> \"Young at Heart (Acoustic)\" (Tell) – 2:46\n\nWal-Mart bonus tracks:\n<li> \"This Mess\" – 3:23\n<li> \"Katie (Where'd You Go?)\" – 3:48\n\nPersonnel\nWilliam Tell - vocals, guitars, bass\nBrian Ireland - drums, percussion\nAndrew McMahon - piano\n\nReferences\n\nYou Can Hold Me Down (William Tell album)",
"\"Another Letter from Another Father to Another Son\" is an English poem by the Indian poet Mathew John. The poem was a surprise winner of the first prize in the All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 2013.\n\nExcerpts from the poem\n\nSonny, it is not my wish to advise you\nThough my tongue yearns to be advisor to the king.\n\nSonny, it is not my wish to advise you\nThough this may end up as another piece of advice\nIn another letter from another father to another son.\n\n *******\n\nFor, it took years for my father's sermons\nTo traverse the miles between my ears and my brain\nAnd I learnt about most things\nAfter enough follies had been past.\n\nLet me tell you a single thing\nThe way to go, seems to me\nFrom life to the book\nAnd not the other way around.\n\n *******\n\nSo, let life teach you before your father's words \nAnd let life teach you to outgrow\nThe interesting stories that other people tell.\nFor, nobody is really very sure.\n\nEarlier they used to tell\nNever look beyond the wall\nNow, they have built\nA ladder for you to climb.\n\n ******\n\nBut, nobody is really very sure\nAbout the wall, forget the ladder.\nVery few boxes have been opened, my son\nIt is still an interesting world out there.\n\nSo, let me not offer you\nA book, a window, a jigsaw puzzle or my reading glasses\nLet me give you just these –\nMy silence and my smile.\n\nSee also\nIndian poetry\nIndian writing in English\nThe Poetry Society (India)\n\nNotes\n\nPopular Indian Poems\n\nIndian English poems\n2014 poems\nWorks originally published in Indian magazines\nWorks originally published in literary magazines"
] |
[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)",
"How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?",
"\"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways.",
"When did Borland depart?",
"In October 2001,",
"Was Results May Vary successful?",
"Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.",
"What interesting facts can you tell me about the departure of Borland?",
"Durst also stated that the band would \"comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man\" to replace Borland.",
"Who replaced Borland?",
"After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called \"Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is\", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith,",
"Can you tell me any interesting facts about Results May Vary?",
"During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary."
] |
C_0721df31d4f147aabc781cfde6dfde49_1
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When was Results May Vary released?
| 7 |
When was the album Results May Vary by Limp Bizkit released?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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In the Summer of 2003,
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Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
| true |
[
"Results May Vary is the fourth studio album by American rap rock band Limp Bizkit, released on September 23, 2003, through Flip and Interscope Records. It is the band's only release under the sole-leadership of vocalist Fred Durst after the temporary departure of guitarist Wes Borland, who left in 2001. Guitarist Mike Smith of Snot was brought in to replace Borland, although his time with the band was brief, and Durst along with a number of guests ended up handling the majority of the album's guitar work.\n\nThe album differed from Limp Bizkit's established sound up until that point; although the album still featured elements of hip hop and nu metal, it also branched out into other musical styles, including alternative rock, acoustic, funk, jazz, and emo. It also featured less rapping and more introspective lyrics related to heartbreak, bullying, and self-pity. An alleged affair with Britney Spears by Durst (denied by Spears) during collaborating sessions for her 2003 album In the Zone and resulting rejection by Spears was also cited as an inspiration for some of the album's material. To promote the album, music videos featuring high-profile actors were created for \"Eat You Alive\" and a cover of The Who's \"Behind Blue Eyes\"; the former featuring Thora Birch and Bill Paxton and the latter featuring Halle Berry.\n\nUpon its release, Results May Vary peaked at number 3 on the US Billboard 200, selling at least 325,000 copies in its first week of sales. While the album still eventually went platinum, both the debut and lifetime sales were still well below prior albums Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000). Results May Vary sold at least 1.3 million copies in the United States, and received mainly negative critical reception as well. Results May Vary was Limp Bizkit's last studio album released before they went on hiatus for three years, starting from 2006 to 2009.\n\nBackground and recording\n\nIn October 2001, Fred Durst posted on the band's website: \"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors.\" Borland explained why he left Limp Bizkit; he said: \"I could have probably gone on and still played the part of the guitar player of Limp Bizkit, but musically I was kind of bored. If I was to continue, it would have been about the money and not about the true music, and I don't want to lie to myself, or to them or to fans of Limp Bizkit.\"\n\nAccording to Durst, Limp Bizkit would \"comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man\" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, \"Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is\", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith. \"Mike brought in a breath of fresh air,\" Durst said. \"Creatively, it fit like a glove. It made life easier and more positive. It made us look forward to getting together as a band so much more. The positive effect he had on me just made the whole experience of Limp Bizkit feel like a brand-new entity.\" Before Smith replaced Borland, Durst played a great deal of guitar. Jon Wiederhorn of MTV wrote, \"Limp Bizkit jammed with four finalists after their much-publicized guitarist audition tour, but now it looks like Fred Durst might be taking a cue from his Puddle of Mudd pal Wes Scantlin and handling both vocal and guitar duties himself.\"\n\nAfter a later falling-out with Smith, Durst told a fansite: \"We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally.\" Limp Bizkit scrapped many of Smith's sessions, recording another album that was also scrapped.\n\nBefore the introduction of Results May Vary track listing, Page Hamilton of Helmet and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer recorded songs with Limp Bizkit for the album; Al Jourgensen of Ministry also joined the band in the studio. The contributions of all three were omitted from the finished album. Bubba Sparxxx joined Durst in a Los Angeles studio, but his contributions also did not make the album. Durst wrote over 30 songs with Limp Bizkit drummer John Otto and the band's bassist, Sam Rivers. During production of Results May Vary, Durst listened to the Cure, Patsy Cline, Mazzy Star and classical music.\n\nTitle\nDuring production, the album's title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and then to Results May Vary. Other working titles were Less Is More, Fetus More, Surrender and The Search for Teddy Swoes. The finished product assembled songs from a number of sessions. On August 20, 2003, Fred Durst posted on the Limp Bizkit website: \"The album title is Results May Vary. Like a prescription drug, each persons reaction to the ingredients will be different.\"\n\nMusic and lyrics\n\nResults May Vary was recorded under the leadership of Durst, who influenced a direction differing from Limp Bizkit's established sound. Although the album features elements of rap metal and rap rock, it is noted for music experimenting with other genres: psychedelia, alternative rock, hard rock, jazz, acoustic and funk. Results May Vary, more melodic than previous Limp Bizkit albums, has been compared to John Mayer, Bon Jovi, Primus, Linkin Park, Staind and Jane's Addiction (including the Jane's Addiction's album Nothing's Shocking). With a change in the band's sound, Results May Vary has less rapping, more singing and more melody (including power ballads) than previous Limp Bizkit albums. The Observer called the album Limp Bizkit's \"safest, most pedestrian-sounding record yet\", and Joe D'Angelo of MTV described the album as the band's \"most personal album by far\". According to D'Angelo, a third of the album's content shows Durst \"having actual feelings other than rage, angst and conceit under his omnipresent ball cap.\" Durst described Results May Vary as \"more sad, more deep, drone-y\", and the album demonstrates his \"milder, more sensitive streak\". Although the songs on Results May Vary are emotional and expressive, except for \"Eat You Alive\", screaming is largely absent.\n\nDurst's controversy with Britney Spears provided lyrical inspiration for Results May Vary. There were rumors that Durst and Spears were in a relationship. Durst wrote three songs for Spears' 2003 album In the Zone. Durst and Spears worked on those songs in a studio. After Spears denied the relationship, Durst refused to allow those three songs to appear on Spears' 2003 album In the Zone. Results May Vary features a cover of The Who's \"Behind Blue Eyes\" with a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. \"Gimme the Mic\" includes lyrics from the Beastie Boys' \"Pass the Mic\" and Eric B. & Rakim's \"Microphone Fiend\", and \"Let Me Down\" samples Steve Miller's \"Take the Money and Run\". \"Head for the Barricade\" borrows from the song \"Stick 'Em\" by the Fat Boys. \"Phenomenon\" borrows the line, \"Once again back it's the incredible\", from \"Bring the Noise\" by Public Enemy. The album demonstrates Limp Bizkit's gloomy side, with more-serious, less-confident lyrics than previous songs. Lyrical topics include bullying, Durst's past, self-pity, betrayal, childhood pain, heartbreak, feeling misunderstood, love and Durst's views on MTV and radio. About \"Down Another Day\", Joe D'Angelo of MTV found it difficult to believe that lyrics that were similar to Mayer's could come from Durst, whom, according to D'Angelo, had recently \"likened himself to a chainsaw and threatened to skin your ass raw\". \"Eat You Alive\" was reportedly about Britney Spears (rumored to be involved with Durst) or Angelina Jolie (whom Durst admired). According to Durst, \"The scream in 'Eat You Alive' is like an animalistic, sexual, crazy, primitive roar\", and the desire which came with this behavior. Durst said that \"Just Drop Dead\" was not (as had been speculated) about Britney Spears, but was inspired by his experience with her and other women. Also, Durst said that \"Just Drop Dead\" is \"about a girl who acts like a whore\". According to Durst, \"'Underneath the Gun' is about suicide and the struggle you can have when ending your life becomes an option\".\n\nCommercial performance\n\nPromotion\n\nTo promote Results May Vary, Durst filmed music videos for \"Eat You Alive\" and \"Behind Blue Eyes\" featuring Thora Birch and Halle Berry, respectively. The video for \"Eat You Alive\" appeared on MTV before Results May Vary was released, and the album was featured on Total Request Live. Limp Bizkit were going to record a music video for Results May Vary song \"Build a Bridge\". However, no music video for \"Build a Bridge\" was recorded. Limp Bizkit performed \"Crack Addict\" and \"Rollin'\" during WrestleMania XIX with guitarists Mike Smith and Brian Welch, and \"Crack Addict\" was played on television commercials for the event. Although \"Crack Addict\" was the planned first single from Results May Vary, the song was omitted from the album.\n\nReleased on September 23, 2003, Results May Vary peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 with sales of at least 325,000 copies in its first week of being released, ending Limp Bizkit's number-one streak on the chart. In three weeks of being released, the album had sold at least 500,000 copies. After thirteen weeks, Results May Vary sold at least 1,000,000 copies. Results May Vary was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on June 3, 2008 and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on October 10, 2003. Results May Vary had sales of 1,337,356 copies in the United States. The album's cover of \"Behind Blue Eyes\" peaked at number 71 on the Billboard Hot 100, peaked at number 25 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, and was certified gold by the RIAA on January 26, 2005. \"Eat You Alive\" peaked at number 16 on the Mainstream Rock chart and number 20 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and \"Almost Over\" peaked at number 33 on the Mainstream Rock chart, despite not receiving a single release. Results May Vary had less mainstream success than previous Limp Bizkit albums such as Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.\n\nTouring\nAfter the release of Results May Vary, Limp Bizkit joined the band Korn on a tour called the Back 2 Basics Tour. The Back 2 Basics Tour, which was sponsored by Xbox, was scheduled for November 2003. However, during a concert at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, Durst was hit by an object thrown from the crowd. Durst finished the remaining two songs of Limp Bizkit's set and after the concert, Durst had seven stitches administered by a private physician. During the end of 2003, Limp Bizkit cancelled their tour dates in Southeast Asia after there was a United States Department of State warning of increased security threats abroad. Limp Bizkit planned to play shows in Bali, Bangkok and Manila. However, after a terrorist bombing in Istanbul, Turkey occurred, the United States Department of State issued a travel advisory, and Limp Bizkit cancelled the shows in Southeast Asia. Although they did not perform in Southeast Asia, Limp Bizkit did perform in South Korea and Japan. In January 2004, there were rumors that Limp Bizkit were going to tour with the rock band Kiss, although the band was unable to, citing scheduling conflicts.\n\nCritical reception\n\nCritical reception of Results May Vary was mainly negative. The album holds a score of 33 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating \"generally unfavorable reviews\". This is the third lowest score on Metacritic, above The Bloodhound Gang's Hefty Fine and Kevin Federline's album Playing with Fire. According to AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine, \"the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?\". In a review of Limp Bizkit's Greatest Hitz compilation, Erlewine called \"Behind Blue Eyes\" the worst in the band's \"never-ending series of embarrassing covers\". Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian wrote, \"Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?\". Stylus criticized Results May Vary, calling it \"an album that can only be described as abysmal\". Rob O'Connor of Yahoo! Launch also criticized Results May Vary: \"No, Fred, the results don't vary. The results are consistent throughout your new album—consistently crappy.\" Kitty Empire of The Guardian wrote, \"Limp Bizkit have decided to expose their tender side. They really shouldn't have bothered [...] having seen Limp Bizkit's 'other side', you want the old, unapologetic, meathead version back\". Scott Mervis of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also criticized Results May Vary: \"Results May Vary has a few highlights — 'Almost Over' (very Everlast) and 'Phenomenon' (very Primus) — but way too few to justify all the time and energy spent\".\n\nAlthough Results May Vary received primarily negative reviews, according to Spin, the album \"isn't all that horrible\". Some others were not so negative towards Results May Vary. Tom Day of MusicOMH wrote, \"Ultimately, this album is neither crap nor blindingly good, and results do indeed vary\". The Sun-Sentinel gave Results May Vary a positive review, calling Lethal's work \"phenomenal\", and praising \"Behind Blue Eyes\" and the soft-to-heavy progression of \"Build a Bridge\". Steve Appleford of the Chicago Tribune gave Results May Vary a mixed review, writing: \"The music achieves some surprising sophistication with new textures both acoustic and electronic. Durst also is not so obnoxious nearly so often; at the same time, his songs too often lack the harsh melodic spark that once turned his ravings into pop hits\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nLimp Bizkit\n\nDJ Lethal – turntables, keyboards, samples,programming, sound development, producer, composer\nFred Durst – vocals, concept, art direction,cover design, guitar, photography, producer, composer, lyrics\nJohn Otto – drums, percussion, beats, composer\nSam Rivers – bass, composer, guitar\nMike Smith – guitar, composer\n\nArtwork\n\nCory Durst – photography\nJim Marshall – photography\n\nComposers and additional musicians\n\nMichael \"Elvis\" Baskette – guitar\nSnoop Dogg – vocals on\"Red Light–Green Light\", composer, lyrics\nBrian \"Head\" Welch – guitar on\"Build a Bridge\"\nRandy Pereira – guitar on\"Behind Blue Eyes\"\nArthur Baker – composer\nRoger Ball – composer\nEric Barrier – composer\n\nMolly Duncan – composer\nWilliam Griffin – composer\nPrince Markie Dee – composer\nJohn Robie – composer\nPete Townshend – composer\nEllis Williams – composer\n\nProduction and assistance\n\nJ.D. Andrew – assistant\nMichael \"Elvis\" Baskette – engineer\nBilly Bowers – engineer\nJason Carson – engineer\nSergio Chavez – assistant\nJason Dale – engineer\nTerry Date – engineer, producer\nCory Durst – photography\nNeal Ferrazzani – assistant\nDave Holdredge – digital editing, engineer\nBrian Humphrey – assistant\nJun Ishizeki – assistant\nAaron Lepley – assistant\n\nStephen Marcussen – mastering\nJohn Morrical – assistant\nBrendan O'Brien – mixing\nZack Odom – assistant\nMichael Patterson – mixing\nSteve Robillard – assistant\nRick Rubin – producer\nAndrew Scheps – engineer\nJordan Schur – executive producer\nJason Spears – assistant\nMark Valentine – assistant\nStewart Whitmore – digital editing\nUlrich Wild – engineer\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLimp Bizkit albums\nRap rock albums by American artists\nAlternative rock albums by American artists\n2003 albums\nAlbums produced by Fred Durst\nAlbums produced by Rick Rubin\nFlip Records (1994) albums\nAlbums produced by Terry Date",
"Build a Bridge may refer to:\n\n\"Build a Bridge\", a song by Limp Bizkit from their 2003 album Results May Vary\n\"Build a Bridge\", a song by Mavis Staples from her 2017 album If All I Was Was Black"
] |
[
"Limp Bizkit",
"Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001-03)",
"How many Albums was sold of Departure of Borland?",
"\"Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways.",
"When did Borland depart?",
"In October 2001,",
"Was Results May Vary successful?",
"Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.",
"What interesting facts can you tell me about the departure of Borland?",
"Durst also stated that the band would \"comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man\" to replace Borland.",
"Who replaced Borland?",
"After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called \"Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is\", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith,",
"Can you tell me any interesting facts about Results May Vary?",
"During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary.",
"When was Results May Vary released?",
"In the Summer of 2003,"
] |
C_0721df31d4f147aabc781cfde6dfde49_1
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Did they release anymore albums during 2001 to 2003?
| 8 |
Did Limp Bizkits release anymore albums during 2001 to 2003 other than Results May Vary?
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Limp Bizkit
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In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge. In the Summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow. Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto [...] But Durst's problems are ever-present - and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions.
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Limp Bizkit is an American rap rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Sam Rivers (bass, backing vocals), John Otto (drums, percussion), DJ Lethal (turntables), and Wes Borland (guitars, vocals). The band's music is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Formed in 1994, Limp Bizkit became popular playing in the Jacksonville underground music scene in the late 1990s, and signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, which released the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997). The band achieved mainstream success with its second and third studio albums, Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000), although this success was marred by a series of controversies surrounding its performances at Woodstock '99 and the 2001 Big Day Out festival.
Borland left the group in 2001, but Durst, Rivers, Otto and Lethal continued to record and tour with guitarist Mike Smith. Following the release of its album Results May Vary (2003), Borland rejoined the band and recorded The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005) with Durst, Rivers, Lethal and drummer Sammy Siegler before entering a hiatus. In 2009, the band reunited with Borland playing guitar and began touring, culminating with the recording of the album Gold Cobra (2011), after which it left Interscope and later signed with Cash Money Records; DJ Lethal quit the band soon afterward, returning in 2018. After years of teasing an album tentatively titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants, the band released its sixth studio album Still Sucks on October 31, 2021.
History
Formation and early years (1994–1996)
While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Fred Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox and DJ. While mowing lawns and working as a tattoo artist, he developed an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip hop. Durst played with three other bands, Split 26, Malachi Sage, which were unsuccessful, and 10 Foot Shindig, which Durst left to form a new band. Durst told Sam Rivers, the bassist for Malachi Sage, "You need to quit this band and start a band with me that's like this: rappin' and rockin'." Rivers suggested that his cousin, John Otto, who was studying jazz drumming at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and playing in local avant garde bands, become the band's drummer. Durst, Rivers and Otto jammed and wrote three songs together, and Wes Borland later joined as a guitarist.
Durst named the band Limp Bizkit because he wanted a name that would repel listeners. According to Durst, "The name is there to turn people's heads away. A lot of people pick up the disc and go, 'Limp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.' Those are the people that we don't even want listening to our music." Other names that were considered by Durst included Gimp Disco, Split Dickslit, Bitch Piglet, and Blood Fart. Every record label that showed an interest in the band pressured its members to change its name. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene, particularly at the Milk Bar, an underground punk club in Jacksonville. The band's local popularity was such that Sugar Ray, who had a major label contract, opened for a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit at Velocity with hip hop group Funkdoobiest. Milkbar owner, Danny Wimmer, stated that Limp Bizkit "had the biggest draw for a local band. They went from playing [for] ten people to eight hundred within months. Fred ... was always marketing the band. He would go to record stores and get people involved, he was in touch with high schools." However, the band knew that to achieve national success, it would have to distinguish themselves in its live performances. Attracting crowds by word of mouth, the band gave energetic live performances, covering George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up", and featuring Borland in bizarre costumes. Borland's theatrical rock style was the primary attraction for many concert attendees.
Durst unsuccessfully tried to attract attention from A&R representatives at various labels by pretending to be the band's manager. Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to drink beer and tattoo them. Although Durst's tattoos were unimpressive, he was able to persuade Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu to listen to a demo, consisting of the songs "Pollution", "Counterfeit" and "Stalemate". Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which exposed the band to a new audience. The band attempted to expand its sound by auditioning an additional guitarist, but Borland soon determined that another guitarist was not the answer, and DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist after a successful practice performance. Joining the band gave Lethal an opportunity to experiment with his turntable technique in ways that hip hop had not allowed him to do, helping shape the band's style. Due to creative differences, Borland left the band at this point.
Three Dollar Bill, Yall (1997–1998)
After its performance opening for Korn at the Dragonfly in Hollywood was well received, Limp Bizkit signed with Mojo, a subsidiary of MCA Records. While heading to California to record its first album, the band wrecked its van. As a result of the near-death experience, Durst made amends with Borland, who rejoined the band. After a dispute with Mojo, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Arvizu persuaded Ross Robinson to listen to the demo. Robinson neglected to listen to it until it was appraised by his girlfriend. Impressed by the band's motivation and sound, Robinson produced Limp Bizkit's debut, which was recorded at Indigo Ranch. Durst's problems with his girlfriend inspired him to write the song "Sour". The mood and tone set by Robinson in the studio allowed the band to improvise; a recording of the band improvising appeared as the last track on the album, "Everything".
Despite the success of live performances of the band's cover of the song "Faith", Robinson was opposed to recording it, and tried to persuade the band not to play it on the album. However, the final recording, which incorporated heavier guitar playing and drumming, as well as DJ scratching, impressed him. Robinson also bonded with Borland, who he perceived as not taking the band seriously. The progressive metal band Tool provided a strong influence in shaping the album's sound, particularly in the song "Nobody Loves Me", which contains a breakdown in which Durst imitated the singing style of Maynard James Keenan.
Continuing the band's policy of using names that would repulse potential listeners, Limp Bizkit named the album by using part of the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill" and adding the word "Y'all" for Florida flavor, titling it Three Dollar Bill, Y'all. The completed album featured an abrasive, angry sound which Limp Bizkit used to attract listeners to its music. After the band completed recording, it toured with Korn and Helmet in 1997. Critics reacted unfavorably to performances of Korn and Limp Bizkit; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel music critic Jon M. Gilbertson criticized Durst's performance, stating "The one attention-grabbing moment of Limp Bizkit's rap/thrash show was when the lead singer expressed a desire for gay men to be 'stomped'. Which isn't remotely rebellious. It's just puerile." That same year, they also notably served as an opening act on the Album of the Year Tour for Faith No More, a band often credited as paving the way for Limp Bizkit and the nu metal genre. They were subject to a hostile reception from Faith No More's fans, with the group's keyboardist Roddy Bottum later recalling, "That guy Fred Durst had a really bad attitude. He was kind of a jerk. I remembered he called the audience faggots at one show when they booed him. Not a good scene."
Interscope proposed to the band that the label pay $5,000 to guarantee that a Portland, Oregon, radio station play the song "Counterfeit" fifty times, preceded and concluded with an announcement that the air time was paid for by Interscope. The paid air time was criticized by the media, who saw it as "payola". The band's manager Jeff Kwatinetz later termed the plan as a "brilliant marketing move". Durst stated, "It worked, but it's not that cool of a thing." Following the release of "Counterfeit" as a single, Three Dollar Bill, Yall was released on July 1, 1997, and was met with minimal response. AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "They might not have many original ideas ... but they do the sound well. They have a powerful rhythm section and memorable hooks, most of which make up for the uneven songwriting." However, Robert Christgau panned the album. Despite the minimal response to his band's album, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope.
Limp Bizkit joined the Warped Tour, performing alongside the bands Pennywise, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sick of It All, Lagwagon and Blink-182. Preceding the band's first tour with DJ Lethal, Otto became familiar with Lethal's contributions to collaborate with him better on stage. In addition to touring with Primus and Deftones, Limp Bizkit headlined the Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour, which was intended to diversify the band's fanbase, which was largely male, by offering free tickets to female attendees. This plan successfully increased the band's female fanbase.
In 1998, Limp Bizkit toured with Soulfly and Cold on Soulfly's first European tour. Touring consistently increased Limp Bizkit's success, and the second single from Three Dollar Bill, Yall, a cover of George Michael's "Faith", became a successful radio hit, leading to a slot on Ozzfest, a tour organized by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In July, Snot singer Lynn Strait was arrested after he emerged nude from Limp Bizkit's prop toilet, and was charged with indecent exposure. Because Limp Bizkit's fans would often break through the barricades, the band was almost kicked off the tour after two days. In August, John Otto spent the night in jail in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, after allegedly firing a BB gun and being arrested for carrying a switchblade.
After completing Ozzfest, Limp Bizkit took a break from performing, and later performed on Korn's Family Values Tour. Durst also directed a music video for the band's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things, but was unsatisfied with it, and directed a second video which paid tribute to tourmates like Primus, Deftones and Korn, who appeared in the video. Borland stated in an interview that George Michael, the writer of the song, hated the cover and "hates us for doing it".
Significant Other (1999–2000)
Following the radio success of "Faith", the band was determined to record the follow-up to its first album in order to show that they were not a Korn soundalike or a cover band; the band began writing an album which dealt with issues deriving from its newfound fame. Terry Date, who had produced albums for Pantera, White Zombie and Deftones, was chosen to produce the album. The band allowed Durst and Lethal to explore their hip hop origins by recording a song with Method Man. The song was originally titled "Shut the Fuck Up", but was retitled "N 2 Gether Now" for marketing purposes. Durst also recorded with Eminem, but the collaboration, "Turn Me Loose", was left off the album. The album also featured guest appearances by Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Staind singer Aaron Lewis, and interludes by Les Claypool and Matt Pinfield.
Significant Other saw Limp Bizkit reaching a new level of commercial success; the band was featured on the covers of popular music magazines, including Spin, and now found themselves repeatedly mobbed for autographs; the band was allowed to interact directly with its fans on a website established by Dike 99. Durst also moved from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. Significant Other was seen as an improvement over its debut, and was generally well received by critics, with mixed-to-positive reviews. However, the band also continued to be criticized by the media; an article profiling the band in Spin and discussing Significant Other claimed that "Limp Bizkit had yet to write a good song", and musicians Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor criticized the band.
The band promoted the album by playing unannounced concerts in Detroit and Chicago, as radio stations received a strong number of requests for the album's first single, "Nookie". Significant Other climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 643,874 copies in its first week of release. In its second week of release the album sold an additional 335,000 copies. On the opening night of the band's Limptropolis tour with Kid Rock, Sam Rivers smashed his bass in frustration over the venue's poor sound, cutting his hand. After his hand was stitched up at a hospital, Rivers returned to finish the set. On July 12, Durst allegedly kicked a security guard in the head during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was later arrested on assault charges. Further criticisms of the band appeared in Rolling Stone and The New York Times. New York Times writer Ann Powers wrote, "DJ Lethal used his turntables as a metal guitar, riffing expansively and going for effects instead of rhythm. John Otto on drums and Sam Rivers on bass never even tried to get funky, instead steering hip-hop's break-beat-based structure into a backbone for power chords. This makes for a hybrid that would be more interesting if the band did not constantly mire itself in boring tempos, and if Mr. Durst had any talent as a singer".
In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 show in front of approximately 200,000 people. Violent action sprang up during and after the band's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during a performance of the song "Break Stuff". Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy". Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told The San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press', so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy."
Durst saw the band as being scapegoated for the event's controversy, and reflected on the criticisms surrounding the band in his music video for the single "Re-Arranged", which depicted the band members receiving death sentences for their participation in the concerts. The video ended with angry witnesses watching as the band drowned in milk while performing the song. Durst later stated that the promoters of Woodstock '99 were at fault for booking his band, due to their reputation for raucous performances. Despite this controversy, Significant Other remained at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the band headlined the year's Family Values Tour. Durst directed a music video for "N 2 Gether Now" which featured Method Man and Pauly Shore, and was inspired by Inspector Clouseau's fights with his butler, Cato Fong, in the Pink Panther film series.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000–2001)
In 2000, Durst announced that the band's third studio album would be titled Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. The press thought he was joking about this title. The album title is intended to sound like a fictional band; the phrase "Chocolate Starfish" refers to the human anus, and Durst himself, who has frequently been called an "asshole". Borland contributed the other half of the album's title when the band was standing around at a truck stop, looking at bottles of flavored water, and Borland joked that the truck stop didn't have hot dog or meat-flavored water.
In June 2000, Limp Bizkit performed at the WXRK Dysfunctional Family Picnic, but showed up an hour late for their set. An Interscope spokesman stated that there was confusion over the band's set time. During the band's performance, Durst criticized Creed singer Scott Stapp, calling him "an egomaniac". Creed's representatives later presented Durst with an autographed anger management manual. In the summer, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster, doing free shows with a metal cage as the only thing separating them from the audience. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. They also did a "Guerrilla Tour" which involved the band setting up illegal and impromptu public gigs on rooftops and alleyways, some being shut down by the police.
During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed "Livin' It Up", a song from the upcoming album, as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick was quoted as saying "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." In response to Durst's remark, Aguilera commented, "He got no nookie."
Released on October 17, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water set a record for highest first-week sales for a rock album with over one million copies sold in the US in its first week of release. 400,000 of those sales happened during the first day, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water was certified Gold, Platinum and six times Multi-Platinum. The album received mixed reviews, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing, "Durst's self-pitying and the monotonous music give away that the band bashed Chocolate Starfish out very quickly – it's the sound of a band determined to deliver a sequel in a finite amount of time." Entertainment Weekly writer David Browne named it as the worst album title of 2000.
During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In court, Durst, represented by long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor, and also the promoter Vivian Lees, of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing videotapes and hearing witness testimony, however, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage, stating that Fred Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.
Later in 2001, numerous hip-hop artists including P. Diddy, Timbaland, Bubba Sparxxx and Everlast remixed famous songs from the band into hip-hop versions adding their own styles and modifications. The album was called New Old Songs.
Departure of Borland and Results May Vary (2001–2003)
In October 2001, Durst released a statement on their website stating that "Limp Bizkit and Wes Borland have amicably decided to part ways. Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavors." Durst also stated that the band would "comb the world for the illest guitar player known to man" to replace Borland. When asked why Borland quit the band, Ross Robinson stated that he quit because "He doesn't sell out for money anymore".
After holding a nationwide audition for a new guitarist, called "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is", the band recorded with Snot guitarist Mike Smith, but later scrapped their recording sessions with Smith. Durst told a fan site that he had a falling-out with Smith, saying "We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally." In May 2002, Durst posted Wes Borland's personal e-mail address online and told fans to ask him to rejoin the group. Borland stated that 75% or more of all the e-mails pleaded for him not to return to the band.
After recording another album without Smith, the band scrapped the new sessions and assembled a new album combining songs from different sessions. During the album's production, the working title changed from Bipolar to Panty Sniffer, and was completed under the title Results May Vary. Under Durst's sole leadership, the album encompassed a variety of styles, and featured a cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", which differed from the original's arrangement in its inclusion of a Speak & Spell during the song's bridge.
In the summer of 2003, Limp Bizkit participated on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica. At the tour's stop in Chicago, attendees of the concert threw items and heckled Durst from the moment he walked on stage. With the crowd chanting "Fuck Fred Durst" and continuing their assault on him, Durst threw the mic down after six songs and walked off stage, but not before heckling the crowd back. He repeatedly said, "Limp Bizkit are the best band in the world!" until a roadie took his microphone away. An article in the Sun-Times stated that the hostility was started by radio personality Mancow.
Results May Vary was released on September 23, 2003, and received largely unfavorable reviews. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine panned the album, writing, "the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, [and] all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?" The Guardian reviewer Caroline Sullivan wrote, "At least Limp Bizkit can't be accused of festering in the rap-rock ghetto ... But Durst's problems are ever-present – and does anybody still care?" Despite criticisms of the album, it was a commercial success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
Borland's return, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) and hiatus (2004–2008)
In August 2004, Borland rejoined Limp Bizkit, which began recording an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
In May, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) was released. Sammy Siegler took over drumming duties for the band for much of the EP, which featured a more experimental sound, described by AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "neo-prog alt-metal". At Durst's insistence, the album was released as an underground album, without any advertising or promotion. Borland disagreed with the decision, suggesting that it was "self-sabotage": "Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there."
The EP received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the music, calling it "a step in the right direction – it's more ambitious, dramatic, and aggressive, built on pummeling verses and stop-start choruses." However, he felt that the band was being "held back" by Durst, whom he called "the most singularly unpleasant, absurd frontman in rock." IGN writer Spence D. similarly gave it a mixed review, as he felt that the album lacked direction, but that showed potential for the band's musical growth.
The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) sold over 37,000 copies worldwide, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard 200. Following the release of the band's Greatest Hitz album, the band went on hiatus. Borland stated that it was unlikely that a sequel to The Unquestionable Truth would be produced and that "As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."
Reunion, Gold Cobra and departure from Interscope (2009–2011)
In 2009, Limp Bizkit reunited with Borland playing guitar and launched the Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour. Durst announced that they had begun to record a new album, which Borland titled Gold Cobra. Borland said that the title does not have any meaning, and that it was chosen because it fit the style of music the band was writing for the album. The band recorded a spoken intro written by Durst and performed by Kiss member Gene Simmons for the album, but it was left off the completed album. The band also recorded additional "non-album" tracks, including "Combat Jazz", which featured rapper Raekwon and "Middle Finger", featuring Paul Wall. "Shotgun" was released as a single on May 17, 2011. The song is noted for featuring a guitar solo by Borland, something that the band is not known for. "Shotgun" received favorable reviews, with Artistdirect writing, "['Shotgun'] feels like Bizkit approached the signature style on Three Dollar Bill Y'All and Significant Other with another decade-plus of instrumental experience and virtuosity, carving out a banger that could get asses moving in the club or fists flying in the mosh pit."
Gold Cobra was released on June 28 and received mixed to positive reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it "a return to the full-throttled attack of Three Dollar Bill Y'All. IGN writer Chad Grischow wrote, "Though far from their best work, Limp Bizkit's latest at least proves that their 2005 Greatest Hitz album may have been premature." Metal Hammer writer Terry Bezer appraised the album, writing "Aside from the odd duff moment, Gold Cobra throws out the hot shit that'll make you bounce in the mosh pit over and over again." The band launched the Gold Cobra Tour in support of the album. A music video for the title track was released. Gold Cobra sold nearly 80,000 copies in the United States alone and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200; however, the band left Interscope after the album's release.
Stampede of the Disco Elephants and Still Sucks (2012–present)
In February 2012, the band returned to Australia for the first time in 11 years, to perform at the Soundwave festival. Durst dedicated the shows to Jessica Michalik, who died during the Limp Bizkit performance at Big Day Out 2001. Limp Bizkit signed with Cash Money Records. Following a dispute between Durst, Lethal and Otto about the latter two's alleged chronic drug and alcohol use, DJ Lethal angrily left the band. DJ Lethal later posted an apology to the band on Twitter, but was ultimately not allowed back into the band.
Fred Durst was featured in the song "Champions" by Kevin Rudolf, used as theme for WWE's Night of Champions. The song debuted on WWE Raw on September 3, 2012. This was the first time Limp Bizkit has worked with WWE since 2003.
The band recorded their seventh studio album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants with producer Ross Robinson, who also produced the band's debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall, and their 2005 album The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
On March 24, 2013, the first single from the album, "Ready to Go" (featuring Lil Wayne) was released on limpbizkit.com. In November a cover of the Ministry song "Thieves" was released by the band via their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. In December, the band released the previously leaked song, "Lightz" along with an accompanying music video. The next single off the album, "Endless Slaughter" was set to be released only on cassette and during concerts, but can be downloaded at the band's official website.
In October 2014, Fred Durst revealed that the band had left Cash Money, and became independent again. The split was carried out amicably, and Fred says that "We really love the jam we did with Lil Wayne, though. We love that song."
Limp Bizkit performed as headliners of the ShipRocked 2015 cruise from February 2 to 6. Other bands present were Chevelle, Black Label Society, P.O.D., Sevendust among others. The band announced their major 2015 tour called "Money Sucks", a Russian 20-date tour to take place during October and November, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Limp Bizkit. The tour name was a nod to the difficult economic situation that Russia was facing at the time. Before the band traveled to Europe to attend the "Money Sucks" Tour, Sam Rivers was diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the discs of the spine and that was complicated due to a pinched nerve, causing a lot of pain in such area, which prevented him from being with the band. 23-year-old German bassist Samuel Gerhard Mpungu replaced Rivers for the tour.
Limp Bizkit offered several concerts in the United Kingdom during winter 2016 alongside Korn. Regarding this tour Fred says: "You may have experienced a lot of cool concerts in your life, but I can guarantee you that an evening with Korn and Limp Bizkit will always and forever be your favorite. No one brings the party harder, heavier, and more exciting than us. No one. And ... make sure you get plenty of rest the night before. It's time to bring it back!"
Because of little information and constant delays for the release of Stampede, in an interview/talk with the podcast "Someone Who Isn't Me", Wes said that Fred "isn't happy" with what he was working on. The guitarist said that Durst will "just keep working on something until he's happy with it, even if it takes years and years".
DJ Lethal resumed performing with the band on March 17, 2018 at the Storm the Gates festival in Auckland, New Zealand. On July 8, 2019 the band played a new song from their forthcoming album called "Wasteoid" live in Paris.
Borland provided an album update in June 2021, detailing the struggles with the album:
In August 2021, just a week after their main stage set at Lollapalooza, the band canceled their summer tour, "out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the band, crew and most of all the fans" in relation to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States.
On August 25, 2021 the band revealed new music would be "leaked" in rapid succession with their new album to follow soon after.
On September 30, 2021, the band released a new single "Dad Vibes". On October 19, Durst teased on Instagram that more songs would be coming soon, revealing the titles "Turn It Up Bitch" and "Goodbye", as well as the album containing 12 tracks. On October 28, 2021, Durst confirmed via Instagram that the band's sixth album – now titled Still Sucks – would be released on October 31, 2021.
Artistry
Music
Durst wanted Limp Bizkit to be a "megaband" which could cross over into as many different styles of music as possible. Limp Bizkit's music has predominately been described as , and rap rock. Limp Bizkit have also been described as alternative metal, alternative rock and . In 2000, the New York Daily News labelled the band as "frat-metal".
Limp Bizkit's music is noted for its "kinetic, frenzied energy". Otto is adept in drumming in a variety of styles ranging from Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to bebop and funk. DJ Lethal functions as a sound designer for the band, shaping their sound. According to Lethal, "I try and bring new sounds, not just the regular chirping scratching sounds. ... It's all different stuff that you haven't heard before. I'm trying to be like another guitar player." Borland's guitar playing is experimental and nontraditional, and he is noted for his creative use of six and seven-string guitars. Three Dollar Bill, Yall features him playing without a guitar pick, performing with two hands, one playing melodic notes, and the other playing chord progressions. His guitar playing has made use of octave shapes, and choppy, eighth-note rhythms, sometimes accompanied by muting his strings with his left hand, creating a percussive sound. Borland has also made use of unevenly accented syncopated sixteenth notes to create a disorienting effect, and hypnotic, droning licks. The song "Stuck" uses a sustain pedal in the first bar, and muted riffs in the second bar.
AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the band's album Significant Other contains "flourishes of neo-psychedelia on pummeling metal numbers" and "swirls of strings, even crooning, at the most unexpected background". The band did not employ solos until Gold Cobra (except for the song "Underneath The Gun" from Results May Vary), however, during the recording of Significant Other, drummer John Otto performed an extended solo in the middle of the song "Nobody Like You". A drum solo can also be heard on "9 Teen 90 Nine" from the same album.
Lyrics
Durst's lyrics are often profane, scatological or angry. Much of Durst's lyrical inspiration came from growing up and his personal life. The song "Sour", from the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall, was inspired by Durst's problems with his girlfriend. His breakup with her inspired the Significant Other songs "Nookie" and . When describing Limp Bizkit's lyrics, The Michigan Daily said "In a less-serious vein, Limp Bizkit used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap. Oddly, audiences took frontman Fred Durst more seriously than he wanted, failing to see the intentional silliness in many of his songs." Durst said that people failed to understand the band's proposal, "There was always a lot of pain in my life. Mental and physical abuse happens regularly in my life. I’ve been bullied my whole life, but I also love having fun and getting crazy and being silly and outrageous. We always had that in our band and a lot of people didn’t understand that." Durst also said that the band's purpose was to serve as a satire but "We just didn’t make it that obvious." The band's guitarist, Wes Borland, said that "Limp Bizkit is definitely a dumb rock band." Limp Bizkit's lyrics have also been described as "misogynistic". In response to these accusations, Durst said: "That’s because I said the words whore and bitch. My whole record is about my girlfriend who put me through the ringer for three years and my insecurity about it. It became this big thing." The Baltimore Sun talked about the band's song "Nookie", which is accused of being sexist and misogynistic, "Despite its seemingly salacious title, 'Nookie' is not about the joy of sex; instead, it finds singer Fred Durst talking about how he let his girlfriend take advantage of him because he was a fool for love. So when he gets to the chorus catch-phrase - 'I did it all for the nookie' - what we hear is more self-recrimination than boast." The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) focuses on more serious and darker lyrical subject matter, including Catholic sex abuse cases, terrorism and fame.
Influences
Limp Bizkit's influences include The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk, Dave Matthews Band, Portishead, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, Ministry, Prong, Tool, Primus, Pantera, Minor Threat, Angry Samoans, Black Flag, the Fat Boys, the Treacherous Three, the Cold Crush Brothers, Urban Dance Squad, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones, Jane's Addiction, and John Zorn.
As pointed out by author Joel McIver, Limp Bizkit's mix of rap and metal was notably preceded by the bands Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, but its lyrics widely differed from the radical politics of the former and the existential poetry of the latter. Durst cited both bands as two of his biggest influences. Faith No More's semi-ironic cover of "Easy" by Lionel Richie in 1992 hinted what would be the recording of George Michael's "Faith" by Limp Bizkit in 1997. The frontmen of both groups have distanced themselves from Limp Bizkit; Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine stated that Limp Bizkit "sucks", while Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton paraphrased the quote attributed to Götz von Berlichingen, Er kann mich am Arsch lecken – "He can lick my ass", when asked by a German reporter about Durst's interest in releasing his music through Interscope Records.
Live performances
Borland is known for performing in costumes and body paint during concerts, appearing in bunny and kung fu suits, and painted as a skeleton and what he describes as a "burnt match". Describing the character, he stated, "I go onstage wearing almost nothing. I have underwear and my boots on, and I paint my whole head black—from the neck up—and I have the black contacts. All you can see is these glowing teeth." Borland's black contacts were customized for him by a company noted for making contacts for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5.
In addition to Borland's visual appearance, the band has also used elaborate stage setups in their performances. Their Ladies Night in Cambodia club tour visually paid tribute to the film Apocalypse Now, with an elaborate stage setup which featured an empty Jeep, camouflage mesh and palm trees. During the band's tour with Primus, Limp Bizkit took inspiration from Primus' trademark self-deprecatory slogan "Primus sucks": Durst, Borland, Rivers, Otto and Lethal took the stage with middle fingers raised. According to Borland, "they finger us back—and you know what that means to us—that they love us. It's kind of like saying something is bad when you really mean good. Les Claypool came out the first night of the tour and got a big kick out of it. We figured it was the right idea. It makes hecklers go 'huh.'"
During the band's sets at Ozzfest, audience members at the tour heckled Limp Bizkit, leading the band to use a toilet as a stage prop, which they would emerge from during each performance; the band punctuated their sets by "flushing" cardboard cutouts of pop stars like Hanson and the Spice Girls. During their appearance at the first Family Values Tour, Limp Bizkit performed on a set which the Los Angeles Times described as "a mix of The War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks". The band emerged from a spaceship during the tour, and Borland continued to experiment with visual appearances. During the band's Halloween performance on the tour, each of the band's members dressed as Elvis Presley at various stages in his career.
Legacy and influence
Limp Bizkit is considered one of the bands that defined the nu metal genre. Alternative Press said: "As the years have gone by, some nü-metal outfits have progressively downplayed their bracket’s hip-hop sensibilities. Even so, you can guarantee one of their primary influences were Limp Bizkit. From the great minds of Fred Durst, Wes Borland and co., the happily mismatched band from Jacksonville, Florida, established the ground rules of nü metal. Number one: Blur the lines between the two most polarizing genres in music. In finding their common ground with teeth-baring, confrontational lyrics and riffs that hit you right where it hurts, Limp Bizkit created timeless odes to teenage angst that, in time, we’ve discovered still apply right into adulthood."
Kerrang! magazine talked about the impact of the band's song "Break Stuff": "If Deftones represented something deeper about nu-metal, Limp Bizkit represented something entirely at the other end of the scale. Despite having a genuinely innovative guitarist in Wes Borland, whose vision for his genre-straddling band was probably more in line with bands like Primus, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, Limp Bizkit were – and continue to be – seen by many nu-metal’s primal, base mode, where thinking was done largely with fists. What’s missed in this view is that Limp Bizkit were actually the 1966 England team of such things. No other band delivered quite the dancefloor-filling shove they did. Nobody could get you that riled up in that specific a way. And, truthfully, nobody else was as much monkey-in-a-bubble-bath fun as they were. Break Stuff, ahem, broke Limp Bizkit through its fiendishly simple two-chord motif, kick-up-the-arse drop, and its glued-to-MTV video featuring Jonathan Davis, Flea and The Who’s Roger Daltrey, as well as rap megastars Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr. Dre, taking them to an audience far beyond metal. The celebrity that followed was huge. The influence it left was huger."
Richard Cheese performed a lounge rendition of the songs "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" on his debut album, Lounge Against the Machine. "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" medley included Limp Bizkit's song "My Way". The Vitamin String Quartet recorded a tribute album called The String Quartet Tribute to Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff, which contains reinterpretations of the band's songs performed by a violinist backed by cellos, synthesizers, and keyboard percussion. Girl Talk sampled "Nookie" and "Break Stuff" in the song "Friends-4-Ever", which appears on his album Secret Diary. The Blackout covered "My Generation" for the compilation Higher Voltage!: Another Brief History of Rock. Bands citing Limp Bizkit as an influence on their music include the progressive metal band Proyecto Eskhata.
While Limp Bizkit's popularity has declined in the United States since the mid-2000s, it has been noted in the media that the band still remains highly popular in Russia.
Band members
Current members
Fred Durst – lead vocals
John Otto – drums
Sam Rivers – bass, backing vocals
Wes Borland – guitars, backing vocals
DJ Lethal – turntables, sampling, programming , backing vocals
Current touring and session musicians
Brandon Pertzborn – drums
Former members
Rob Waters – guitars
Terry Balsamo – guitars
Mike Smith – guitars, backing vocals
Former touring and session musicians
Brian Welch – guitars
Sammy Siegler – drums
Franko Carino (DJ SK3L3TOR) – sampling, programming, backing vocals , backing vocals
Nick Annis – guitars
Samuel G Mpungu – bass
Tsuzumi Okai – bass
Timeline
Discography
Three Dollar Bill, Y'all (1997)
Significant Other (1999)
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
Results May Vary (2003)
Gold Cobra (2011)
Still Sucks (2021)
Accolades
Limp Bizkit has been nominated for and won several awards. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards including Best Hard Rock Performance ("Nookie"), Best Rock Album ("Significant Other") and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Take A Look Around"). Limp Bizkit has been nominated for 3 American Music Awards for Favorite Alternative Artist, winning one of them in 2002.
In 1999, the band won the Maximum Vision Award at the Billboard Music Video Awards for their music video "Nookie" At the 2000 and 2001 Blockbuster Awards, the band won the Favorite Group (Rock) award. That year also saw the band winning a MuchMusic Award for Best International Video, honoring their video for the song "Break Stuff". At the 2001 ECHO Awards, the band won the Best International Metal Band award. At the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, the band won the Hall of Fame award. Further expanding upon the group's achievements and popularity, they were also the first group inducted into MTV's Total Request Live "Hall of Fame" on May 26, 2001.
See also
List of nu metal bands
References
Further reading
External links
1994 establishments in Florida
American nu metal musical groups
Cash Money Records artists
Flip Records (1994) artists
Interscope Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Jacksonville, Florida
Rap metal musical groups
Rap rock groups
Musical quartets
Fusion music musicians and groups
| true |
[
"I Don't Think I Can Do This Anymore is the third studio album by British emo band Moose Blood. The album was released on 9 March 2018. It was followed by a tour of the UK and Northern America.\n\nReception\n\nI Don't Think I Can Do This Anymore received mixed to positive reviews from critics upon release. On Metacritic, the album holds a score of 65/100 based on 5 reviews, indicating \"generally favorable reviews.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2018 albums\nEmo albums by English artists\nMoose Blood albums\nAlbums produced by Beau Burchell",
"Private Collection: 1979–1988 is a 1988 compilation album by Cliff Richard, featuring songs such as the number one single \"We Don't Talk Anymore\" from 1979, to his latest release at the time, the Christmas number one hit \"Mistletoe and Wine\". The album reached number one on the UK Albums Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Some People\"\n \"Wired for Sound\"\n \"All I Ask of You\" (with Sarah Brightman)\n \"Carrie\"\n \"Remember Me\" *\n \"True Love Ways\"\n \"Dreaming\"\n \"Green Light\" *\n \"She Means Nothing to Me\" (with Phil Everly)\n \"Heart User\" *\n \"A Little in Love\"\n \"Daddy's Home\"\n \"We Don't Talk Anymore\"\n \"Never Say Die (Give a Little Bit More)\"\n \"The Only Way Out\"\n \"Suddenly\" (with Olivia Newton-John)\n \"Slow Rivers\" (with Elton John)*\n \"Please Don't Fall in Love\"\n \"Little Town\"\n \"My Pretty One\"\n \"Ocean Deep\"\n \"She's So Beautiful\" (with Stevie Wonder; from Dave Clark's \"Time\": The Album)\n \"Two Hearts\" *\n \"Mistletoe and Wine\"\n\n* Excluded from the compact disc release of Private Collection due to CD time constraints.\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nCliff Richard compilation albums\n1988 compilation albums\nEMI Records albums\nAlbums produced by Alan Tarney"
] |
[
"The Wildhearts",
"2007-2010"
] |
C_d090a162df674f26b8450ff1bb290610_1
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What is the Wildhearts?
| 1 |
What is the Wildhearts?
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The Wildhearts
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In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour. The band ended up playing multiple sold-out dates in New York, one of which was aboard a ferry. The band made up to their American fans for postponed gigs by playing very long sets of approximately two hours each night. An extensive UK tour followed in April and May. "The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror. On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992-1996 era at East West Records. The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, !Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival. On 25 November 2009 The Wildhearts announced the release of !Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of !Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour. However, this news caused something of a backlash from some fans, and resulted in band leader Ginger advocating the distribution of tracks via file sharing technology, as well as vowing that the album would be made available at future shows beyond the Xmess tour. The mini-album is now also available via the Wildhearts online store. CANNOTANSWER
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In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts.
|
The Wildhearts are an English rock band, formed in 1989 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as the Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica. The Wildhearts achieved several top 20 singles and two top 10 albums in Britain, though they also faced difficulties with record companies and many internal problems often relating to drugs and depression. Much of the band's early career was affected by bitter feuds with their record company, East West.
Throughout the band's history, members have regularly been replaced, with the only constant member being the band's founder, singer and guitarist Ginger. Several band members have appeared in the line-up more than once. The band has also been split up or placed on hiatus by Ginger multiple times. In the 2010s, the band convened occasionally for various anniversary tours. A 2018 anniversary tour by the band's 1995 lineup led to a return to the studio. They released a new album in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus. Their most recent album, 21st Century Love Songs, was released in September 2021.
History
Early years
The Wildhearts formed in late 1989, after Ginger was sacked from the Quireboys. Throughout the band's career, Ginger has written almost all the songs himself.
Initially called the Wild Hearts, the band originally included singers Snake (ex-Tobruk) and Dunken F. Mullett (ex-Mournblade), who both joined for short periods. Nine demos were recorded in 1989 and 1990 with Snake singing on four and Dunken on five. These demos remain unreleased and displayed a sound resembling Guns N' Roses, with the Wildhearts sound still to be developed.
After many early personnel changes, the line-up solidified around Ginger on guitar and vocals, CJ (Christopher Jagdhar) on guitar and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Dogs D'Amour drummer Bam. This line-up released two EPs in 1992, Mondo Akimbo a-Go-Go and Don’t Be Happy…Just Worry.
First album
In 1992, drummer Bam returned to Dogs D'Amour and was replaced by Stidi (Andrew Stidolph). To follow up their first two EPs, the Wildhearts recorded demos for their first full-length album, which were released as Earth vs the Wildhearts without re-recording. The singles "Greetings From Shitsville" and "TV Tan" were underground hits in 1993. Stidi left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by Ritch Battersby, just in time for the recording of the single "Caffeine Bomb", a UK chart hit at the beginning of 1994, helped by a memorable video in which Ginger appeared to vomit into CJ's face. The band appeared on Top of the Pops with Ginger wearing green welding goggles. The debut album was reissued in late 1994 with "Caffeine Bomb" tacked on as an extra track.
Follow-up
The Wildhearts next planned a double album, but East West vetoed this plan during the recording sessions. Instead the band released a collection of six of the more eclectic tracks on a fan club-only release entitled Fishing for Luckies in early 1995. This EP, which would be re-released in 1996 with more studio outtakes as Fishing for More Luckies, included the notable track "Geordie In Wonderland". Ginger offered this track to Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United F.C. as a potential team anthem, but was graciously turned down. The track was performed on Top of the Pops with Wolfsbane's Jeff Hateley, painted in Toon Army colours, on mandolin. Other noteworthy tracks included "If Life Is Like A Lovebank, I Want An Overdraft", also released as a single, and the 11:24 epic "Sky Babies."
The second album proper was to be known as P.H.U.Q.. Midway through the recording sessions, Ginger fired guitarist CJ, and some of the album's tracks were recorded without a second guitarist. P.H.U.Q. was released in May 1995 and reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's most successful album. Shortly after the album's release, Mark Keds of Senseless Things was drafted as second guitarist, but lasted just one recording session, in which he appeared on the B-sides for the single "Just in Lust". Within a few weeks Keds was sacked after disappearing to Japan for a farewell tour with his old band. The Wildhearts were again down to a three-piece (Ginger, McCormack, and Battersby) for a few months, and performed a few gigs in this incarnation. The band resolved to return to a two-guitar formation, and after requesting demos and holding auditions, hired the previously unknown Jef Streatfield.
Round Records era
In early 1996, the Wildhearts claimed to have recorded two new studio albums, which would be released via East West on the band's own record label, Round Records. Only some of the songs saw the light of day, in a revamped version of the previously fan club-only EP Fishing for Luckies with eight new tracks bringing it to full album length. An additional album of new material was never quite finished, although leaked copies were distributed as the Shitty Fuckin' Stupid Tracks bootleg. These rare tracks were officially released by East West in 1998 as part of the Landmines and Pantomimes rarities compilation.
Endless, Nameless era
In 1997 the band signed to Mushroom Records, and set about making another album. This album abandoned the band's former pop rock leanings in favor of a more distorted and less commercial sound.
In November 1997, shortly before the release of Endless, Nameless, Ginger decided to split the band. The band toured Japan but cancelled a scheduled British tour.
Multi-formatting and singles
Starting in 1997 the Wildhearts began to release multiple formats of singles.The band released the two singles from the album Endless, Nameless in multiple formats, including two CD singles with two B-sides on each, and a 7" single with one B-side, with all the songs from the "Anthem" single being cover versions.
The band have continued to multi-format since 1997, in particular with "Top of the World" in 2003, consisting of three CD singles, two with two B-sides and one with one B-side and the video for the song. The band have also continued to specifically re-enter the studio to record brand new songs for B-sides. During the band's reformation in the 2001–2004 period, they amassed enough B-sides for Gut Records to release a full-length album consisting only of B-sides, Coupled With.
Hiatus 1997–2001
During the 1997–2001 period the band members concentrated on their respective side projects, although the most recent line-up of Ginger, McCormack, Ritch Battersby, and Jef Streatfield reformed a few times for one-off gigs.
Reformation
In early 2001 Ginger announced that he was reforming the Earth vs the Wildhearts lineup of the band for a tour later that year. This lineup (consisting of Ginger and CJ on guitars and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Stidi on drums) soon ran into difficulty due to McCormack's battle against heroin addiction, and on several dates of the comeback tour Toshi (from support band AntiProduct) stood in as bassist. By 2002 McCormack was once again clean and the band started recording a new mini-album and also toured the UK. The tracks intended for the album were released in the UK in late 2002 across three formats of the "Vanilla Radio" single, and as the mini-album Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff in Japan. "Vanilla Radio" reached the top 30 in the UK singles chart, and in early 2003 work began on a full-length album. However, during recording, McCormack checked himself into a rehabilitation center to deal with an alcohol problem, leaving Ginger to play the bass parts on the songs that were newly recorded for the album. McCormack's place in the live band was filled by "Random" Jon Poole, who had already worked with Ginger on his Silver Ginger 5 side project.
The album The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, released in 2003, had a very commercial sound, full of short simple pop songs with little of the heavier rock style which often featured on previous albums. The band signed a US record deal with Gearhead Records, which released Riff After Riff in 2004, a compilation of songs from the UK post-reformation singles (all of the songs from this release are also found on the Gut Records compilation Coupled With). Riff After Riff was the Wildhearts' first US release since Earth vs the Wildhearts in 1994. The release was also promoted by a tour, mostly as the support band for their ex-support band, the Darkness.
Then in early 2005, Ginger dissolved the Wildhearts again, citing a mixture of his own personal problems and a lack of commitment within the band. He briefly joined the Brides of Destruction before setting out on his own as a full-time solo artist. Ginger then reformed the Wildhearts once again for a one-off gig at Scarborough Castle (Rock in the Castle) in September 2005. The 1994–1995 line-up of Ginger, C.J., McCormack, and Ritch Battersby played at this gig.
Once again, the Wildhearts reformed in December 2006 and played a single live show at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. This line-up saw Ginger joined again by C.J., Ritch Battersby and a new bassist, Scott Sorry (ex-Amen). This line-up soon became official, with plans made for a new album in 2007.
2007–2010
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band performed in New York, and toured the UK in April and May.
"The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror.
On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992–1996 era at East West Records.
The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, ¡Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival.
On 25 November 2009 the Wildhearts announced the release of ¡Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of ¡Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour.
2010–present
In 2010 Ginger joined as the guitarist for former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe, who played the Download Festival on 12 June 2010. Ginger also performed as a solo act at the festival. Only Wildhearts songs were performed, as was the case for the Ginger & Friends December 2010 tour of the UK. The Michael Monroe album Sensory Overdrive, featuring Ginger, was released in 2011.
In December 2010, Ginger stated that he was unsure if the Wildhearts would ever reform. It would appear that the departure of Scott Sorry and retirement of Ritch Battersby led to the hiatus. Following this particularly with his renewed solo career, Ginger publicly stated a number of times on Formspring that he had absolutely no desire to revisit the Wildhearts and considered that period of his life over. Despite this, Ginger announced in August 2012 that the most recent Wildhearts line-up will reform for a one-off appearance in December. The Wildhearts' songs "Geordie in Wonderland" and "Dreaming in A" appeared in the 2012 UK feature film Life Just Is.
On 10 December 2012, it was announced that Scott Sorry had left the Wildhearts due to family commitments. He was replaced by former bassist Jon Poole for the December 2012 reunion show. The band went on to play a number of shows in early 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Earth vs the Wildhearts. Such was the anniversary tour's success that a second leg took place in June of the same year. The Nottingham Rock City performance would subsequently be released as the 2014 live album Rock City vs The Wildhearts. Another UK tour took place in April 2014, this time with Scott Sorry back on bass. 2015 saw the 20th Anniversary of the release of P.H.U.Q. and another tour, this time with Jon Poole on bass duties.
Prior to their Christmas tour in 2016 (supported by Dirt Box Disco, Danny's new band the Main Grains and JAW$ featuring Ginger's son) Ginger stated in an interview that the band would be recording a new album in 2017. Proceeds from the album went towards assisting Danny's recuperation after the amputation of his lower right leg.
In August 2018 the band announced it would be touring to celebrate 25 years of the Earth vs the Wildhearts album, in which the album would be played in full at each shows. The lineup for this tour included Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack, and Ritch Battersby. In early January 2019 the band announced the recording of a new album had been completed with mixing to follow. The album Renaissance Men was released on 3 May 2019. The album 21st Century Love Songs was released on 3 September 2021.
Members
Current
Ginger - vocals, guitar (1989–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
CJ - guitar, vocals (1989–1994, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Ritch Battersby - drums (1993–1997, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Danny McCormack - bass, vocals (1991–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002–2003, 2005, 2018–present)
Former
Andrew "Stidi" Stidolph - drums (1989–1990, 1992–1993, 2001–2004)
Jools Dean - bass (1989–1991)
Stuart "Snake" Neale - vocals (1989–1990, 1990–1991; died 2006)
Pat Walters - drums (1990–1991)
Dunken F. Mullett - vocals (1990)
Bam - drums (1991–1992)
Willie Dowling - keyboards, piano (1994)
Devin Townsend - guitar, vocals (1994)
Mark Keds - guitar, vocals (1995)
Jef Streatfield - guitar, vocals (1995–1997, 1998, 1999)
Toshi - bass (2001)
Simon Gonk - drums (2001)
Jon Poole - bass (2003–2004, 2012–2013, 2014–2017)
Scott Sorry - bass (2006–2009, 2014)
Formations
Timeline
Discography
Earth vs the Wildhearts (1993)
P.H.U.Q. (1995)
Fishing for Luckies (1996)
Endless, Nameless (1997)
The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed (2003)
The Wildhearts (2007)
Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1. (2008)
¡Chutzpah! (2009)
Renaissance Men (2019)
21st Century Love Songs (2021)
References
External links
Official website
Official Facebook page
[ The Wildhearts: Biography] on AllMusic
FiveMilesHigh Rock n' Roll Resource Wildhearts Section
Interview with Ginger of The Wildhearts by FREE! Magazine
English rock music groups
Musical groups from Newcastle upon Tyne
Musical groups established in 1989
Kerrang! Awards winners
People from South Shields
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[
"Stormy In The North, Karma In The South is the title of a single released by The Wildhearts.\n\nTrack listing\nDisc 1:\nStormy In The North, Karma In The South\nBang!\nIf I Decide\n\nDisc 2:\nStormy In The North, Karma In The South\nYou Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want, But You Got to Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through\nMove On\n\nThere was also a DVD released detailing how the video was made, but the video itself was not featured on the DVD.\n\nReferences\n\nThe Wildhearts songs\n2003 songs",
"Earth vs the Wildhearts is the debut studio album by British rock band The Wildhearts, released in 1993. The title is based on such B-movie titles as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and Earth vs. the Spider.\n\nThe album has been reissued twice: first in 1994 with the addition of the formerly single-only track \"Caffeine Bomb\", and again in 2010 with several B-sides from the period.\n\nRecording\nMick Ronson contributed one of the three guitar solos on \"My Baby Is a Headfuck\". This is believed to be Ronson's final appearance on record before his death on 29 April 1993. \"We had the song 'My Baby Is a Headfuck' and it wasn't that great,\" recalled Ginger, \"but we thought, 'If we can get Ronson to play a solo on it, then it'll work'… And Ronson wasn't around for very long, but I take solace in that it was the last of his recordings you got to hear… We got him to do one more take of the song because we didn't want him to stop playing. He nailed it the first time; we just wanted to listen to him.\"\n\nSarah Cutts and Stevie Lange guested on the album at the request of the band, who wished to have a member of Cardiacs and the woman who sang the jingle for the 1990s Bodyform advert.\n\nThe breakdown on \"My Baby Is a Headfuck\" uses the riff from the Beatles' \"Day Tripper\".\n\nReception and legacy\n\nEarth vs the Wildhearts was voted the best album of 1993 by Kerrang! magazine in their yearly poll. In 2006, Kerrang! rated it #20 in a special publication of the best Rock Albums. Billy Morrison of Camp Freddy and Circus Diablo states that Earth vs the Wildhearts is one of his favourite albums of all time.\n\nOn the 15th anniversary of the album's release, in 2008, the Wildhearts toured, playing the original version of the album in its entirety. On its 20th anniversary, in 2013, the Wildhearts reformed for a tour in which the original version of the album was played in its entirety nightly, followed by a second set of songs chosen by the audience. One of the gigs on that tour, at Rock City in Nottingham, was recorded for the 2014 live album, Rock City vs The Wildhearts. In 2018, the band went on a short tour playing the album in full, for its 25th anniversary.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nCredits adapted from liner notes.\n\nThe Wildhearts\n Ginger – vocals, guitar\n C. J. – guitar, vocals\n Danny McCormack – bass\n Stidi – drums\n\nAdditional musicians\n Willie Dowling – piano, keyboards\n Ritch Battersby – drums on \"Caffeine Bomb\"\n Stevie Lange – backing vocals on \"Loveshit\"\n Mick Ronson – guitar solo on \"My Baby Is a Headfuck\"\n Sarah Smith – saxophone on \"Greetings from Shitsville\"\n\nProduction\n The Wildhearts – production\n Mike \"Spike\" Drake – mixing, production\n Ted Jensen – mastering\n KK – engineering\n Mark Dodson – engineering, mixing and production on \"Suckerpunch\"\n Simon Efemey – production on \"Caffeine Bomb\"\n Ian Huffam – engineering on \"Suckerpunch\"\n\nReferences\n\nAllmusic, [ The Wildhearts: Biography], retrieved 9 November 2008.\n\nDarren Stockford, DO ANYTHING: The Life and Times of the Wildhearts, retrieved 9 November 2008.\n\nThe Wildhearts albums\n1993 albums\nEast West Records albums\nBronze Records albums"
] |
[
"The Wildhearts",
"2007-2010",
"What is the Wildhearts?",
"In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts."
] |
C_d090a162df674f26b8450ff1bb290610_1
|
When was it released?
| 2 |
When was the album The Wildhearts released?
|
The Wildhearts
|
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour. The band ended up playing multiple sold-out dates in New York, one of which was aboard a ferry. The band made up to their American fans for postponed gigs by playing very long sets of approximately two hours each night. An extensive UK tour followed in April and May. "The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror. On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992-1996 era at East West Records. The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, !Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival. On 25 November 2009 The Wildhearts announced the release of !Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of !Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour. However, this news caused something of a backlash from some fans, and resulted in band leader Ginger advocating the distribution of tracks via file sharing technology, as well as vowing that the album would be made available at future shows beyond the Xmess tour. The mini-album is now also available via the Wildhearts online store. CANNOTANSWER
|
The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song".
|
The Wildhearts are an English rock band, formed in 1989 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as the Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica. The Wildhearts achieved several top 20 singles and two top 10 albums in Britain, though they also faced difficulties with record companies and many internal problems often relating to drugs and depression. Much of the band's early career was affected by bitter feuds with their record company, East West.
Throughout the band's history, members have regularly been replaced, with the only constant member being the band's founder, singer and guitarist Ginger. Several band members have appeared in the line-up more than once. The band has also been split up or placed on hiatus by Ginger multiple times. In the 2010s, the band convened occasionally for various anniversary tours. A 2018 anniversary tour by the band's 1995 lineup led to a return to the studio. They released a new album in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus. Their most recent album, 21st Century Love Songs, was released in September 2021.
History
Early years
The Wildhearts formed in late 1989, after Ginger was sacked from the Quireboys. Throughout the band's career, Ginger has written almost all the songs himself.
Initially called the Wild Hearts, the band originally included singers Snake (ex-Tobruk) and Dunken F. Mullett (ex-Mournblade), who both joined for short periods. Nine demos were recorded in 1989 and 1990 with Snake singing on four and Dunken on five. These demos remain unreleased and displayed a sound resembling Guns N' Roses, with the Wildhearts sound still to be developed.
After many early personnel changes, the line-up solidified around Ginger on guitar and vocals, CJ (Christopher Jagdhar) on guitar and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Dogs D'Amour drummer Bam. This line-up released two EPs in 1992, Mondo Akimbo a-Go-Go and Don’t Be Happy…Just Worry.
First album
In 1992, drummer Bam returned to Dogs D'Amour and was replaced by Stidi (Andrew Stidolph). To follow up their first two EPs, the Wildhearts recorded demos for their first full-length album, which were released as Earth vs the Wildhearts without re-recording. The singles "Greetings From Shitsville" and "TV Tan" were underground hits in 1993. Stidi left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by Ritch Battersby, just in time for the recording of the single "Caffeine Bomb", a UK chart hit at the beginning of 1994, helped by a memorable video in which Ginger appeared to vomit into CJ's face. The band appeared on Top of the Pops with Ginger wearing green welding goggles. The debut album was reissued in late 1994 with "Caffeine Bomb" tacked on as an extra track.
Follow-up
The Wildhearts next planned a double album, but East West vetoed this plan during the recording sessions. Instead the band released a collection of six of the more eclectic tracks on a fan club-only release entitled Fishing for Luckies in early 1995. This EP, which would be re-released in 1996 with more studio outtakes as Fishing for More Luckies, included the notable track "Geordie In Wonderland". Ginger offered this track to Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United F.C. as a potential team anthem, but was graciously turned down. The track was performed on Top of the Pops with Wolfsbane's Jeff Hateley, painted in Toon Army colours, on mandolin. Other noteworthy tracks included "If Life Is Like A Lovebank, I Want An Overdraft", also released as a single, and the 11:24 epic "Sky Babies."
The second album proper was to be known as P.H.U.Q.. Midway through the recording sessions, Ginger fired guitarist CJ, and some of the album's tracks were recorded without a second guitarist. P.H.U.Q. was released in May 1995 and reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's most successful album. Shortly after the album's release, Mark Keds of Senseless Things was drafted as second guitarist, but lasted just one recording session, in which he appeared on the B-sides for the single "Just in Lust". Within a few weeks Keds was sacked after disappearing to Japan for a farewell tour with his old band. The Wildhearts were again down to a three-piece (Ginger, McCormack, and Battersby) for a few months, and performed a few gigs in this incarnation. The band resolved to return to a two-guitar formation, and after requesting demos and holding auditions, hired the previously unknown Jef Streatfield.
Round Records era
In early 1996, the Wildhearts claimed to have recorded two new studio albums, which would be released via East West on the band's own record label, Round Records. Only some of the songs saw the light of day, in a revamped version of the previously fan club-only EP Fishing for Luckies with eight new tracks bringing it to full album length. An additional album of new material was never quite finished, although leaked copies were distributed as the Shitty Fuckin' Stupid Tracks bootleg. These rare tracks were officially released by East West in 1998 as part of the Landmines and Pantomimes rarities compilation.
Endless, Nameless era
In 1997 the band signed to Mushroom Records, and set about making another album. This album abandoned the band's former pop rock leanings in favor of a more distorted and less commercial sound.
In November 1997, shortly before the release of Endless, Nameless, Ginger decided to split the band. The band toured Japan but cancelled a scheduled British tour.
Multi-formatting and singles
Starting in 1997 the Wildhearts began to release multiple formats of singles.The band released the two singles from the album Endless, Nameless in multiple formats, including two CD singles with two B-sides on each, and a 7" single with one B-side, with all the songs from the "Anthem" single being cover versions.
The band have continued to multi-format since 1997, in particular with "Top of the World" in 2003, consisting of three CD singles, two with two B-sides and one with one B-side and the video for the song. The band have also continued to specifically re-enter the studio to record brand new songs for B-sides. During the band's reformation in the 2001–2004 period, they amassed enough B-sides for Gut Records to release a full-length album consisting only of B-sides, Coupled With.
Hiatus 1997–2001
During the 1997–2001 period the band members concentrated on their respective side projects, although the most recent line-up of Ginger, McCormack, Ritch Battersby, and Jef Streatfield reformed a few times for one-off gigs.
Reformation
In early 2001 Ginger announced that he was reforming the Earth vs the Wildhearts lineup of the band for a tour later that year. This lineup (consisting of Ginger and CJ on guitars and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Stidi on drums) soon ran into difficulty due to McCormack's battle against heroin addiction, and on several dates of the comeback tour Toshi (from support band AntiProduct) stood in as bassist. By 2002 McCormack was once again clean and the band started recording a new mini-album and also toured the UK. The tracks intended for the album were released in the UK in late 2002 across three formats of the "Vanilla Radio" single, and as the mini-album Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff in Japan. "Vanilla Radio" reached the top 30 in the UK singles chart, and in early 2003 work began on a full-length album. However, during recording, McCormack checked himself into a rehabilitation center to deal with an alcohol problem, leaving Ginger to play the bass parts on the songs that were newly recorded for the album. McCormack's place in the live band was filled by "Random" Jon Poole, who had already worked with Ginger on his Silver Ginger 5 side project.
The album The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, released in 2003, had a very commercial sound, full of short simple pop songs with little of the heavier rock style which often featured on previous albums. The band signed a US record deal with Gearhead Records, which released Riff After Riff in 2004, a compilation of songs from the UK post-reformation singles (all of the songs from this release are also found on the Gut Records compilation Coupled With). Riff After Riff was the Wildhearts' first US release since Earth vs the Wildhearts in 1994. The release was also promoted by a tour, mostly as the support band for their ex-support band, the Darkness.
Then in early 2005, Ginger dissolved the Wildhearts again, citing a mixture of his own personal problems and a lack of commitment within the band. He briefly joined the Brides of Destruction before setting out on his own as a full-time solo artist. Ginger then reformed the Wildhearts once again for a one-off gig at Scarborough Castle (Rock in the Castle) in September 2005. The 1994–1995 line-up of Ginger, C.J., McCormack, and Ritch Battersby played at this gig.
Once again, the Wildhearts reformed in December 2006 and played a single live show at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. This line-up saw Ginger joined again by C.J., Ritch Battersby and a new bassist, Scott Sorry (ex-Amen). This line-up soon became official, with plans made for a new album in 2007.
2007–2010
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band performed in New York, and toured the UK in April and May.
"The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror.
On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992–1996 era at East West Records.
The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, ¡Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival.
On 25 November 2009 the Wildhearts announced the release of ¡Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of ¡Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour.
2010–present
In 2010 Ginger joined as the guitarist for former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe, who played the Download Festival on 12 June 2010. Ginger also performed as a solo act at the festival. Only Wildhearts songs were performed, as was the case for the Ginger & Friends December 2010 tour of the UK. The Michael Monroe album Sensory Overdrive, featuring Ginger, was released in 2011.
In December 2010, Ginger stated that he was unsure if the Wildhearts would ever reform. It would appear that the departure of Scott Sorry and retirement of Ritch Battersby led to the hiatus. Following this particularly with his renewed solo career, Ginger publicly stated a number of times on Formspring that he had absolutely no desire to revisit the Wildhearts and considered that period of his life over. Despite this, Ginger announced in August 2012 that the most recent Wildhearts line-up will reform for a one-off appearance in December. The Wildhearts' songs "Geordie in Wonderland" and "Dreaming in A" appeared in the 2012 UK feature film Life Just Is.
On 10 December 2012, it was announced that Scott Sorry had left the Wildhearts due to family commitments. He was replaced by former bassist Jon Poole for the December 2012 reunion show. The band went on to play a number of shows in early 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Earth vs the Wildhearts. Such was the anniversary tour's success that a second leg took place in June of the same year. The Nottingham Rock City performance would subsequently be released as the 2014 live album Rock City vs The Wildhearts. Another UK tour took place in April 2014, this time with Scott Sorry back on bass. 2015 saw the 20th Anniversary of the release of P.H.U.Q. and another tour, this time with Jon Poole on bass duties.
Prior to their Christmas tour in 2016 (supported by Dirt Box Disco, Danny's new band the Main Grains and JAW$ featuring Ginger's son) Ginger stated in an interview that the band would be recording a new album in 2017. Proceeds from the album went towards assisting Danny's recuperation after the amputation of his lower right leg.
In August 2018 the band announced it would be touring to celebrate 25 years of the Earth vs the Wildhearts album, in which the album would be played in full at each shows. The lineup for this tour included Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack, and Ritch Battersby. In early January 2019 the band announced the recording of a new album had been completed with mixing to follow. The album Renaissance Men was released on 3 May 2019. The album 21st Century Love Songs was released on 3 September 2021.
Members
Current
Ginger - vocals, guitar (1989–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
CJ - guitar, vocals (1989–1994, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Ritch Battersby - drums (1993–1997, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Danny McCormack - bass, vocals (1991–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002–2003, 2005, 2018–present)
Former
Andrew "Stidi" Stidolph - drums (1989–1990, 1992–1993, 2001–2004)
Jools Dean - bass (1989–1991)
Stuart "Snake" Neale - vocals (1989–1990, 1990–1991; died 2006)
Pat Walters - drums (1990–1991)
Dunken F. Mullett - vocals (1990)
Bam - drums (1991–1992)
Willie Dowling - keyboards, piano (1994)
Devin Townsend - guitar, vocals (1994)
Mark Keds - guitar, vocals (1995)
Jef Streatfield - guitar, vocals (1995–1997, 1998, 1999)
Toshi - bass (2001)
Simon Gonk - drums (2001)
Jon Poole - bass (2003–2004, 2012–2013, 2014–2017)
Scott Sorry - bass (2006–2009, 2014)
Formations
Timeline
Discography
Earth vs the Wildhearts (1993)
P.H.U.Q. (1995)
Fishing for Luckies (1996)
Endless, Nameless (1997)
The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed (2003)
The Wildhearts (2007)
Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1. (2008)
¡Chutzpah! (2009)
Renaissance Men (2019)
21st Century Love Songs (2021)
References
External links
Official website
Official Facebook page
[ The Wildhearts: Biography] on AllMusic
FiveMilesHigh Rock n' Roll Resource Wildhearts Section
Interview with Ginger of The Wildhearts by FREE! Magazine
English rock music groups
Musical groups from Newcastle upon Tyne
Musical groups established in 1989
Kerrang! Awards winners
People from South Shields
| true |
[
"When the Bough Breaks is the second solo album from Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward. It was originally released on April 27, 1997, on Cleopatra Records.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Hate\" – 5:00\n\"Children Killing Children\" – 3:51\n\"Growth\" – 5:45\n\"When I was a Child\" – 4:54\n\"Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)\" – 6:40\n\"Shine\" – 5:06\n\"Step Lightly (On the Grass)\" – 5:59\n\"Love & Innocence\" – 1:00\n\"Animals\" – 6:32\n\"Nighthawks Stars & Pines\" – 6:45\n\"Try Life\" – 5:35\n\"When the Bough Breaks\" – 9:45\n\nCD Cleopatra CL9981 (US 1997)\n\nMusicians\n\nBill Ward - vocals, lyrics, musical arrangements\nKeith Lynch - guitars\nPaul Ill - bass, double bass, synthesizer, tape loops\nRonnie Ciago - drums\n\nCover art and reprint issues\n\nAs originally released, this album featured cover art that had two roses on it. After it was released, Bill Ward (as with Ward One, his first solo album) stated on his website that the released cover art was not the correct one that was intended to be released. Additionally, the liner notes for the original printing had lyrics that were so small, most people needed a magnifying glass to read them. This was eventually corrected in 2000 when the version of the album with Bill on the cover from the 70's was released. The album was later on released in a special digipak style of case, but this was later said to be released prematurely, and was withdrawn.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWhen the Bough Breaks at Bill Ward's site\nWhen the Bough Breaks at Black Sabbath Online\n\nBill Ward (musician) albums\nBlack Sabbath\n1997 albums\nCleopatra Records albums",
"Joseph Jin Dechen (; June 19, 1919 – November 21, 2002) was a Chinese Catholic priest and Bishop Emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nanyang.\n\nBiography\nHe was ordained a priest in 1944. In 1958, he was arrested for the first time and sentenced to life in prison. This sentence was settled and he was released in 1973. In December 1981, when he was Bishop Emeritus in Roman Catholic Diocese of Nanyang, he was again arrested, charged with resistance to abortion and birth control, and was sentenced to 15 years of prison and five years of subsequent loss of political rights on July 27, 1982. He was detained in the Third Province Prison in Yu County (now Yuzhou), near Zhengzhou in Henan, and was pardoned and released in May 1992 and ordered to stay in his village Jinjiajiang, near Nanyang. He was out of weakness when he was released from prison.\n\nReferences\n\n1919 births\n2002 deaths\n20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in China"
] |
[
"The Wildhearts",
"2007-2010",
"What is the Wildhearts?",
"In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts.",
"When was it released?",
"The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single \"The Sweetest Song\"."
] |
C_d090a162df674f26b8450ff1bb290610_1
|
How did the album do on the charts?
| 3 |
How did the album The Wildhearts do on the charts?
|
The Wildhearts
|
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour. The band ended up playing multiple sold-out dates in New York, one of which was aboard a ferry. The band made up to their American fans for postponed gigs by playing very long sets of approximately two hours each night. An extensive UK tour followed in April and May. "The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror. On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992-1996 era at East West Records. The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, !Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival. On 25 November 2009 The Wildhearts announced the release of !Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of !Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour. However, this news caused something of a backlash from some fans, and resulted in band leader Ginger advocating the distribution of tracks via file sharing technology, as well as vowing that the album would be made available at future shows beyond the Xmess tour. The mini-album is now also available via the Wildhearts online store. CANNOTANSWER
|
The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press,
|
The Wildhearts are an English rock band, formed in 1989 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as the Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica. The Wildhearts achieved several top 20 singles and two top 10 albums in Britain, though they also faced difficulties with record companies and many internal problems often relating to drugs and depression. Much of the band's early career was affected by bitter feuds with their record company, East West.
Throughout the band's history, members have regularly been replaced, with the only constant member being the band's founder, singer and guitarist Ginger. Several band members have appeared in the line-up more than once. The band has also been split up or placed on hiatus by Ginger multiple times. In the 2010s, the band convened occasionally for various anniversary tours. A 2018 anniversary tour by the band's 1995 lineup led to a return to the studio. They released a new album in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus. Their most recent album, 21st Century Love Songs, was released in September 2021.
History
Early years
The Wildhearts formed in late 1989, after Ginger was sacked from the Quireboys. Throughout the band's career, Ginger has written almost all the songs himself.
Initially called the Wild Hearts, the band originally included singers Snake (ex-Tobruk) and Dunken F. Mullett (ex-Mournblade), who both joined for short periods. Nine demos were recorded in 1989 and 1990 with Snake singing on four and Dunken on five. These demos remain unreleased and displayed a sound resembling Guns N' Roses, with the Wildhearts sound still to be developed.
After many early personnel changes, the line-up solidified around Ginger on guitar and vocals, CJ (Christopher Jagdhar) on guitar and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Dogs D'Amour drummer Bam. This line-up released two EPs in 1992, Mondo Akimbo a-Go-Go and Don’t Be Happy…Just Worry.
First album
In 1992, drummer Bam returned to Dogs D'Amour and was replaced by Stidi (Andrew Stidolph). To follow up their first two EPs, the Wildhearts recorded demos for their first full-length album, which were released as Earth vs the Wildhearts without re-recording. The singles "Greetings From Shitsville" and "TV Tan" were underground hits in 1993. Stidi left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by Ritch Battersby, just in time for the recording of the single "Caffeine Bomb", a UK chart hit at the beginning of 1994, helped by a memorable video in which Ginger appeared to vomit into CJ's face. The band appeared on Top of the Pops with Ginger wearing green welding goggles. The debut album was reissued in late 1994 with "Caffeine Bomb" tacked on as an extra track.
Follow-up
The Wildhearts next planned a double album, but East West vetoed this plan during the recording sessions. Instead the band released a collection of six of the more eclectic tracks on a fan club-only release entitled Fishing for Luckies in early 1995. This EP, which would be re-released in 1996 with more studio outtakes as Fishing for More Luckies, included the notable track "Geordie In Wonderland". Ginger offered this track to Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United F.C. as a potential team anthem, but was graciously turned down. The track was performed on Top of the Pops with Wolfsbane's Jeff Hateley, painted in Toon Army colours, on mandolin. Other noteworthy tracks included "If Life Is Like A Lovebank, I Want An Overdraft", also released as a single, and the 11:24 epic "Sky Babies."
The second album proper was to be known as P.H.U.Q.. Midway through the recording sessions, Ginger fired guitarist CJ, and some of the album's tracks were recorded without a second guitarist. P.H.U.Q. was released in May 1995 and reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's most successful album. Shortly after the album's release, Mark Keds of Senseless Things was drafted as second guitarist, but lasted just one recording session, in which he appeared on the B-sides for the single "Just in Lust". Within a few weeks Keds was sacked after disappearing to Japan for a farewell tour with his old band. The Wildhearts were again down to a three-piece (Ginger, McCormack, and Battersby) for a few months, and performed a few gigs in this incarnation. The band resolved to return to a two-guitar formation, and after requesting demos and holding auditions, hired the previously unknown Jef Streatfield.
Round Records era
In early 1996, the Wildhearts claimed to have recorded two new studio albums, which would be released via East West on the band's own record label, Round Records. Only some of the songs saw the light of day, in a revamped version of the previously fan club-only EP Fishing for Luckies with eight new tracks bringing it to full album length. An additional album of new material was never quite finished, although leaked copies were distributed as the Shitty Fuckin' Stupid Tracks bootleg. These rare tracks were officially released by East West in 1998 as part of the Landmines and Pantomimes rarities compilation.
Endless, Nameless era
In 1997 the band signed to Mushroom Records, and set about making another album. This album abandoned the band's former pop rock leanings in favor of a more distorted and less commercial sound.
In November 1997, shortly before the release of Endless, Nameless, Ginger decided to split the band. The band toured Japan but cancelled a scheduled British tour.
Multi-formatting and singles
Starting in 1997 the Wildhearts began to release multiple formats of singles.The band released the two singles from the album Endless, Nameless in multiple formats, including two CD singles with two B-sides on each, and a 7" single with one B-side, with all the songs from the "Anthem" single being cover versions.
The band have continued to multi-format since 1997, in particular with "Top of the World" in 2003, consisting of three CD singles, two with two B-sides and one with one B-side and the video for the song. The band have also continued to specifically re-enter the studio to record brand new songs for B-sides. During the band's reformation in the 2001–2004 period, they amassed enough B-sides for Gut Records to release a full-length album consisting only of B-sides, Coupled With.
Hiatus 1997–2001
During the 1997–2001 period the band members concentrated on their respective side projects, although the most recent line-up of Ginger, McCormack, Ritch Battersby, and Jef Streatfield reformed a few times for one-off gigs.
Reformation
In early 2001 Ginger announced that he was reforming the Earth vs the Wildhearts lineup of the band for a tour later that year. This lineup (consisting of Ginger and CJ on guitars and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Stidi on drums) soon ran into difficulty due to McCormack's battle against heroin addiction, and on several dates of the comeback tour Toshi (from support band AntiProduct) stood in as bassist. By 2002 McCormack was once again clean and the band started recording a new mini-album and also toured the UK. The tracks intended for the album were released in the UK in late 2002 across three formats of the "Vanilla Radio" single, and as the mini-album Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff in Japan. "Vanilla Radio" reached the top 30 in the UK singles chart, and in early 2003 work began on a full-length album. However, during recording, McCormack checked himself into a rehabilitation center to deal with an alcohol problem, leaving Ginger to play the bass parts on the songs that were newly recorded for the album. McCormack's place in the live band was filled by "Random" Jon Poole, who had already worked with Ginger on his Silver Ginger 5 side project.
The album The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, released in 2003, had a very commercial sound, full of short simple pop songs with little of the heavier rock style which often featured on previous albums. The band signed a US record deal with Gearhead Records, which released Riff After Riff in 2004, a compilation of songs from the UK post-reformation singles (all of the songs from this release are also found on the Gut Records compilation Coupled With). Riff After Riff was the Wildhearts' first US release since Earth vs the Wildhearts in 1994. The release was also promoted by a tour, mostly as the support band for their ex-support band, the Darkness.
Then in early 2005, Ginger dissolved the Wildhearts again, citing a mixture of his own personal problems and a lack of commitment within the band. He briefly joined the Brides of Destruction before setting out on his own as a full-time solo artist. Ginger then reformed the Wildhearts once again for a one-off gig at Scarborough Castle (Rock in the Castle) in September 2005. The 1994–1995 line-up of Ginger, C.J., McCormack, and Ritch Battersby played at this gig.
Once again, the Wildhearts reformed in December 2006 and played a single live show at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. This line-up saw Ginger joined again by C.J., Ritch Battersby and a new bassist, Scott Sorry (ex-Amen). This line-up soon became official, with plans made for a new album in 2007.
2007–2010
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band performed in New York, and toured the UK in April and May.
"The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror.
On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992–1996 era at East West Records.
The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, ¡Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival.
On 25 November 2009 the Wildhearts announced the release of ¡Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of ¡Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour.
2010–present
In 2010 Ginger joined as the guitarist for former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe, who played the Download Festival on 12 June 2010. Ginger also performed as a solo act at the festival. Only Wildhearts songs were performed, as was the case for the Ginger & Friends December 2010 tour of the UK. The Michael Monroe album Sensory Overdrive, featuring Ginger, was released in 2011.
In December 2010, Ginger stated that he was unsure if the Wildhearts would ever reform. It would appear that the departure of Scott Sorry and retirement of Ritch Battersby led to the hiatus. Following this particularly with his renewed solo career, Ginger publicly stated a number of times on Formspring that he had absolutely no desire to revisit the Wildhearts and considered that period of his life over. Despite this, Ginger announced in August 2012 that the most recent Wildhearts line-up will reform for a one-off appearance in December. The Wildhearts' songs "Geordie in Wonderland" and "Dreaming in A" appeared in the 2012 UK feature film Life Just Is.
On 10 December 2012, it was announced that Scott Sorry had left the Wildhearts due to family commitments. He was replaced by former bassist Jon Poole for the December 2012 reunion show. The band went on to play a number of shows in early 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Earth vs the Wildhearts. Such was the anniversary tour's success that a second leg took place in June of the same year. The Nottingham Rock City performance would subsequently be released as the 2014 live album Rock City vs The Wildhearts. Another UK tour took place in April 2014, this time with Scott Sorry back on bass. 2015 saw the 20th Anniversary of the release of P.H.U.Q. and another tour, this time with Jon Poole on bass duties.
Prior to their Christmas tour in 2016 (supported by Dirt Box Disco, Danny's new band the Main Grains and JAW$ featuring Ginger's son) Ginger stated in an interview that the band would be recording a new album in 2017. Proceeds from the album went towards assisting Danny's recuperation after the amputation of his lower right leg.
In August 2018 the band announced it would be touring to celebrate 25 years of the Earth vs the Wildhearts album, in which the album would be played in full at each shows. The lineup for this tour included Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack, and Ritch Battersby. In early January 2019 the band announced the recording of a new album had been completed with mixing to follow. The album Renaissance Men was released on 3 May 2019. The album 21st Century Love Songs was released on 3 September 2021.
Members
Current
Ginger - vocals, guitar (1989–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
CJ - guitar, vocals (1989–1994, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Ritch Battersby - drums (1993–1997, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Danny McCormack - bass, vocals (1991–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002–2003, 2005, 2018–present)
Former
Andrew "Stidi" Stidolph - drums (1989–1990, 1992–1993, 2001–2004)
Jools Dean - bass (1989–1991)
Stuart "Snake" Neale - vocals (1989–1990, 1990–1991; died 2006)
Pat Walters - drums (1990–1991)
Dunken F. Mullett - vocals (1990)
Bam - drums (1991–1992)
Willie Dowling - keyboards, piano (1994)
Devin Townsend - guitar, vocals (1994)
Mark Keds - guitar, vocals (1995)
Jef Streatfield - guitar, vocals (1995–1997, 1998, 1999)
Toshi - bass (2001)
Simon Gonk - drums (2001)
Jon Poole - bass (2003–2004, 2012–2013, 2014–2017)
Scott Sorry - bass (2006–2009, 2014)
Formations
Timeline
Discography
Earth vs the Wildhearts (1993)
P.H.U.Q. (1995)
Fishing for Luckies (1996)
Endless, Nameless (1997)
The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed (2003)
The Wildhearts (2007)
Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1. (2008)
¡Chutzpah! (2009)
Renaissance Men (2019)
21st Century Love Songs (2021)
References
External links
Official website
Official Facebook page
[ The Wildhearts: Biography] on AllMusic
FiveMilesHigh Rock n' Roll Resource Wildhearts Section
Interview with Ginger of The Wildhearts by FREE! Magazine
English rock music groups
Musical groups from Newcastle upon Tyne
Musical groups established in 1989
Kerrang! Awards winners
People from South Shields
| true |
[
"This Is How We Do It is the debut studio album by Montell Jordan. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified platinum. The album also featured the single \"This Is How We Do It\", which made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and #1 on the Rhythmic Top 40. Another single, \"Somethin' 4 da Honeyz\", peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #18 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nMontell Jordan albums\n1995 debut albums\nDef Jam Recordings albums",
"\"Roll On\" is a song by British girl group Mis-Teeq. Produced by Blacksmith, it was recorded for the band's debut album, Lickin' on Both Sides (2001). The song was released on a double A-single along with a cover version of Montell Jordan's \"This Is How We Do It\" on 17 June 2002, marking the album's final single. Upon its release, it became another top-10 success for the band on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number seven.\n\nMusic video\nInstead of filming two separate music videos for the double A-side single, one music video was filmed combining both songs. The video opens with \"Roll On\", starting with a group of men playing basketball in a court. The three members of Mis-Teeq (Alesha Dixon, Su-Elise Nash and Sabrina Washington) arrive in a lowrider and watch the men play basketball, and occasionally join in. Then it changes to dusk and cuts to the single \"This Is How We Do It\". The music video was filmed in various parts of Los Angeles, California in the US.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUK CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" / \"This Is How We Do It\" (video)\n\nUK cassette single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich radio mix)\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit) – 3:45\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit) – 3:27\n\nAustralian CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich radio mix)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" (Blacksmith Olde Skool mix)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Mayfair club rub)\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich club mix)\n\nCharts\nAll entries charted with \"This Is How We Do It\" except where noted.\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 songs\n2002 singles\nMis-Teeq songs\nTelstar Records singles"
] |
[
"The Wildhearts",
"2007-2010",
"What is the Wildhearts?",
"In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts.",
"When was it released?",
"The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single \"The Sweetest Song\".",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press,"
] |
C_d090a162df674f26b8450ff1bb290610_1
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 4 |
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article about The Wildhearts other than their positive reviews?
|
The Wildhearts
|
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour. The band ended up playing multiple sold-out dates in New York, one of which was aboard a ferry. The band made up to their American fans for postponed gigs by playing very long sets of approximately two hours each night. An extensive UK tour followed in April and May. "The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror. On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992-1996 era at East West Records. The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, !Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival. On 25 November 2009 The Wildhearts announced the release of !Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of !Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour. However, this news caused something of a backlash from some fans, and resulted in band leader Ginger advocating the distribution of tracks via file sharing technology, as well as vowing that the album would be made available at future shows beyond the Xmess tour. The mini-album is now also available via the Wildhearts online store. CANNOTANSWER
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The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour.
|
The Wildhearts are an English rock band, formed in 1989 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as the Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica. The Wildhearts achieved several top 20 singles and two top 10 albums in Britain, though they also faced difficulties with record companies and many internal problems often relating to drugs and depression. Much of the band's early career was affected by bitter feuds with their record company, East West.
Throughout the band's history, members have regularly been replaced, with the only constant member being the band's founder, singer and guitarist Ginger. Several band members have appeared in the line-up more than once. The band has also been split up or placed on hiatus by Ginger multiple times. In the 2010s, the band convened occasionally for various anniversary tours. A 2018 anniversary tour by the band's 1995 lineup led to a return to the studio. They released a new album in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus. Their most recent album, 21st Century Love Songs, was released in September 2021.
History
Early years
The Wildhearts formed in late 1989, after Ginger was sacked from the Quireboys. Throughout the band's career, Ginger has written almost all the songs himself.
Initially called the Wild Hearts, the band originally included singers Snake (ex-Tobruk) and Dunken F. Mullett (ex-Mournblade), who both joined for short periods. Nine demos were recorded in 1989 and 1990 with Snake singing on four and Dunken on five. These demos remain unreleased and displayed a sound resembling Guns N' Roses, with the Wildhearts sound still to be developed.
After many early personnel changes, the line-up solidified around Ginger on guitar and vocals, CJ (Christopher Jagdhar) on guitar and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Dogs D'Amour drummer Bam. This line-up released two EPs in 1992, Mondo Akimbo a-Go-Go and Don’t Be Happy…Just Worry.
First album
In 1992, drummer Bam returned to Dogs D'Amour and was replaced by Stidi (Andrew Stidolph). To follow up their first two EPs, the Wildhearts recorded demos for their first full-length album, which were released as Earth vs the Wildhearts without re-recording. The singles "Greetings From Shitsville" and "TV Tan" were underground hits in 1993. Stidi left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by Ritch Battersby, just in time for the recording of the single "Caffeine Bomb", a UK chart hit at the beginning of 1994, helped by a memorable video in which Ginger appeared to vomit into CJ's face. The band appeared on Top of the Pops with Ginger wearing green welding goggles. The debut album was reissued in late 1994 with "Caffeine Bomb" tacked on as an extra track.
Follow-up
The Wildhearts next planned a double album, but East West vetoed this plan during the recording sessions. Instead the band released a collection of six of the more eclectic tracks on a fan club-only release entitled Fishing for Luckies in early 1995. This EP, which would be re-released in 1996 with more studio outtakes as Fishing for More Luckies, included the notable track "Geordie In Wonderland". Ginger offered this track to Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United F.C. as a potential team anthem, but was graciously turned down. The track was performed on Top of the Pops with Wolfsbane's Jeff Hateley, painted in Toon Army colours, on mandolin. Other noteworthy tracks included "If Life Is Like A Lovebank, I Want An Overdraft", also released as a single, and the 11:24 epic "Sky Babies."
The second album proper was to be known as P.H.U.Q.. Midway through the recording sessions, Ginger fired guitarist CJ, and some of the album's tracks were recorded without a second guitarist. P.H.U.Q. was released in May 1995 and reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's most successful album. Shortly after the album's release, Mark Keds of Senseless Things was drafted as second guitarist, but lasted just one recording session, in which he appeared on the B-sides for the single "Just in Lust". Within a few weeks Keds was sacked after disappearing to Japan for a farewell tour with his old band. The Wildhearts were again down to a three-piece (Ginger, McCormack, and Battersby) for a few months, and performed a few gigs in this incarnation. The band resolved to return to a two-guitar formation, and after requesting demos and holding auditions, hired the previously unknown Jef Streatfield.
Round Records era
In early 1996, the Wildhearts claimed to have recorded two new studio albums, which would be released via East West on the band's own record label, Round Records. Only some of the songs saw the light of day, in a revamped version of the previously fan club-only EP Fishing for Luckies with eight new tracks bringing it to full album length. An additional album of new material was never quite finished, although leaked copies were distributed as the Shitty Fuckin' Stupid Tracks bootleg. These rare tracks were officially released by East West in 1998 as part of the Landmines and Pantomimes rarities compilation.
Endless, Nameless era
In 1997 the band signed to Mushroom Records, and set about making another album. This album abandoned the band's former pop rock leanings in favor of a more distorted and less commercial sound.
In November 1997, shortly before the release of Endless, Nameless, Ginger decided to split the band. The band toured Japan but cancelled a scheduled British tour.
Multi-formatting and singles
Starting in 1997 the Wildhearts began to release multiple formats of singles.The band released the two singles from the album Endless, Nameless in multiple formats, including two CD singles with two B-sides on each, and a 7" single with one B-side, with all the songs from the "Anthem" single being cover versions.
The band have continued to multi-format since 1997, in particular with "Top of the World" in 2003, consisting of three CD singles, two with two B-sides and one with one B-side and the video for the song. The band have also continued to specifically re-enter the studio to record brand new songs for B-sides. During the band's reformation in the 2001–2004 period, they amassed enough B-sides for Gut Records to release a full-length album consisting only of B-sides, Coupled With.
Hiatus 1997–2001
During the 1997–2001 period the band members concentrated on their respective side projects, although the most recent line-up of Ginger, McCormack, Ritch Battersby, and Jef Streatfield reformed a few times for one-off gigs.
Reformation
In early 2001 Ginger announced that he was reforming the Earth vs the Wildhearts lineup of the band for a tour later that year. This lineup (consisting of Ginger and CJ on guitars and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Stidi on drums) soon ran into difficulty due to McCormack's battle against heroin addiction, and on several dates of the comeback tour Toshi (from support band AntiProduct) stood in as bassist. By 2002 McCormack was once again clean and the band started recording a new mini-album and also toured the UK. The tracks intended for the album were released in the UK in late 2002 across three formats of the "Vanilla Radio" single, and as the mini-album Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff in Japan. "Vanilla Radio" reached the top 30 in the UK singles chart, and in early 2003 work began on a full-length album. However, during recording, McCormack checked himself into a rehabilitation center to deal with an alcohol problem, leaving Ginger to play the bass parts on the songs that were newly recorded for the album. McCormack's place in the live band was filled by "Random" Jon Poole, who had already worked with Ginger on his Silver Ginger 5 side project.
The album The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, released in 2003, had a very commercial sound, full of short simple pop songs with little of the heavier rock style which often featured on previous albums. The band signed a US record deal with Gearhead Records, which released Riff After Riff in 2004, a compilation of songs from the UK post-reformation singles (all of the songs from this release are also found on the Gut Records compilation Coupled With). Riff After Riff was the Wildhearts' first US release since Earth vs the Wildhearts in 1994. The release was also promoted by a tour, mostly as the support band for their ex-support band, the Darkness.
Then in early 2005, Ginger dissolved the Wildhearts again, citing a mixture of his own personal problems and a lack of commitment within the band. He briefly joined the Brides of Destruction before setting out on his own as a full-time solo artist. Ginger then reformed the Wildhearts once again for a one-off gig at Scarborough Castle (Rock in the Castle) in September 2005. The 1994–1995 line-up of Ginger, C.J., McCormack, and Ritch Battersby played at this gig.
Once again, the Wildhearts reformed in December 2006 and played a single live show at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. This line-up saw Ginger joined again by C.J., Ritch Battersby and a new bassist, Scott Sorry (ex-Amen). This line-up soon became official, with plans made for a new album in 2007.
2007–2010
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band performed in New York, and toured the UK in April and May.
"The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror.
On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992–1996 era at East West Records.
The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, ¡Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival.
On 25 November 2009 the Wildhearts announced the release of ¡Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of ¡Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour.
2010–present
In 2010 Ginger joined as the guitarist for former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe, who played the Download Festival on 12 June 2010. Ginger also performed as a solo act at the festival. Only Wildhearts songs were performed, as was the case for the Ginger & Friends December 2010 tour of the UK. The Michael Monroe album Sensory Overdrive, featuring Ginger, was released in 2011.
In December 2010, Ginger stated that he was unsure if the Wildhearts would ever reform. It would appear that the departure of Scott Sorry and retirement of Ritch Battersby led to the hiatus. Following this particularly with his renewed solo career, Ginger publicly stated a number of times on Formspring that he had absolutely no desire to revisit the Wildhearts and considered that period of his life over. Despite this, Ginger announced in August 2012 that the most recent Wildhearts line-up will reform for a one-off appearance in December. The Wildhearts' songs "Geordie in Wonderland" and "Dreaming in A" appeared in the 2012 UK feature film Life Just Is.
On 10 December 2012, it was announced that Scott Sorry had left the Wildhearts due to family commitments. He was replaced by former bassist Jon Poole for the December 2012 reunion show. The band went on to play a number of shows in early 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Earth vs the Wildhearts. Such was the anniversary tour's success that a second leg took place in June of the same year. The Nottingham Rock City performance would subsequently be released as the 2014 live album Rock City vs The Wildhearts. Another UK tour took place in April 2014, this time with Scott Sorry back on bass. 2015 saw the 20th Anniversary of the release of P.H.U.Q. and another tour, this time with Jon Poole on bass duties.
Prior to their Christmas tour in 2016 (supported by Dirt Box Disco, Danny's new band the Main Grains and JAW$ featuring Ginger's son) Ginger stated in an interview that the band would be recording a new album in 2017. Proceeds from the album went towards assisting Danny's recuperation after the amputation of his lower right leg.
In August 2018 the band announced it would be touring to celebrate 25 years of the Earth vs the Wildhearts album, in which the album would be played in full at each shows. The lineup for this tour included Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack, and Ritch Battersby. In early January 2019 the band announced the recording of a new album had been completed with mixing to follow. The album Renaissance Men was released on 3 May 2019. The album 21st Century Love Songs was released on 3 September 2021.
Members
Current
Ginger - vocals, guitar (1989–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
CJ - guitar, vocals (1989–1994, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Ritch Battersby - drums (1993–1997, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Danny McCormack - bass, vocals (1991–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002–2003, 2005, 2018–present)
Former
Andrew "Stidi" Stidolph - drums (1989–1990, 1992–1993, 2001–2004)
Jools Dean - bass (1989–1991)
Stuart "Snake" Neale - vocals (1989–1990, 1990–1991; died 2006)
Pat Walters - drums (1990–1991)
Dunken F. Mullett - vocals (1990)
Bam - drums (1991–1992)
Willie Dowling - keyboards, piano (1994)
Devin Townsend - guitar, vocals (1994)
Mark Keds - guitar, vocals (1995)
Jef Streatfield - guitar, vocals (1995–1997, 1998, 1999)
Toshi - bass (2001)
Simon Gonk - drums (2001)
Jon Poole - bass (2003–2004, 2012–2013, 2014–2017)
Scott Sorry - bass (2006–2009, 2014)
Formations
Timeline
Discography
Earth vs the Wildhearts (1993)
P.H.U.Q. (1995)
Fishing for Luckies (1996)
Endless, Nameless (1997)
The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed (2003)
The Wildhearts (2007)
Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1. (2008)
¡Chutzpah! (2009)
Renaissance Men (2019)
21st Century Love Songs (2021)
References
External links
Official website
Official Facebook page
[ The Wildhearts: Biography] on AllMusic
FiveMilesHigh Rock n' Roll Resource Wildhearts Section
Interview with Ginger of The Wildhearts by FREE! Magazine
English rock music groups
Musical groups from Newcastle upon Tyne
Musical groups established in 1989
Kerrang! Awards winners
People from South Shields
| false |
[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"The Wildhearts",
"2007-2010",
"What is the Wildhearts?",
"In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts.",
"When was it released?",
"The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single \"The Sweetest Song\".",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour."
] |
C_d090a162df674f26b8450ff1bb290610_1
|
What label were they with?
| 5 |
What label were The Wildhearts with?
|
The Wildhearts
|
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour. The band ended up playing multiple sold-out dates in New York, one of which was aboard a ferry. The band made up to their American fans for postponed gigs by playing very long sets of approximately two hours each night. An extensive UK tour followed in April and May. "The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror. On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992-1996 era at East West Records. The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, !Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival. On 25 November 2009 The Wildhearts announced the release of !Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of !Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour. However, this news caused something of a backlash from some fans, and resulted in band leader Ginger advocating the distribution of tracks via file sharing technology, as well as vowing that the album would be made available at future shows beyond the Xmess tour. The mini-album is now also available via the Wildhearts online store. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
The Wildhearts are an English rock band, formed in 1989 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as the Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica. The Wildhearts achieved several top 20 singles and two top 10 albums in Britain, though they also faced difficulties with record companies and many internal problems often relating to drugs and depression. Much of the band's early career was affected by bitter feuds with their record company, East West.
Throughout the band's history, members have regularly been replaced, with the only constant member being the band's founder, singer and guitarist Ginger. Several band members have appeared in the line-up more than once. The band has also been split up or placed on hiatus by Ginger multiple times. In the 2010s, the band convened occasionally for various anniversary tours. A 2018 anniversary tour by the band's 1995 lineup led to a return to the studio. They released a new album in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus. Their most recent album, 21st Century Love Songs, was released in September 2021.
History
Early years
The Wildhearts formed in late 1989, after Ginger was sacked from the Quireboys. Throughout the band's career, Ginger has written almost all the songs himself.
Initially called the Wild Hearts, the band originally included singers Snake (ex-Tobruk) and Dunken F. Mullett (ex-Mournblade), who both joined for short periods. Nine demos were recorded in 1989 and 1990 with Snake singing on four and Dunken on five. These demos remain unreleased and displayed a sound resembling Guns N' Roses, with the Wildhearts sound still to be developed.
After many early personnel changes, the line-up solidified around Ginger on guitar and vocals, CJ (Christopher Jagdhar) on guitar and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Dogs D'Amour drummer Bam. This line-up released two EPs in 1992, Mondo Akimbo a-Go-Go and Don’t Be Happy…Just Worry.
First album
In 1992, drummer Bam returned to Dogs D'Amour and was replaced by Stidi (Andrew Stidolph). To follow up their first two EPs, the Wildhearts recorded demos for their first full-length album, which were released as Earth vs the Wildhearts without re-recording. The singles "Greetings From Shitsville" and "TV Tan" were underground hits in 1993. Stidi left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by Ritch Battersby, just in time for the recording of the single "Caffeine Bomb", a UK chart hit at the beginning of 1994, helped by a memorable video in which Ginger appeared to vomit into CJ's face. The band appeared on Top of the Pops with Ginger wearing green welding goggles. The debut album was reissued in late 1994 with "Caffeine Bomb" tacked on as an extra track.
Follow-up
The Wildhearts next planned a double album, but East West vetoed this plan during the recording sessions. Instead the band released a collection of six of the more eclectic tracks on a fan club-only release entitled Fishing for Luckies in early 1995. This EP, which would be re-released in 1996 with more studio outtakes as Fishing for More Luckies, included the notable track "Geordie In Wonderland". Ginger offered this track to Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United F.C. as a potential team anthem, but was graciously turned down. The track was performed on Top of the Pops with Wolfsbane's Jeff Hateley, painted in Toon Army colours, on mandolin. Other noteworthy tracks included "If Life Is Like A Lovebank, I Want An Overdraft", also released as a single, and the 11:24 epic "Sky Babies."
The second album proper was to be known as P.H.U.Q.. Midway through the recording sessions, Ginger fired guitarist CJ, and some of the album's tracks were recorded without a second guitarist. P.H.U.Q. was released in May 1995 and reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's most successful album. Shortly after the album's release, Mark Keds of Senseless Things was drafted as second guitarist, but lasted just one recording session, in which he appeared on the B-sides for the single "Just in Lust". Within a few weeks Keds was sacked after disappearing to Japan for a farewell tour with his old band. The Wildhearts were again down to a three-piece (Ginger, McCormack, and Battersby) for a few months, and performed a few gigs in this incarnation. The band resolved to return to a two-guitar formation, and after requesting demos and holding auditions, hired the previously unknown Jef Streatfield.
Round Records era
In early 1996, the Wildhearts claimed to have recorded two new studio albums, which would be released via East West on the band's own record label, Round Records. Only some of the songs saw the light of day, in a revamped version of the previously fan club-only EP Fishing for Luckies with eight new tracks bringing it to full album length. An additional album of new material was never quite finished, although leaked copies were distributed as the Shitty Fuckin' Stupid Tracks bootleg. These rare tracks were officially released by East West in 1998 as part of the Landmines and Pantomimes rarities compilation.
Endless, Nameless era
In 1997 the band signed to Mushroom Records, and set about making another album. This album abandoned the band's former pop rock leanings in favor of a more distorted and less commercial sound.
In November 1997, shortly before the release of Endless, Nameless, Ginger decided to split the band. The band toured Japan but cancelled a scheduled British tour.
Multi-formatting and singles
Starting in 1997 the Wildhearts began to release multiple formats of singles.The band released the two singles from the album Endless, Nameless in multiple formats, including two CD singles with two B-sides on each, and a 7" single with one B-side, with all the songs from the "Anthem" single being cover versions.
The band have continued to multi-format since 1997, in particular with "Top of the World" in 2003, consisting of three CD singles, two with two B-sides and one with one B-side and the video for the song. The band have also continued to specifically re-enter the studio to record brand new songs for B-sides. During the band's reformation in the 2001–2004 period, they amassed enough B-sides for Gut Records to release a full-length album consisting only of B-sides, Coupled With.
Hiatus 1997–2001
During the 1997–2001 period the band members concentrated on their respective side projects, although the most recent line-up of Ginger, McCormack, Ritch Battersby, and Jef Streatfield reformed a few times for one-off gigs.
Reformation
In early 2001 Ginger announced that he was reforming the Earth vs the Wildhearts lineup of the band for a tour later that year. This lineup (consisting of Ginger and CJ on guitars and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Stidi on drums) soon ran into difficulty due to McCormack's battle against heroin addiction, and on several dates of the comeback tour Toshi (from support band AntiProduct) stood in as bassist. By 2002 McCormack was once again clean and the band started recording a new mini-album and also toured the UK. The tracks intended for the album were released in the UK in late 2002 across three formats of the "Vanilla Radio" single, and as the mini-album Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff in Japan. "Vanilla Radio" reached the top 30 in the UK singles chart, and in early 2003 work began on a full-length album. However, during recording, McCormack checked himself into a rehabilitation center to deal with an alcohol problem, leaving Ginger to play the bass parts on the songs that were newly recorded for the album. McCormack's place in the live band was filled by "Random" Jon Poole, who had already worked with Ginger on his Silver Ginger 5 side project.
The album The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, released in 2003, had a very commercial sound, full of short simple pop songs with little of the heavier rock style which often featured on previous albums. The band signed a US record deal with Gearhead Records, which released Riff After Riff in 2004, a compilation of songs from the UK post-reformation singles (all of the songs from this release are also found on the Gut Records compilation Coupled With). Riff After Riff was the Wildhearts' first US release since Earth vs the Wildhearts in 1994. The release was also promoted by a tour, mostly as the support band for their ex-support band, the Darkness.
Then in early 2005, Ginger dissolved the Wildhearts again, citing a mixture of his own personal problems and a lack of commitment within the band. He briefly joined the Brides of Destruction before setting out on his own as a full-time solo artist. Ginger then reformed the Wildhearts once again for a one-off gig at Scarborough Castle (Rock in the Castle) in September 2005. The 1994–1995 line-up of Ginger, C.J., McCormack, and Ritch Battersby played at this gig.
Once again, the Wildhearts reformed in December 2006 and played a single live show at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. This line-up saw Ginger joined again by C.J., Ritch Battersby and a new bassist, Scott Sorry (ex-Amen). This line-up soon became official, with plans made for a new album in 2007.
2007–2010
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band performed in New York, and toured the UK in April and May.
"The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror.
On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992–1996 era at East West Records.
The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, ¡Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival.
On 25 November 2009 the Wildhearts announced the release of ¡Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of ¡Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour.
2010–present
In 2010 Ginger joined as the guitarist for former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe, who played the Download Festival on 12 June 2010. Ginger also performed as a solo act at the festival. Only Wildhearts songs were performed, as was the case for the Ginger & Friends December 2010 tour of the UK. The Michael Monroe album Sensory Overdrive, featuring Ginger, was released in 2011.
In December 2010, Ginger stated that he was unsure if the Wildhearts would ever reform. It would appear that the departure of Scott Sorry and retirement of Ritch Battersby led to the hiatus. Following this particularly with his renewed solo career, Ginger publicly stated a number of times on Formspring that he had absolutely no desire to revisit the Wildhearts and considered that period of his life over. Despite this, Ginger announced in August 2012 that the most recent Wildhearts line-up will reform for a one-off appearance in December. The Wildhearts' songs "Geordie in Wonderland" and "Dreaming in A" appeared in the 2012 UK feature film Life Just Is.
On 10 December 2012, it was announced that Scott Sorry had left the Wildhearts due to family commitments. He was replaced by former bassist Jon Poole for the December 2012 reunion show. The band went on to play a number of shows in early 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Earth vs the Wildhearts. Such was the anniversary tour's success that a second leg took place in June of the same year. The Nottingham Rock City performance would subsequently be released as the 2014 live album Rock City vs The Wildhearts. Another UK tour took place in April 2014, this time with Scott Sorry back on bass. 2015 saw the 20th Anniversary of the release of P.H.U.Q. and another tour, this time with Jon Poole on bass duties.
Prior to their Christmas tour in 2016 (supported by Dirt Box Disco, Danny's new band the Main Grains and JAW$ featuring Ginger's son) Ginger stated in an interview that the band would be recording a new album in 2017. Proceeds from the album went towards assisting Danny's recuperation after the amputation of his lower right leg.
In August 2018 the band announced it would be touring to celebrate 25 years of the Earth vs the Wildhearts album, in which the album would be played in full at each shows. The lineup for this tour included Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack, and Ritch Battersby. In early January 2019 the band announced the recording of a new album had been completed with mixing to follow. The album Renaissance Men was released on 3 May 2019. The album 21st Century Love Songs was released on 3 September 2021.
Members
Current
Ginger - vocals, guitar (1989–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
CJ - guitar, vocals (1989–1994, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Ritch Battersby - drums (1993–1997, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Danny McCormack - bass, vocals (1991–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002–2003, 2005, 2018–present)
Former
Andrew "Stidi" Stidolph - drums (1989–1990, 1992–1993, 2001–2004)
Jools Dean - bass (1989–1991)
Stuart "Snake" Neale - vocals (1989–1990, 1990–1991; died 2006)
Pat Walters - drums (1990–1991)
Dunken F. Mullett - vocals (1990)
Bam - drums (1991–1992)
Willie Dowling - keyboards, piano (1994)
Devin Townsend - guitar, vocals (1994)
Mark Keds - guitar, vocals (1995)
Jef Streatfield - guitar, vocals (1995–1997, 1998, 1999)
Toshi - bass (2001)
Simon Gonk - drums (2001)
Jon Poole - bass (2003–2004, 2012–2013, 2014–2017)
Scott Sorry - bass (2006–2009, 2014)
Formations
Timeline
Discography
Earth vs the Wildhearts (1993)
P.H.U.Q. (1995)
Fishing for Luckies (1996)
Endless, Nameless (1997)
The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed (2003)
The Wildhearts (2007)
Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1. (2008)
¡Chutzpah! (2009)
Renaissance Men (2019)
21st Century Love Songs (2021)
References
External links
Official website
Official Facebook page
[ The Wildhearts: Biography] on AllMusic
FiveMilesHigh Rock n' Roll Resource Wildhearts Section
Interview with Ginger of The Wildhearts by FREE! Magazine
English rock music groups
Musical groups from Newcastle upon Tyne
Musical groups established in 1989
Kerrang! Awards winners
People from South Shields
| false |
[
"Switchflicker Records is an independent British record label based in Manchester, England. The company was established in 2000 by Jayne Compton.\n\nPerformers signed to the label include Divine David, Chloe Poems and formerly The Ting Tings, who launched their career at the label.\n\nIn 2008, members of The Ting Tings wrote critical comments on their blog about what they believe to be inflated prices charged by the label for their single, \"That's Not My Name\", asserting that the company was \"cashing in\" on the band's success at the expense of their fans. The label responded in a published statement, noting that they were doing nothing wrong as they owned the stock and were selling remaining copies in line with the record's value at the time: \n\nFollowing this dispute, The Ting Tings signed with Columbia Records, having received assurances from Columbia that they would retain sufficient artistic control over their music.\n\nReferences\n\nBritish record labels",
"The Zeros were one of the early English punk groups, as chronicled in Henrik Poulsen's book 77: The Year of Punk and New Wave.\n\nCareer\nOriginally a trio, they were led by Steve Godfrey (guitar/vocals, b.1959, Walthamstow, London), the cousin of Jerry Shirley of Humble Pie. The two other members were Phil Gaylor (drums/vocals) and Steve Cotton (bass/vocals). They released a single called \"Hungry\" in November 1977 on the Small Wonder Records label. \"Hungry\" was No 1 in the NME punk chart. That same month, they recorded four songs, including \"Hungry,\" for BBC Radio 1 with John Peel. Paul Miller (guitar/vocals) joined in early 1978. The same year Hugh Stanley Clark became their manager and re signed the band to \"The Label\". They released a second single a year later, \"What's Wrong with Pop Group\".\n\nSomewhere in the 2000s, Steve Godfrey created a Myspace page, and posted The Zeros entire discography as well as a series of previously unheard recording sessions and demos.\n\nDiscography\n\n7\" singles\n1977 - \"Hungry\" b/w \"Radio Fun\" (Small Wonder Records)\n1979 - \"What's Wrong with Pop Group\" featured on the \"What's Wrong with Pop Group\" / \"Decisions\" split single. (ROK Records) (b/w \"Decisions\" by Action Replay)\n2018 - Lost Boys : 1977-1979 (Only Fit For The Bin Records)\n\nSee also\nTimeline of punk rock\nList of Peel sessions\nList of British punk bands\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nThe Zeros (UK) Myspace page\nThe Zeros - Discogs.com\n\nEnglish punk rock groups\nBritish musical trios\nMusical quartets\nMusical groups established in 1977\nMusical groups disestablished in 1979"
] |
[
"The Wildhearts",
"2007-2010",
"What is the Wildhearts?",
"In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts.",
"When was it released?",
"The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single \"The Sweetest Song\".",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour.",
"What label were they with?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_d090a162df674f26b8450ff1bb290610_1
|
Was there any line up changes?
| 6 |
Was there any line up changes in the band The Wildhearts?
|
The Wildhearts
|
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band were to play a handful of shows across America, but due to delays in their Visa application they were forced to cancel the US tour. The band ended up playing multiple sold-out dates in New York, one of which was aboard a ferry. The band made up to their American fans for postponed gigs by playing very long sets of approximately two hours each night. An extensive UK tour followed in April and May. "The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror. On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992-1996 era at East West Records. The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, !Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival. On 25 November 2009 The Wildhearts announced the release of !Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of !Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour. However, this news caused something of a backlash from some fans, and resulted in band leader Ginger advocating the distribution of tracks via file sharing technology, as well as vowing that the album would be made available at future shows beyond the Xmess tour. The mini-album is now also available via the Wildhearts online store. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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The Wildhearts are an English rock band, formed in 1989 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as the Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica. The Wildhearts achieved several top 20 singles and two top 10 albums in Britain, though they also faced difficulties with record companies and many internal problems often relating to drugs and depression. Much of the band's early career was affected by bitter feuds with their record company, East West.
Throughout the band's history, members have regularly been replaced, with the only constant member being the band's founder, singer and guitarist Ginger. Several band members have appeared in the line-up more than once. The band has also been split up or placed on hiatus by Ginger multiple times. In the 2010s, the band convened occasionally for various anniversary tours. A 2018 anniversary tour by the band's 1995 lineup led to a return to the studio. They released a new album in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus. Their most recent album, 21st Century Love Songs, was released in September 2021.
History
Early years
The Wildhearts formed in late 1989, after Ginger was sacked from the Quireboys. Throughout the band's career, Ginger has written almost all the songs himself.
Initially called the Wild Hearts, the band originally included singers Snake (ex-Tobruk) and Dunken F. Mullett (ex-Mournblade), who both joined for short periods. Nine demos were recorded in 1989 and 1990 with Snake singing on four and Dunken on five. These demos remain unreleased and displayed a sound resembling Guns N' Roses, with the Wildhearts sound still to be developed.
After many early personnel changes, the line-up solidified around Ginger on guitar and vocals, CJ (Christopher Jagdhar) on guitar and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Dogs D'Amour drummer Bam. This line-up released two EPs in 1992, Mondo Akimbo a-Go-Go and Don’t Be Happy…Just Worry.
First album
In 1992, drummer Bam returned to Dogs D'Amour and was replaced by Stidi (Andrew Stidolph). To follow up their first two EPs, the Wildhearts recorded demos for their first full-length album, which were released as Earth vs the Wildhearts without re-recording. The singles "Greetings From Shitsville" and "TV Tan" were underground hits in 1993. Stidi left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by Ritch Battersby, just in time for the recording of the single "Caffeine Bomb", a UK chart hit at the beginning of 1994, helped by a memorable video in which Ginger appeared to vomit into CJ's face. The band appeared on Top of the Pops with Ginger wearing green welding goggles. The debut album was reissued in late 1994 with "Caffeine Bomb" tacked on as an extra track.
Follow-up
The Wildhearts next planned a double album, but East West vetoed this plan during the recording sessions. Instead the band released a collection of six of the more eclectic tracks on a fan club-only release entitled Fishing for Luckies in early 1995. This EP, which would be re-released in 1996 with more studio outtakes as Fishing for More Luckies, included the notable track "Geordie In Wonderland". Ginger offered this track to Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United F.C. as a potential team anthem, but was graciously turned down. The track was performed on Top of the Pops with Wolfsbane's Jeff Hateley, painted in Toon Army colours, on mandolin. Other noteworthy tracks included "If Life Is Like A Lovebank, I Want An Overdraft", also released as a single, and the 11:24 epic "Sky Babies."
The second album proper was to be known as P.H.U.Q.. Midway through the recording sessions, Ginger fired guitarist CJ, and some of the album's tracks were recorded without a second guitarist. P.H.U.Q. was released in May 1995 and reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's most successful album. Shortly after the album's release, Mark Keds of Senseless Things was drafted as second guitarist, but lasted just one recording session, in which he appeared on the B-sides for the single "Just in Lust". Within a few weeks Keds was sacked after disappearing to Japan for a farewell tour with his old band. The Wildhearts were again down to a three-piece (Ginger, McCormack, and Battersby) for a few months, and performed a few gigs in this incarnation. The band resolved to return to a two-guitar formation, and after requesting demos and holding auditions, hired the previously unknown Jef Streatfield.
Round Records era
In early 1996, the Wildhearts claimed to have recorded two new studio albums, which would be released via East West on the band's own record label, Round Records. Only some of the songs saw the light of day, in a revamped version of the previously fan club-only EP Fishing for Luckies with eight new tracks bringing it to full album length. An additional album of new material was never quite finished, although leaked copies were distributed as the Shitty Fuckin' Stupid Tracks bootleg. These rare tracks were officially released by East West in 1998 as part of the Landmines and Pantomimes rarities compilation.
Endless, Nameless era
In 1997 the band signed to Mushroom Records, and set about making another album. This album abandoned the band's former pop rock leanings in favor of a more distorted and less commercial sound.
In November 1997, shortly before the release of Endless, Nameless, Ginger decided to split the band. The band toured Japan but cancelled a scheduled British tour.
Multi-formatting and singles
Starting in 1997 the Wildhearts began to release multiple formats of singles.The band released the two singles from the album Endless, Nameless in multiple formats, including two CD singles with two B-sides on each, and a 7" single with one B-side, with all the songs from the "Anthem" single being cover versions.
The band have continued to multi-format since 1997, in particular with "Top of the World" in 2003, consisting of three CD singles, two with two B-sides and one with one B-side and the video for the song. The band have also continued to specifically re-enter the studio to record brand new songs for B-sides. During the band's reformation in the 2001–2004 period, they amassed enough B-sides for Gut Records to release a full-length album consisting only of B-sides, Coupled With.
Hiatus 1997–2001
During the 1997–2001 period the band members concentrated on their respective side projects, although the most recent line-up of Ginger, McCormack, Ritch Battersby, and Jef Streatfield reformed a few times for one-off gigs.
Reformation
In early 2001 Ginger announced that he was reforming the Earth vs the Wildhearts lineup of the band for a tour later that year. This lineup (consisting of Ginger and CJ on guitars and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Stidi on drums) soon ran into difficulty due to McCormack's battle against heroin addiction, and on several dates of the comeback tour Toshi (from support band AntiProduct) stood in as bassist. By 2002 McCormack was once again clean and the band started recording a new mini-album and also toured the UK. The tracks intended for the album were released in the UK in late 2002 across three formats of the "Vanilla Radio" single, and as the mini-album Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff in Japan. "Vanilla Radio" reached the top 30 in the UK singles chart, and in early 2003 work began on a full-length album. However, during recording, McCormack checked himself into a rehabilitation center to deal with an alcohol problem, leaving Ginger to play the bass parts on the songs that were newly recorded for the album. McCormack's place in the live band was filled by "Random" Jon Poole, who had already worked with Ginger on his Silver Ginger 5 side project.
The album The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, released in 2003, had a very commercial sound, full of short simple pop songs with little of the heavier rock style which often featured on previous albums. The band signed a US record deal with Gearhead Records, which released Riff After Riff in 2004, a compilation of songs from the UK post-reformation singles (all of the songs from this release are also found on the Gut Records compilation Coupled With). Riff After Riff was the Wildhearts' first US release since Earth vs the Wildhearts in 1994. The release was also promoted by a tour, mostly as the support band for their ex-support band, the Darkness.
Then in early 2005, Ginger dissolved the Wildhearts again, citing a mixture of his own personal problems and a lack of commitment within the band. He briefly joined the Brides of Destruction before setting out on his own as a full-time solo artist. Ginger then reformed the Wildhearts once again for a one-off gig at Scarborough Castle (Rock in the Castle) in September 2005. The 1994–1995 line-up of Ginger, C.J., McCormack, and Ritch Battersby played at this gig.
Once again, the Wildhearts reformed in December 2006 and played a single live show at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. This line-up saw Ginger joined again by C.J., Ritch Battersby and a new bassist, Scott Sorry (ex-Amen). This line-up soon became official, with plans made for a new album in 2007.
2007–2010
In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts. The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by the download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band performed in New York, and toured the UK in April and May.
"The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007 and became the first proper release from the self-titled album. The video for the song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. The video had a heavy theme of violence and horror.
On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1.. Artists covered include Icicle Works, Fugazi, Helmet, Lee Harvey Oswald Band, The Distillers, The Descendents, and The Georgia Satellites. The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released the three-CD compilation The Works. Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial," the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992–1996 era at East West Records.
The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, ¡Chutzpah!, which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played the new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah!, they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind Download Festival.
On 25 November 2009 the Wildhearts announced the release of ¡Chutzpah! Jnr., a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of ¡Chutzpah!. The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour.
2010–present
In 2010 Ginger joined as the guitarist for former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe, who played the Download Festival on 12 June 2010. Ginger also performed as a solo act at the festival. Only Wildhearts songs were performed, as was the case for the Ginger & Friends December 2010 tour of the UK. The Michael Monroe album Sensory Overdrive, featuring Ginger, was released in 2011.
In December 2010, Ginger stated that he was unsure if the Wildhearts would ever reform. It would appear that the departure of Scott Sorry and retirement of Ritch Battersby led to the hiatus. Following this particularly with his renewed solo career, Ginger publicly stated a number of times on Formspring that he had absolutely no desire to revisit the Wildhearts and considered that period of his life over. Despite this, Ginger announced in August 2012 that the most recent Wildhearts line-up will reform for a one-off appearance in December. The Wildhearts' songs "Geordie in Wonderland" and "Dreaming in A" appeared in the 2012 UK feature film Life Just Is.
On 10 December 2012, it was announced that Scott Sorry had left the Wildhearts due to family commitments. He was replaced by former bassist Jon Poole for the December 2012 reunion show. The band went on to play a number of shows in early 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Earth vs the Wildhearts. Such was the anniversary tour's success that a second leg took place in June of the same year. The Nottingham Rock City performance would subsequently be released as the 2014 live album Rock City vs The Wildhearts. Another UK tour took place in April 2014, this time with Scott Sorry back on bass. 2015 saw the 20th Anniversary of the release of P.H.U.Q. and another tour, this time with Jon Poole on bass duties.
Prior to their Christmas tour in 2016 (supported by Dirt Box Disco, Danny's new band the Main Grains and JAW$ featuring Ginger's son) Ginger stated in an interview that the band would be recording a new album in 2017. Proceeds from the album went towards assisting Danny's recuperation after the amputation of his lower right leg.
In August 2018 the band announced it would be touring to celebrate 25 years of the Earth vs the Wildhearts album, in which the album would be played in full at each shows. The lineup for this tour included Ginger, CJ, Danny McCormack, and Ritch Battersby. In early January 2019 the band announced the recording of a new album had been completed with mixing to follow. The album Renaissance Men was released on 3 May 2019. The album 21st Century Love Songs was released on 3 September 2021.
Members
Current
Ginger - vocals, guitar (1989–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
CJ - guitar, vocals (1989–1994, 2001–2004, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Ritch Battersby - drums (1993–1997, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006–2009, 2012–present)
Danny McCormack - bass, vocals (1991–1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002–2003, 2005, 2018–present)
Former
Andrew "Stidi" Stidolph - drums (1989–1990, 1992–1993, 2001–2004)
Jools Dean - bass (1989–1991)
Stuart "Snake" Neale - vocals (1989–1990, 1990–1991; died 2006)
Pat Walters - drums (1990–1991)
Dunken F. Mullett - vocals (1990)
Bam - drums (1991–1992)
Willie Dowling - keyboards, piano (1994)
Devin Townsend - guitar, vocals (1994)
Mark Keds - guitar, vocals (1995)
Jef Streatfield - guitar, vocals (1995–1997, 1998, 1999)
Toshi - bass (2001)
Simon Gonk - drums (2001)
Jon Poole - bass (2003–2004, 2012–2013, 2014–2017)
Scott Sorry - bass (2006–2009, 2014)
Formations
Timeline
Discography
Earth vs the Wildhearts (1993)
P.H.U.Q. (1995)
Fishing for Luckies (1996)
Endless, Nameless (1997)
The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed (2003)
The Wildhearts (2007)
Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1. (2008)
¡Chutzpah! (2009)
Renaissance Men (2019)
21st Century Love Songs (2021)
References
External links
Official website
Official Facebook page
[ The Wildhearts: Biography] on AllMusic
FiveMilesHigh Rock n' Roll Resource Wildhearts Section
Interview with Ginger of The Wildhearts by FREE! Magazine
English rock music groups
Musical groups from Newcastle upon Tyne
Musical groups established in 1989
Kerrang! Awards winners
People from South Shields
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[
"\"A Moment Changes Everything\" is the first single taken from David Gray's ninth studio album Foundling. The song was at one point scheduled to be included on a re-release of Gray's previous album Draw the Line, together with other unreleased tracks from that album's sessions. Promotional singles of \"A Moment Changes Everything\" were released to radio stations with the text \"brand new single A MOMENT released 31st May 2010, Re-Release of Draw The Line with bonus material 7th June 2010\" on the sleeve. The re-release was eventually withdrawn in favour of a brand new studio album, with \"A Moment Changes Everything\" being released as the lead single.\n\nThe song in its full length version was added to the Music Player on David Gray's website in mid-June.\n\nGray says of the song:\n\n\"I don't have fond feelings for it,\" Gray confesses. \"I was contacted about doing some music for a [soccer] tournament a few years ago, and this was my stab on it based on the brief I was given. Unfortunately it got used on the telly and then people heard of it, and when anybody thinks there's any chance of a hit record at radio they just won't let go of the damn thing. So it got let out of the cupboard, and it's ended up on this bonus disc...It's just one of those throwaway moments that other people seize upon. But it doesn't really fit with 'Foundling,' which is very much where my heart lies.\"\n\nTrack listing\nPromo Single [cat# GRAY4]\n \"A Moment Changes Everything\" (Album Version)\n \"A Moment Changes Everything\" (Instrumental Version)\n\nSingle Release\n \"A Moment Changes Everything\" – 3:28\n\nReferences\n\nDavid Gray (musician) songs\n2010 singles\nSongs written by David Gray (musician)\n2009 songs\nPolydor Records singles",
"The Fair Oaks–Fairfax Boulevard Line, designated as Route 1C, is a daily bus route operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority between the Dunn Loring station of the Orange Line of the Washington Metro and McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center on the weekdays and Fair Oaks Mall on the weekends. This line provides service within the neighborhoods of Merrifield and Fair Oaks in Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax. Trips are roughly 30 minutes on weekdays, and 60 minutes on weekends.\n\nRoute Description and Service\n\nThe 1C operates from Four Mile Run division on a daily schedule. The 1C operates on weekdays between Dunn Loring station and McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center via Arlington Boulevard and Fairfax Boulevard. During the weekends, the 1C operates on a shortened route, operating up to Fair Oaks Mall. The 1C runs through the neighborhoods in Fairfax County, such as Merrifield and Woodburn, within Arlington Boulevard. The 1C also runs through marketplaces and businesses in Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax.\n\nHistory\n\nRoute 1C was initially part of the Wilson Boulevard–Fairfax Line, when the route was introduced in 1983 following the split of the Wilson Boulevard Line. The 1C served the line without any route changes until June 24, 2007, when the 1C splits from the Wilson Boulevard–Fairfax Line.\n\nFair Oaks–Dunn Loring Line\n\nThe original name of the line that operated the 1C was the Fair Oaks–Dunn Loring Line. The 1C operates between Dunn Loring station and Fair Oaks Mall. The 1C have select trips that operates up to Fairfax Circle during early morning and weeknight trips. Throughout the years, the 1C remains the same until the line changes its name to Fair Oaks–Fairfax Boulevard Line on December 29, 2013 following its extension to McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center.\n\nJune 2007 Changes\n\nOn June 24, 2007, the 1C no longer operates to Ballston station, as the route was truncated to Dunn Loring station. The eastern half was replaced by the 1A. The 1C originally operates alongside with the 1Z during rush hours, and following these changes, the 1Z follows rush hour times with the 1A.\n\n2013 Proposed Changes\n\nIn 2013, WMATA proposed an extension to the 1C.\n\nPrior to the budget proposal, WMATA planned to reroute the 1C from Lee Jackson Memorial Highway to Random Hills Road before arriving to Fair Oaks Mall. Alongside with the road changes, it was also proposed to extend the 1C to McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center to bring in connection to other bus routes. This extension leads to serve the Fair Oaks Mall stops in both directions.\n\nWMATA later revised the proposal by rerouting the 1C from Lee Jackson Memorial Highway to Fairfax County Government Center via Government Center Parkway before arriving to Fair Oaks Mall. The 1C extension remains the same from the original proposal.\n\nThe reason why WMATA planned these changes, was to bring in more service to Lee Highway, the neighborhood of Fair Oaks, and the Fairfax County Government Center, alongside service to West Ox Road.\n\nDecember 2013 Changes\nOn December 29, 2013, the 1C extended to serve McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center in Fair Oaks. The 1C only serves this stop during weekdays, as the 1C operates up to Fair Oaks Mall during the weekends. The short late night and early trips to Fairfax Circle is discontinued.\n\nProposed Elimination\n\nIn 2016 during WMATA's FY2018 budget, it was proposed to eliminate route 1C to reduce costs and has a high subsidy per rider. According to performance measure it goes as the following for WMATA:\n\nHowever, the official service changes on June 26, 2016 remains unchanged for the 1C, as trip times was adjusted to make the 1C reliable.\n\nSeptember 2020 proposed changes \nOn September 10, 2020 as part of its FY2022 proposed budget, WMATA proposed to truncate route 1C service to Fair Oaks Mall in order to reduce costs and low federal funds. WMATA also proposed to reduce weekday frequency on the 1C.\n\nMarch 2021 changes \n\nOn March 14, 2021, the weekday 1C trips was truncated back to Fair Oaks Mall, no longer operating to McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center due to the closure of the West Ox Division. The weekend 1C trips remains unchanged.\n\nReferences\n\n1C"
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[
"Anya Jenkins",
"Backstory"
] |
C_38195211d23e47b5a963a9c122593fff_1
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Who is Anya Jenkins
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Who was Anya Jenkins?
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Anya Jenkins
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Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint Of The Women Scorned, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes. Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage -- only a few people survive -- shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity. CANNOTANSWER
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Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village.
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Anyanka Christina Emmanuella "Anya" Jenkins (born as Aud) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a recurring star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before becoming a series regular in the show's fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2003, appearing in the series finale of the show that aired on May 20, 2003.
Within the series' narrative, Anya was originally a human named Aud, but spent over a thousand years as Anyanka, a vengeance demon, wreaking havoc by granting the wishes of women who had been wronged by men. The character becomes human again in her first appearance, and is forced to learn what it means to be human again in subsequent episodes. Primarily, this is used by the writers for comic relief; Anya has a very poor sense of what behaviors are appropriate, and speaks very bluntly and honestly. However, the writers have also used this for more poignant purposes, such as when Anya finds herself struggling to deal with death. Flashbacks show that Anyanka's manner was much the same before she became a demon. Over a decade after being killed in the series finale, Anya returned as a ghost in the canonical comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.
Character history
Backstory
Anyanka "Anya" Jenkins was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes.
Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage — only a few people survive — shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692.
In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity.
Storylines as a recurring character
Anyanka arrives at Sunnydale High in 1998 (in the episode "The Wish") as a student named Anya Emerson. She came to Sunnydale in response to the distress of Cordelia, who is upset after catching her boyfriend, Xander Harris, kissing their friend Willow. After some prompting, Cordelia states: "I wish that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale." Anya shows her true demon face to Cordelia and says, "Done." and the world changes. Now they are in an alternative reality in which Buffy has not come to Sunnydale and the vampire population has multiplied and gained in power. Giles meets with Cordelia before she dies and manages to discern what has happened. He subsequently summons Anyanka and destroys her necklace. As a result, Anya is made a mortal and powerless human again and the world returns to normal.
Caulfield said, "As far as I know, I don't think Joss Whedon ever intended to have Anya around for more than one episode." However, Anya returns in the episode "Doppelgangland", duping Willow into assisting in a failed magical attempt to recover the necklace which was her power center, lost when Giles destroyed it to reverse the wish granted for Cordelia. When these efforts fail, she is forced to continue living as a typical high school student. Now with human feelings, she yearns to attend the school prom in spite of her abhorrence of all men; ironically, her only hope for a date is the last man she was sent to punish, Xander. Caulfield says, "[Whedon] found this great way to have her interact with the storylines that had developed throughout the entire [third] season."
Anya develops feelings for Xander and asks him out again just before graduation, even though Xander showed no interest in her. Her romantic plans are foiled when he tells her of the Mayor's plan for his own "Ascension", a transformation into pure demon, at the graduation ceremony. Anya decides to flee Sunnydale and invites Xander to join her, saying when she thinks something could happen to him, she "feels bad inside, like [she] might vomit". Xander refuses because he's got "friends on the line", and can't abandon them. She leaves without him.
Anya returns to Sunnydale early in Season Four, still infatuated with Xander. She seduces him (in the episode "The Harsh Light of Day"). Her lack of experience with people causes her to make straightforward, often tactless remarks, which soon put her at odds with other Scooby Gang members, especially Willow, who has little trust for the ex-demon. Anya's tactlessness is played both for humor and to highlight the truth in situations where others are reluctant to be frank. This is seen most poignantly in "The Body" when her inability to comprehend Buffy's mother's death leads to inappropriate remarks which at first make others angry, but then allow for catharsis and comfort.
Storylines as a regular cast member
Anya becomes a regular in Season Five of the show. While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism (as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud). Anya's budding retail skills encourage Giles to hire her as a cashier at The Magic Box. In the episode, "Checkpoint", Anya is questioned by members of the Watchers' Council, and invents the full name Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and claims to have been born on the Fourth of July in Indiana.
During an impending apocalypse, brought about by Glory at the end of Season Five, Xander proposes to Anya and they are engaged for most of Season Six. Xander's doubts grow, however, and it is not difficult for Stewart Burns - escaped from Hell and impersonating Xander's future self - to persuade him to leave Anya at the wedding by showing him an illusionary life where Anya apparently cheats on Xander and is later killed in an argument between the two ("Hell's Bells"). Grief-stricken, Anya is vulnerable to D'Hoffryn's coaxing, and becomes a vengeance demon again.
In the Season Six episode "Entropy" Anya returns to Sunnydale. The audience can see her as a vengeance demon but the other characters are unaware until "Villains". Anya cannot find anyone who wishes vengeance on Xander and so she takes comfort in sex with Spike, an act which puts her relationship and friendship with Xander and Buffy in jeopardy. Spike nearly wishes for some kind of vengeance upon Xander, but after seeing how much her actions hurt him, Anya stops him, unable to go through with it. In the Season Six finale, Willow destroys The Magic Box, leaving Anya jobless in the mortal world. Anya does not enjoy her return to being a vengeance demon—her experience as a human has led to empathy, which makes exacting vengeance too painful for her to manage. She spends a summer granting half-hearted wishes and gains a reputation among demons as "Miss Soft-Serve".
When asked what direction she would like to see Anya's character go, Emma Caulfield said she hoped that in Season Seven Anya would become "kind of a badass". Caulfield said that Anya has always been strong in unorthodox ways, but "I'd like to see a more blatant display of her strength." Appropriately, after Halfrek encourages Anya to return to her former level of work, Anya exacts a terrible vengeance on a group of college boys by unleashing a spider-like Grimslaw demon on them. This results in a battle with Buffy, in which they are almost evenly matched. The battle is interrupted when D'Hoffryn, summoned by Willow from the Summers home, shows up. D'Hoffryn asks Anya what she wants, and she asks that her vengeance be reversed. D'Hoffryn tells her the price will be the life of a vengeance demon; Anya agrees, assuming it is she who will die, but D'Hoffryn summons Halfrek, incinerating her before Anya. "Never go for the kill, when you can go for the pain" he tells the distressed Anya, and strips her of her powers, making her once again mortal.
Anya decides that she has been too dependent on others and resolves to find an independent purpose in life for herself. She eventually rejoins the Scooby Gang as Season Seven focuses on the long fight against the First Evil and eventually becomes friends with Xander; although Xander and Anya still love each other, they never officially resume their relationship.
In the series finale, "Chosen", Anya fights with the others in the climactic battle against the First Evil and is brutally slain from behind, bisected by a Bringer's sword. Her body lies in the school's remains although Xander attempts to locate her while fleeing the collapsing building. After Sunnydale collapses into the Hellmouth, Andrew Wells comforts Xander by telling him that Anya had died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replies, "That's my girl, always doing the stupid thing."
In an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield stated that she was okay with her character's abrupt death, stating, "She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect." Although later, at Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 she said she didn't realize it was going to be abrupt and without fanfare, and would have appreciated a little something more.
Joss Whedon joked at the Nocturnal convention in 2001 Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season Five finale, "The Gift", but he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield couldn't keep still while Xander was carrying Anya's supposedly lifeless body.
Comic book series
It was stated that Anya would return in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, even with Joss Whedon telling MTV that she was "definitely dead... but that doesn't mean she's gone." However, Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie stated that there were no current plans for Anya to appear.
In the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, Anya returns as a ghost, having a conversation with Xander during a battle with both a mindless breed of vampires, which Xander has dubbed "zompires," and another new breed who are stronger and has abilities of withstanding sunlight and shape-shifting. Currently, she is only visible to her former fiancé, and Xander hasn't yet informed the gang about Anya. It soon turns out she was a fake ghost who was created by D'Hoffryn who wanted revenge on Xander. Anya's fake ghost realizes that the one thing Anya wanted before she died was taking care of D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn was pulling Anya's strings for a long time, even when she was human. She never cut her strings and finally got her vengeance on D'Hoffryn and knew that Xander felt bad about what happened between him and Anya. Before departing, she assures Xander that he is a good man and that the original Anya would forgive him as well.
Powers and abilities
Anyanka has the power to grant wishes made by women seeking revenge against men who have wronged them, even changing reality to accommodate these wishes, a gift which is supported by her ability to detect women's emotional pain at a distance. She has supernatural strength, teleportation (although in "Same Time, Same Place" she mentions that her use of teleportation is temporarily limited and requires bureaucratic paperwork), telekinesis and rapid healing, being able to survive impalement. As a demon she will not die of old age, having lived over a thousand years, but can be killed if her body is sufficiently damaged.
With over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology and various dimensions is immense, surpassing both Giles and his successor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, but not as skilled as them in research. Although her native language is Old Norse, Anyanka/Anya speaks fluent English as well as some French, Latin and can read and speak Ancient Sumerian. It is implied that she can speak any human language, as she has granted wishes in many countries all over the world throughout many centuries. Despite being human, Anya still has contacts with some of her former associates.
Anya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic, often commenting on Willow's spellcasting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and she occasionally participates in the casting of spells herself ("Doppelgangland"). As a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her time as a demon allows her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.
As a ghost, Anya is incorporeal and invisible to everyone except Xander.
Personality
Commenting on the personality of her character, Caulfield said, "Anya remains mortal and ambivalent. She's just struggling with being human, and really, don't we all struggle with that from time to time? She's very indifferent - and definitely sarcastic and bitter at times." Anya states in the "Selfless" flashback that she likes to bowl and she's "good with math".
Bunny phobia
Anya's irrational fear of rabbits (leporiphobia) is established for the first time in the Season Four Halloween episode "Fear, Itself", in which she appears in a bunny costume after Xander tells her to come to the party as something "scary". Her phobia becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series. In "The Gift", Anya sees a stuffed rabbit in the basement of The Magic Box (while looking for the Dagon Sphere with Xander), causing her to scream and exclaim, "Who would put something like that there?!" In "Once More, With Feeling", Anya sings, "Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?", a verse reminiscent of Willow's speech about spiders ("Nightmares"). In "Tabula Rasa", while suffering from memory loss, she repeatedly casts a spell that does nothing more than cause rabbits to appear in increasing numbers. The phobia also manifests itself in her final moments. As the final battle approaches, Andrew Wells suggests she "picture happy things: a lake, candy canes, bunnies..." The change is drastic and instantaneous. She confidently raises her sword, saying grimly, "Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies."
In her "origins" episode, "Selfless", Anya (then known as Aud), is surrounded by rabbits without showing any signs of distress over their presence.
Academic analysis
Anya has been the subject of at least one academic article. For Tamy Burnett, "Anya ... stands alone as the only woman in the Buffyverse to remain unshamed and unpunished for her expressions of sexuality". Burnett argues that, among Buffys female characters, despite their varying versions of personal and/or mental strength, Anya is the only one who is truly sexually liberated. Buffy and her friends tend to be "girly girls", who learn that "Sex is bad" and have their transgressions of traditional gender performance punished; Burnett cites the loss of Angel's soul, punitive interpretations of Tara's death, and Willow's transformation into Warren among other consequences. Faith comes "the closest" after Anya to breaking these traditional patterns because, while she is "just as sexual and outspoken" as Anya, she pivotally does not achieve Anya's acceptance within the group; for Anya, this "legitimizes her perspective". She identifies this motif with typical traits of horror fiction, citing Dawn Heinecken's feminist analysis in Warrior Women of Television. Anya frankly admits to masturbation and to her favourite sexual activities with Xander, and assumes that others share her attitudes. To Burnett, Anya's death in "Chosen" positions Anya as "failing to achieve [her] ultimate narrative legitimacy". Burnett concludes that "Anya's attitude toward sexual desire marks her as transgressing traditional forms of female sexuality, a significant break to the pattern by which other women on the show are constrained."
Appearances
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya appeared in 81 canon episodes. Anya was a series regular from Seasons Five through Seven (2000–2003), but did not appear in "Normal Again", "Help" (her scenes were cut), "Conversations with Dead People", and "Dirty Girls". Prior to Season Five, Anya was a recurring character for seasons three to four, appearing in the following episodes:
Season Three (1998–1999): "The Wish", "Doppelgangland", "The Prom" and "Graduation Day, Part One".
Season Four (1999–2000): "The Harsh Light of Day", "Fear, Itself", "Pangs", "Something Blue", "Hush", "A New Man", "The I in Team", "Goodbye Iowa", "Who Are You", "Superstar", "Where the Wild Things Are", "New Moon Rising", "The Yoko Factor", "Primeval", and "Restless".
Anya has also appeared in a number of comics including Past Lives, Ugly Little Monsters, and Reunion, and in novels including Unseen, Wisdom of War and Monster Island. She also makes a brief appearance in the 2003 video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds.
Merchandise
In 2005, Diamond Select Toys produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their Buffy the Vampire Slayer line. Each figure featured a "real-scan" likeness of Caulfield and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced were: "Season 5 Anya" in red top and black skirt, "Hell's Bells Anya" in wedding dress, "Once More, With Feeling Anya" in butterfly top and green skirt, "Anyanka" in demon dress, and "Bunny Suit Anya" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of "Bunny Suit Anya" was featured in the Vengeance Book box-set.
References
External links
Anya on IMDb
Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
Buffyverse characters who use magic
Buffyverse demons
Female characters in television
Television characters introduced in 1998
Fictional characters who can teleport
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional shopkeepers
Fictional immigrants to the United States
Fictional demon hunters
Fictional ghosts
Fictional telekinetics
Fictional characters with superhuman strength
Fictional Swedish people
Female characters in comics
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"Anya, Ania or Anja is a given name. The names are feminine in some cultures, and unisex in several African and European countries, as well as in India.\n\nOrigins and variant forms\nAnya (Аня) is a Russian diminutive of Anna.\nAnia is the spelling in Polish, which is also a diminutive of Anna.\nThe spelling Anja is common in Croatian, Norwegian, Danish, German, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Slovenian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Bosnian, Serbian and Kurdish.\nAnya is sometimes used as an anglicisation of the Irish name Áine\nAnya is an old Kurdish name. It means \"strength\" or \"power\".\nAnya is a Hungarian word for \"mother\".\nAnya is a Nigerian Igbo name, and also word for \"eye.\"\nAnya (ⴰⵏⵢⴰ) is an Amazigh/Berber name. It means \"rhythm\" or \"melody\" in Berber languages.\n\nPeople with the given name Anya \nAnya Ayoung-Chee (born 1981), former Miss Trinidad and Tobago and winner of season 9 of Project Runway \nAnya Chalotra (born 1996), British actress of Indian origin\nAnya Corke (born 1990), grandmaster and the top female chess player in Hong Kong\nAnya Gallaccio (born 1963), British artist\nAnya Garnis (born 1982), Siberian Ballroom and Latin dancer\nAnya Hindmarch (born 1968), British fashion designer\nAnya Kamenetz (born 1980), American writer and journalist\nAnya Lahiri (born 1982), English singer\nAnya Major (born 1966), British athlete, actress, model and singer\nAnya Marina (born 1976), American singer-songwriter\nAnya Monzikova (born 1984), Russian-American model and actress \nAnya Rozova (born 1989), Russian-American fashion model, runner-up in America's Next Top Model under the name Anya Kop\nAnya Schiffrin (born 1962), American journalist and writer, international business professor at Columbia University\nAnya Seton (1904–1990), American author of historical romances\nAnya Singh (born 1992), Indian actress\nAnya Shrubsole (born 1991), English cricketer\nAnya Taranda (1915–1970), American model\nAnya Taylor-Joy (born 1996), American-born Argentinian-British actress\nAnya Teixeira (1913–1992), Ukrainian-born British street photographer\n\nPeople with the given name Anja\nAnja Andersen (born 1969), Danish handball player\nAnja Barugh (born 1999), New Zealand freestyle skier\nAnja Blacha (born 1990), German mountaineer\nAnja Daems (born 1968), Belgian television and radio presenter\nAnja Garbarek (born 1970), Norwegian musician\nAnja Hammerseng-Edin (born 1983), Norwegian handball player\nAnja Hazekamp (born 1968), Dutch politician\nAnja Pärson (born 1981), Swedish alpine skier\nAnja Plaschg (born 1990), alias Soap&Skin, Austrian musician\nAnja Ringgren Lovén (born 1978), Danish charity worker \nAnja Rubik (born 1983), Polish fashion model\nAnja Spasojević (born 1983), Serbian professional volleyball player\n\nPeople with the given name Ania\nAnia (singer) (born 1981), Polish singer and composer\nAnia Said Chaurembo, Tanzanian politician\nAnia Walwicz (born 1951), Australian poet and prose writer\nAnia Wiśniewska (born 1977), Polish singer\n\nFictional characters\nAnya, daughter of the Marvel Comics character Magneto\nAnya, or Princess Ann, a character in the film Roman Holiday\nAnya, or Princess Anastasia, protagonist of the 1997 film Anastasia\nAnya, in the video game Diablo II: Lord of Destruction\nAnya, in the video game Project I.G.I.\nAnya, in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation\nAnya, in the manga series Negima!\nAnya Alstreim, in the anime series Code Geass\nAnya, in the television series The 100\nAnya Amasova, in the film The Spy Who Loved Me\nAnya Borzakovskaya, in the graphic novel Anya's Ghost\nAnya Claus, in the film Santa Claus: The Movie\nAnya Corazon, in Marvel Comics\nAnya Forger, in the manga series Spy × Family\nAnya Hepburn, in the manga series Soul Eater Not!\nAnya Jenkins, in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer\nAnya MacPherson, in the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation\nAnya Oliwa, in the video game Wolfenstein: The New Order\nAnya Stroud, in the video game series Gears of War\nAnia Williams, in the soap opera Family Affairs\n\nPeople with the surname Anya\nIkechi Anya (born 1988), Scottish footballer\n\nSee also\nÁine (given name), an Irish given name with the same pronunciation\nAnya (disambiguation), other meanings\nAnia (disambiguation)\n\nReferences\n\nSlavic feminine given names\nSerbian feminine given names",
"Anyanka Christina Emmanuella \"Anya\" Jenkins (born as Aud) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a recurring star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before becoming a series regular in the show's fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2003, appearing in the series finale of the show that aired on May 20, 2003.\n\nWithin the series' narrative, Anya was originally a human named Aud, but spent over a thousand years as Anyanka, a vengeance demon, wreaking havoc by granting the wishes of women who had been wronged by men. The character becomes human again in her first appearance, and is forced to learn what it means to be human again in subsequent episodes. Primarily, this is used by the writers for comic relief; Anya has a very poor sense of what behaviors are appropriate, and speaks very bluntly and honestly. However, the writers have also used this for more poignant purposes, such as when Anya finds herself struggling to deal with death. Flashbacks show that Anyanka's manner was much the same before she became a demon. Over a decade after being killed in the series finale, Anya returned as a ghost in the canonical comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.\n\nCharacter history\n\nBackstory\nAnyanka \"Anya\" Jenkins was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as \"odd\", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes.\n\nAround 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage — only a few people survive — shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692.\n\nIn the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses \"Hallie\" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity.\n\nStorylines as a recurring character\nAnyanka arrives at Sunnydale High in 1998 (in the episode \"The Wish\") as a student named Anya Emerson. She came to Sunnydale in response to the distress of Cordelia, who is upset after catching her boyfriend, Xander Harris, kissing their friend Willow. After some prompting, Cordelia states: \"I wish that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale.\" Anya shows her true demon face to Cordelia and says, \"Done.\" and the world changes. Now they are in an alternative reality in which Buffy has not come to Sunnydale and the vampire population has multiplied and gained in power. Giles meets with Cordelia before she dies and manages to discern what has happened. He subsequently summons Anyanka and destroys her necklace. As a result, Anya is made a mortal and powerless human again and the world returns to normal.\n\nCaulfield said, \"As far as I know, I don't think Joss Whedon ever intended to have Anya around for more than one episode.\" However, Anya returns in the episode \"Doppelgangland\", duping Willow into assisting in a failed magical attempt to recover the necklace which was her power center, lost when Giles destroyed it to reverse the wish granted for Cordelia. When these efforts fail, she is forced to continue living as a typical high school student. Now with human feelings, she yearns to attend the school prom in spite of her abhorrence of all men; ironically, her only hope for a date is the last man she was sent to punish, Xander. Caulfield says, \"[Whedon] found this great way to have her interact with the storylines that had developed throughout the entire [third] season.\"\n\nAnya develops feelings for Xander and asks him out again just before graduation, even though Xander showed no interest in her. Her romantic plans are foiled when he tells her of the Mayor's plan for his own \"Ascension\", a transformation into pure demon, at the graduation ceremony. Anya decides to flee Sunnydale and invites Xander to join her, saying when she thinks something could happen to him, she \"feels bad inside, like [she] might vomit\". Xander refuses because he's got \"friends on the line\", and can't abandon them. She leaves without him.\n\nAnya returns to Sunnydale early in Season Four, still infatuated with Xander. She seduces him (in the episode \"The Harsh Light of Day\"). Her lack of experience with people causes her to make straightforward, often tactless remarks, which soon put her at odds with other Scooby Gang members, especially Willow, who has little trust for the ex-demon. Anya's tactlessness is played both for humor and to highlight the truth in situations where others are reluctant to be frank. This is seen most poignantly in \"The Body\" when her inability to comprehend Buffy's mother's death leads to inappropriate remarks which at first make others angry, but then allow for catharsis and comfort.\n\nStorylines as a regular cast member\nAnya becomes a regular in Season Five of the show. While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism (as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud). Anya's budding retail skills encourage Giles to hire her as a cashier at The Magic Box. In the episode, \"Checkpoint\", Anya is questioned by members of the Watchers' Council, and invents the full name Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and claims to have been born on the Fourth of July in Indiana.\n\nDuring an impending apocalypse, brought about by Glory at the end of Season Five, Xander proposes to Anya and they are engaged for most of Season Six. Xander's doubts grow, however, and it is not difficult for Stewart Burns - escaped from Hell and impersonating Xander's future self - to persuade him to leave Anya at the wedding by showing him an illusionary life where Anya apparently cheats on Xander and is later killed in an argument between the two (\"Hell's Bells\"). Grief-stricken, Anya is vulnerable to D'Hoffryn's coaxing, and becomes a vengeance demon again.\n\nIn the Season Six episode \"Entropy\" Anya returns to Sunnydale. The audience can see her as a vengeance demon but the other characters are unaware until \"Villains\". Anya cannot find anyone who wishes vengeance on Xander and so she takes comfort in sex with Spike, an act which puts her relationship and friendship with Xander and Buffy in jeopardy. Spike nearly wishes for some kind of vengeance upon Xander, but after seeing how much her actions hurt him, Anya stops him, unable to go through with it. In the Season Six finale, Willow destroys The Magic Box, leaving Anya jobless in the mortal world. Anya does not enjoy her return to being a vengeance demon—her experience as a human has led to empathy, which makes exacting vengeance too painful for her to manage. She spends a summer granting half-hearted wishes and gains a reputation among demons as \"Miss Soft-Serve\".\n\nWhen asked what direction she would like to see Anya's character go, Emma Caulfield said she hoped that in Season Seven Anya would become \"kind of a badass\". Caulfield said that Anya has always been strong in unorthodox ways, but \"I'd like to see a more blatant display of her strength.\" Appropriately, after Halfrek encourages Anya to return to her former level of work, Anya exacts a terrible vengeance on a group of college boys by unleashing a spider-like Grimslaw demon on them. This results in a battle with Buffy, in which they are almost evenly matched. The battle is interrupted when D'Hoffryn, summoned by Willow from the Summers home, shows up. D'Hoffryn asks Anya what she wants, and she asks that her vengeance be reversed. D'Hoffryn tells her the price will be the life of a vengeance demon; Anya agrees, assuming it is she who will die, but D'Hoffryn summons Halfrek, incinerating her before Anya. \"Never go for the kill, when you can go for the pain\" he tells the distressed Anya, and strips her of her powers, making her once again mortal.\n\nAnya decides that she has been too dependent on others and resolves to find an independent purpose in life for herself. She eventually rejoins the Scooby Gang as Season Seven focuses on the long fight against the First Evil and eventually becomes friends with Xander; although Xander and Anya still love each other, they never officially resume their relationship.\n\nIn the series finale, \"Chosen\", Anya fights with the others in the climactic battle against the First Evil and is brutally slain from behind, bisected by a Bringer's sword. Her body lies in the school's remains although Xander attempts to locate her while fleeing the collapsing building. After Sunnydale collapses into the Hellmouth, Andrew Wells comforts Xander by telling him that Anya had died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replies, \"That's my girl, always doing the stupid thing.\"\n\nIn an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield stated that she was okay with her character's abrupt death, stating, \"She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect.\" Although later, at Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 she said she didn't realize it was going to be abrupt and without fanfare, and would have appreciated a little something more.\n\nJoss Whedon joked at the Nocturnal convention in 2001 Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season Five finale, \"The Gift\", but he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield couldn't keep still while Xander was carrying Anya's supposedly lifeless body.\n\nComic book series\nIt was stated that Anya would return in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, even with Joss Whedon telling MTV that she was \"definitely dead... but that doesn't mean she's gone.\" However, Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie stated that there were no current plans for Anya to appear.\n\nIn the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, Anya returns as a ghost, having a conversation with Xander during a battle with both a mindless breed of vampires, which Xander has dubbed \"zompires,\" and another new breed who are stronger and has abilities of withstanding sunlight and shape-shifting. Currently, she is only visible to her former fiancé, and Xander hasn't yet informed the gang about Anya. It soon turns out she was a fake ghost who was created by D'Hoffryn who wanted revenge on Xander. Anya's fake ghost realizes that the one thing Anya wanted before she died was taking care of D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn was pulling Anya's strings for a long time, even when she was human. She never cut her strings and finally got her vengeance on D'Hoffryn and knew that Xander felt bad about what happened between him and Anya. Before departing, she assures Xander that he is a good man and that the original Anya would forgive him as well.\n\nPowers and abilities\nAnyanka has the power to grant wishes made by women seeking revenge against men who have wronged them, even changing reality to accommodate these wishes, a gift which is supported by her ability to detect women's emotional pain at a distance. She has supernatural strength, teleportation (although in \"Same Time, Same Place\" she mentions that her use of teleportation is temporarily limited and requires bureaucratic paperwork), telekinesis and rapid healing, being able to survive impalement. As a demon she will not die of old age, having lived over a thousand years, but can be killed if her body is sufficiently damaged.\n\nWith over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology and various dimensions is immense, surpassing both Giles and his successor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, but not as skilled as them in research. Although her native language is Old Norse, Anyanka/Anya speaks fluent English as well as some French, Latin and can read and speak Ancient Sumerian. It is implied that she can speak any human language, as she has granted wishes in many countries all over the world throughout many centuries. Despite being human, Anya still has contacts with some of her former associates.\n\nAnya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic, often commenting on Willow's spellcasting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and she occasionally participates in the casting of spells herself (\"Doppelgangland\"). As a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her time as a demon allows her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.\n\nAs a ghost, Anya is incorporeal and invisible to everyone except Xander.\n\nPersonality\nCommenting on the personality of her character, Caulfield said, \"Anya remains mortal and ambivalent. She's just struggling with being human, and really, don't we all struggle with that from time to time? She's very indifferent - and definitely sarcastic and bitter at times.\" Anya states in the \"Selfless\" flashback that she likes to bowl and she's \"good with math\".\n\nBunny phobia\nAnya's irrational fear of rabbits (leporiphobia) is established for the first time in the Season Four Halloween episode \"Fear, Itself\", in which she appears in a bunny costume after Xander tells her to come to the party as something \"scary\". Her phobia becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series. In \"The Gift\", Anya sees a stuffed rabbit in the basement of The Magic Box (while looking for the Dagon Sphere with Xander), causing her to scream and exclaim, \"Who would put something like that there?!\" In \"Once More, With Feeling\", Anya sings, \"Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?\", a verse reminiscent of Willow's speech about spiders (\"Nightmares\"). In \"Tabula Rasa\", while suffering from memory loss, she repeatedly casts a spell that does nothing more than cause rabbits to appear in increasing numbers. The phobia also manifests itself in her final moments. As the final battle approaches, Andrew Wells suggests she \"picture happy things: a lake, candy canes, bunnies...\" The change is drastic and instantaneous. She confidently raises her sword, saying grimly, \"Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies.\"\n\nIn her \"origins\" episode, \"Selfless\", Anya (then known as Aud), is surrounded by rabbits without showing any signs of distress over their presence.\n\nAcademic analysis\nAnya has been the subject of at least one academic article. For Tamy Burnett, \"Anya ... stands alone as the only woman in the Buffyverse to remain unshamed and unpunished for her expressions of sexuality\". Burnett argues that, among Buffys female characters, despite their varying versions of personal and/or mental strength, Anya is the only one who is truly sexually liberated. Buffy and her friends tend to be \"girly girls\", who learn that \"Sex is bad\" and have their transgressions of traditional gender performance punished; Burnett cites the loss of Angel's soul, punitive interpretations of Tara's death, and Willow's transformation into Warren among other consequences. Faith comes \"the closest\" after Anya to breaking these traditional patterns because, while she is \"just as sexual and outspoken\" as Anya, she pivotally does not achieve Anya's acceptance within the group; for Anya, this \"legitimizes her perspective\". She identifies this motif with typical traits of horror fiction, citing Dawn Heinecken's feminist analysis in Warrior Women of Television. Anya frankly admits to masturbation and to her favourite sexual activities with Xander, and assumes that others share her attitudes. To Burnett, Anya's death in \"Chosen\" positions Anya as \"failing to achieve [her] ultimate narrative legitimacy\". Burnett concludes that \"Anya's attitude toward sexual desire marks her as transgressing traditional forms of female sexuality, a significant break to the pattern by which other women on the show are constrained.\"\n\nAppearances\nBuffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya appeared in 81 canon episodes. Anya was a series regular from Seasons Five through Seven (2000–2003), but did not appear in \"Normal Again\", \"Help\" (her scenes were cut), \"Conversations with Dead People\", and \"Dirty Girls\". Prior to Season Five, Anya was a recurring character for seasons three to four, appearing in the following episodes:\n\n Season Three (1998–1999): \"The Wish\", \"Doppelgangland\", \"The Prom\" and \"Graduation Day, Part One\".\n Season Four (1999–2000): \"The Harsh Light of Day\", \"Fear, Itself\", \"Pangs\", \"Something Blue\", \"Hush\", \"A New Man\", \"The I in Team\", \"Goodbye Iowa\", \"Who Are You\", \"Superstar\", \"Where the Wild Things Are\", \"New Moon Rising\", \"The Yoko Factor\", \"Primeval\", and \"Restless\".\n\nAnya has also appeared in a number of comics including Past Lives, Ugly Little Monsters, and Reunion, and in novels including Unseen, Wisdom of War and Monster Island. She also makes a brief appearance in the 2003 video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds.\n\nMerchandise\nIn 2005, Diamond Select Toys produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their Buffy the Vampire Slayer line. Each figure featured a \"real-scan\" likeness of Caulfield and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced were: \"Season 5 Anya\" in red top and black skirt, \"Hell's Bells Anya\" in wedding dress, \"Once More, With Feeling Anya\" in butterfly top and green skirt, \"Anyanka\" in demon dress, and \"Bunny Suit Anya\" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of \"Bunny Suit Anya\" was featured in the Vengeance Book box-set.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Anya on IMDb\n\nBuffy the Vampire Slayer characters\nBuffyverse characters who use magic\nBuffyverse demons\nFemale characters in television\nTelevision characters introduced in 1998\nFictional characters who can teleport\nFictional mass murderers\nFictional shopkeepers\nFictional immigrants to the United States\nFictional demon hunters\nFictional ghosts\nFictional telekinetics\nFictional characters with superhuman strength\nFictional Swedish people\nFemale characters in comics"
] |
[
"Anya Jenkins",
"Backstory",
"Who is Anya Jenkins",
"Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village."
] |
C_38195211d23e47b5a963a9c122593fff_1
|
Was the show renewed?
| 2 |
Was the show starring Anya Jenkins renewed?
|
Anya Jenkins
|
Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint Of The Women Scorned, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes. Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage -- only a few people survive -- shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Anyanka Christina Emmanuella "Anya" Jenkins (born as Aud) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a recurring star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before becoming a series regular in the show's fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2003, appearing in the series finale of the show that aired on May 20, 2003.
Within the series' narrative, Anya was originally a human named Aud, but spent over a thousand years as Anyanka, a vengeance demon, wreaking havoc by granting the wishes of women who had been wronged by men. The character becomes human again in her first appearance, and is forced to learn what it means to be human again in subsequent episodes. Primarily, this is used by the writers for comic relief; Anya has a very poor sense of what behaviors are appropriate, and speaks very bluntly and honestly. However, the writers have also used this for more poignant purposes, such as when Anya finds herself struggling to deal with death. Flashbacks show that Anyanka's manner was much the same before she became a demon. Over a decade after being killed in the series finale, Anya returned as a ghost in the canonical comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.
Character history
Backstory
Anyanka "Anya" Jenkins was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes.
Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage — only a few people survive — shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692.
In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity.
Storylines as a recurring character
Anyanka arrives at Sunnydale High in 1998 (in the episode "The Wish") as a student named Anya Emerson. She came to Sunnydale in response to the distress of Cordelia, who is upset after catching her boyfriend, Xander Harris, kissing their friend Willow. After some prompting, Cordelia states: "I wish that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale." Anya shows her true demon face to Cordelia and says, "Done." and the world changes. Now they are in an alternative reality in which Buffy has not come to Sunnydale and the vampire population has multiplied and gained in power. Giles meets with Cordelia before she dies and manages to discern what has happened. He subsequently summons Anyanka and destroys her necklace. As a result, Anya is made a mortal and powerless human again and the world returns to normal.
Caulfield said, "As far as I know, I don't think Joss Whedon ever intended to have Anya around for more than one episode." However, Anya returns in the episode "Doppelgangland", duping Willow into assisting in a failed magical attempt to recover the necklace which was her power center, lost when Giles destroyed it to reverse the wish granted for Cordelia. When these efforts fail, she is forced to continue living as a typical high school student. Now with human feelings, she yearns to attend the school prom in spite of her abhorrence of all men; ironically, her only hope for a date is the last man she was sent to punish, Xander. Caulfield says, "[Whedon] found this great way to have her interact with the storylines that had developed throughout the entire [third] season."
Anya develops feelings for Xander and asks him out again just before graduation, even though Xander showed no interest in her. Her romantic plans are foiled when he tells her of the Mayor's plan for his own "Ascension", a transformation into pure demon, at the graduation ceremony. Anya decides to flee Sunnydale and invites Xander to join her, saying when she thinks something could happen to him, she "feels bad inside, like [she] might vomit". Xander refuses because he's got "friends on the line", and can't abandon them. She leaves without him.
Anya returns to Sunnydale early in Season Four, still infatuated with Xander. She seduces him (in the episode "The Harsh Light of Day"). Her lack of experience with people causes her to make straightforward, often tactless remarks, which soon put her at odds with other Scooby Gang members, especially Willow, who has little trust for the ex-demon. Anya's tactlessness is played both for humor and to highlight the truth in situations where others are reluctant to be frank. This is seen most poignantly in "The Body" when her inability to comprehend Buffy's mother's death leads to inappropriate remarks which at first make others angry, but then allow for catharsis and comfort.
Storylines as a regular cast member
Anya becomes a regular in Season Five of the show. While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism (as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud). Anya's budding retail skills encourage Giles to hire her as a cashier at The Magic Box. In the episode, "Checkpoint", Anya is questioned by members of the Watchers' Council, and invents the full name Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and claims to have been born on the Fourth of July in Indiana.
During an impending apocalypse, brought about by Glory at the end of Season Five, Xander proposes to Anya and they are engaged for most of Season Six. Xander's doubts grow, however, and it is not difficult for Stewart Burns - escaped from Hell and impersonating Xander's future self - to persuade him to leave Anya at the wedding by showing him an illusionary life where Anya apparently cheats on Xander and is later killed in an argument between the two ("Hell's Bells"). Grief-stricken, Anya is vulnerable to D'Hoffryn's coaxing, and becomes a vengeance demon again.
In the Season Six episode "Entropy" Anya returns to Sunnydale. The audience can see her as a vengeance demon but the other characters are unaware until "Villains". Anya cannot find anyone who wishes vengeance on Xander and so she takes comfort in sex with Spike, an act which puts her relationship and friendship with Xander and Buffy in jeopardy. Spike nearly wishes for some kind of vengeance upon Xander, but after seeing how much her actions hurt him, Anya stops him, unable to go through with it. In the Season Six finale, Willow destroys The Magic Box, leaving Anya jobless in the mortal world. Anya does not enjoy her return to being a vengeance demon—her experience as a human has led to empathy, which makes exacting vengeance too painful for her to manage. She spends a summer granting half-hearted wishes and gains a reputation among demons as "Miss Soft-Serve".
When asked what direction she would like to see Anya's character go, Emma Caulfield said she hoped that in Season Seven Anya would become "kind of a badass". Caulfield said that Anya has always been strong in unorthodox ways, but "I'd like to see a more blatant display of her strength." Appropriately, after Halfrek encourages Anya to return to her former level of work, Anya exacts a terrible vengeance on a group of college boys by unleashing a spider-like Grimslaw demon on them. This results in a battle with Buffy, in which they are almost evenly matched. The battle is interrupted when D'Hoffryn, summoned by Willow from the Summers home, shows up. D'Hoffryn asks Anya what she wants, and she asks that her vengeance be reversed. D'Hoffryn tells her the price will be the life of a vengeance demon; Anya agrees, assuming it is she who will die, but D'Hoffryn summons Halfrek, incinerating her before Anya. "Never go for the kill, when you can go for the pain" he tells the distressed Anya, and strips her of her powers, making her once again mortal.
Anya decides that she has been too dependent on others and resolves to find an independent purpose in life for herself. She eventually rejoins the Scooby Gang as Season Seven focuses on the long fight against the First Evil and eventually becomes friends with Xander; although Xander and Anya still love each other, they never officially resume their relationship.
In the series finale, "Chosen", Anya fights with the others in the climactic battle against the First Evil and is brutally slain from behind, bisected by a Bringer's sword. Her body lies in the school's remains although Xander attempts to locate her while fleeing the collapsing building. After Sunnydale collapses into the Hellmouth, Andrew Wells comforts Xander by telling him that Anya had died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replies, "That's my girl, always doing the stupid thing."
In an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield stated that she was okay with her character's abrupt death, stating, "She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect." Although later, at Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 she said she didn't realize it was going to be abrupt and without fanfare, and would have appreciated a little something more.
Joss Whedon joked at the Nocturnal convention in 2001 Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season Five finale, "The Gift", but he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield couldn't keep still while Xander was carrying Anya's supposedly lifeless body.
Comic book series
It was stated that Anya would return in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, even with Joss Whedon telling MTV that she was "definitely dead... but that doesn't mean she's gone." However, Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie stated that there were no current plans for Anya to appear.
In the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, Anya returns as a ghost, having a conversation with Xander during a battle with both a mindless breed of vampires, which Xander has dubbed "zompires," and another new breed who are stronger and has abilities of withstanding sunlight and shape-shifting. Currently, she is only visible to her former fiancé, and Xander hasn't yet informed the gang about Anya. It soon turns out she was a fake ghost who was created by D'Hoffryn who wanted revenge on Xander. Anya's fake ghost realizes that the one thing Anya wanted before she died was taking care of D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn was pulling Anya's strings for a long time, even when she was human. She never cut her strings and finally got her vengeance on D'Hoffryn and knew that Xander felt bad about what happened between him and Anya. Before departing, she assures Xander that he is a good man and that the original Anya would forgive him as well.
Powers and abilities
Anyanka has the power to grant wishes made by women seeking revenge against men who have wronged them, even changing reality to accommodate these wishes, a gift which is supported by her ability to detect women's emotional pain at a distance. She has supernatural strength, teleportation (although in "Same Time, Same Place" she mentions that her use of teleportation is temporarily limited and requires bureaucratic paperwork), telekinesis and rapid healing, being able to survive impalement. As a demon she will not die of old age, having lived over a thousand years, but can be killed if her body is sufficiently damaged.
With over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology and various dimensions is immense, surpassing both Giles and his successor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, but not as skilled as them in research. Although her native language is Old Norse, Anyanka/Anya speaks fluent English as well as some French, Latin and can read and speak Ancient Sumerian. It is implied that she can speak any human language, as she has granted wishes in many countries all over the world throughout many centuries. Despite being human, Anya still has contacts with some of her former associates.
Anya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic, often commenting on Willow's spellcasting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and she occasionally participates in the casting of spells herself ("Doppelgangland"). As a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her time as a demon allows her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.
As a ghost, Anya is incorporeal and invisible to everyone except Xander.
Personality
Commenting on the personality of her character, Caulfield said, "Anya remains mortal and ambivalent. She's just struggling with being human, and really, don't we all struggle with that from time to time? She's very indifferent - and definitely sarcastic and bitter at times." Anya states in the "Selfless" flashback that she likes to bowl and she's "good with math".
Bunny phobia
Anya's irrational fear of rabbits (leporiphobia) is established for the first time in the Season Four Halloween episode "Fear, Itself", in which she appears in a bunny costume after Xander tells her to come to the party as something "scary". Her phobia becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series. In "The Gift", Anya sees a stuffed rabbit in the basement of The Magic Box (while looking for the Dagon Sphere with Xander), causing her to scream and exclaim, "Who would put something like that there?!" In "Once More, With Feeling", Anya sings, "Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?", a verse reminiscent of Willow's speech about spiders ("Nightmares"). In "Tabula Rasa", while suffering from memory loss, she repeatedly casts a spell that does nothing more than cause rabbits to appear in increasing numbers. The phobia also manifests itself in her final moments. As the final battle approaches, Andrew Wells suggests she "picture happy things: a lake, candy canes, bunnies..." The change is drastic and instantaneous. She confidently raises her sword, saying grimly, "Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies."
In her "origins" episode, "Selfless", Anya (then known as Aud), is surrounded by rabbits without showing any signs of distress over their presence.
Academic analysis
Anya has been the subject of at least one academic article. For Tamy Burnett, "Anya ... stands alone as the only woman in the Buffyverse to remain unshamed and unpunished for her expressions of sexuality". Burnett argues that, among Buffys female characters, despite their varying versions of personal and/or mental strength, Anya is the only one who is truly sexually liberated. Buffy and her friends tend to be "girly girls", who learn that "Sex is bad" and have their transgressions of traditional gender performance punished; Burnett cites the loss of Angel's soul, punitive interpretations of Tara's death, and Willow's transformation into Warren among other consequences. Faith comes "the closest" after Anya to breaking these traditional patterns because, while she is "just as sexual and outspoken" as Anya, she pivotally does not achieve Anya's acceptance within the group; for Anya, this "legitimizes her perspective". She identifies this motif with typical traits of horror fiction, citing Dawn Heinecken's feminist analysis in Warrior Women of Television. Anya frankly admits to masturbation and to her favourite sexual activities with Xander, and assumes that others share her attitudes. To Burnett, Anya's death in "Chosen" positions Anya as "failing to achieve [her] ultimate narrative legitimacy". Burnett concludes that "Anya's attitude toward sexual desire marks her as transgressing traditional forms of female sexuality, a significant break to the pattern by which other women on the show are constrained."
Appearances
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya appeared in 81 canon episodes. Anya was a series regular from Seasons Five through Seven (2000–2003), but did not appear in "Normal Again", "Help" (her scenes were cut), "Conversations with Dead People", and "Dirty Girls". Prior to Season Five, Anya was a recurring character for seasons three to four, appearing in the following episodes:
Season Three (1998–1999): "The Wish", "Doppelgangland", "The Prom" and "Graduation Day, Part One".
Season Four (1999–2000): "The Harsh Light of Day", "Fear, Itself", "Pangs", "Something Blue", "Hush", "A New Man", "The I in Team", "Goodbye Iowa", "Who Are You", "Superstar", "Where the Wild Things Are", "New Moon Rising", "The Yoko Factor", "Primeval", and "Restless".
Anya has also appeared in a number of comics including Past Lives, Ugly Little Monsters, and Reunion, and in novels including Unseen, Wisdom of War and Monster Island. She also makes a brief appearance in the 2003 video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds.
Merchandise
In 2005, Diamond Select Toys produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their Buffy the Vampire Slayer line. Each figure featured a "real-scan" likeness of Caulfield and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced were: "Season 5 Anya" in red top and black skirt, "Hell's Bells Anya" in wedding dress, "Once More, With Feeling Anya" in butterfly top and green skirt, "Anyanka" in demon dress, and "Bunny Suit Anya" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of "Bunny Suit Anya" was featured in the Vengeance Book box-set.
References
External links
Anya on IMDb
Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
Buffyverse characters who use magic
Buffyverse demons
Female characters in television
Television characters introduced in 1998
Fictional characters who can teleport
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional shopkeepers
Fictional immigrants to the United States
Fictional demon hunters
Fictional ghosts
Fictional telekinetics
Fictional characters with superhuman strength
Fictional Swedish people
Female characters in comics
| false |
[
"Jane the Virgin is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on The CW on October 13, 2014. The series follows Jane Villanueva, a hard-working, religious young Latina woman whose vow to save her virginity until marriage is shattered when a doctor mistakenly artificially inseminates her during a checkup. To make matters worse, the biological donor is a married man, a former playboy and cancer survivor who is not only the new owner of the hotel where Jane works, but was also her former teenage crush. \n\nThe show was ordered to series on May 8, 2014, followed by a full season order on October 21, 2014. On January 11, 2015, the show was renewed for a second season. On March 11, 2016, the show was renewed for a third season. On January 8, 2017, the show was renewed for a fourth season. On April 2, 2018, the show was renewed for a fifth and final season.\n\nDuring the course of the series, 100 episodes of Jane the Virgin aired over five seasons, between October 13, 2014, and July 31, 2019.\n\nSeries overview\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeason 1 (2014–15)\n\nSeason 2 (2015–16)\n\nSeason 3 (2016–17)\n\nSeason 4 (2017–18)\n\nSeason 5 (2019)\n\nRatings\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n\nLists of American comedy-drama television series episodes",
"How to Get Away with Murder is an American legal drama television series that premiered on ABC on September 25, 2014. The series follows Annalise Keating, a law professor and criminal defense attorney at Middleton University, who selects five interns to work in her law firm: Wes Gibbins, Connor Walsh, Michaela Pratt, Asher Millstone, and Laurel Castillo – alongside Annalise's employees Frank Delfino and Bonnie Winterbottom, an associate lawyer. With the exception of the pilot, every episode's title is a phrase said by one of the characters in that episode.\n \nThe first season initially had an order of thirteen episodes, but ABC ordered a full season for the series with an additional two episodes after the first episode aired and was the top series debut of the season. On May 7, 2015, the show was renewed for a second season, which consisted of fifteen episodes like the previous season. March 3, 2016, ABC announced that the show was renewed for a third season. On February 10, 2017, ABC renewed the show for a fourth season. On May 11, 2018, ABC announced the show was officially renewed for a fifth season. On May 10, 2019, the series was renewed for a sixth season. On July 11, 2019, it was announced the sixth season would be the last.\n\nSeries overview\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeason 1 (2014–15)\n\nSeason 2 (2015–16)\n\nSeason 3 (2016–17)\n\nSeason 4 (2017–18)\n\nSeason 5 (2018–19)\n\nSeason 6 (2019–20)\n\nRatings\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n\nEpisodes\nHow to Get Away with Murder"
] |
[
"Anya Jenkins",
"Backstory",
"Who is Anya Jenkins",
"Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village.",
"Was the show renewed?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_38195211d23e47b5a963a9c122593fff_1
|
Are all vampires?
| 3 |
How did Anya become a vampire?
|
Anya Jenkins
|
Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint Of The Women Scorned, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes. Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage -- only a few people survive -- shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity. CANNOTANSWER
|
attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women.
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Anyanka Christina Emmanuella "Anya" Jenkins (born as Aud) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a recurring star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before becoming a series regular in the show's fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2003, appearing in the series finale of the show that aired on May 20, 2003.
Within the series' narrative, Anya was originally a human named Aud, but spent over a thousand years as Anyanka, a vengeance demon, wreaking havoc by granting the wishes of women who had been wronged by men. The character becomes human again in her first appearance, and is forced to learn what it means to be human again in subsequent episodes. Primarily, this is used by the writers for comic relief; Anya has a very poor sense of what behaviors are appropriate, and speaks very bluntly and honestly. However, the writers have also used this for more poignant purposes, such as when Anya finds herself struggling to deal with death. Flashbacks show that Anyanka's manner was much the same before she became a demon. Over a decade after being killed in the series finale, Anya returned as a ghost in the canonical comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.
Character history
Backstory
Anyanka "Anya" Jenkins was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes.
Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage — only a few people survive — shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692.
In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity.
Storylines as a recurring character
Anyanka arrives at Sunnydale High in 1998 (in the episode "The Wish") as a student named Anya Emerson. She came to Sunnydale in response to the distress of Cordelia, who is upset after catching her boyfriend, Xander Harris, kissing their friend Willow. After some prompting, Cordelia states: "I wish that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale." Anya shows her true demon face to Cordelia and says, "Done." and the world changes. Now they are in an alternative reality in which Buffy has not come to Sunnydale and the vampire population has multiplied and gained in power. Giles meets with Cordelia before she dies and manages to discern what has happened. He subsequently summons Anyanka and destroys her necklace. As a result, Anya is made a mortal and powerless human again and the world returns to normal.
Caulfield said, "As far as I know, I don't think Joss Whedon ever intended to have Anya around for more than one episode." However, Anya returns in the episode "Doppelgangland", duping Willow into assisting in a failed magical attempt to recover the necklace which was her power center, lost when Giles destroyed it to reverse the wish granted for Cordelia. When these efforts fail, she is forced to continue living as a typical high school student. Now with human feelings, she yearns to attend the school prom in spite of her abhorrence of all men; ironically, her only hope for a date is the last man she was sent to punish, Xander. Caulfield says, "[Whedon] found this great way to have her interact with the storylines that had developed throughout the entire [third] season."
Anya develops feelings for Xander and asks him out again just before graduation, even though Xander showed no interest in her. Her romantic plans are foiled when he tells her of the Mayor's plan for his own "Ascension", a transformation into pure demon, at the graduation ceremony. Anya decides to flee Sunnydale and invites Xander to join her, saying when she thinks something could happen to him, she "feels bad inside, like [she] might vomit". Xander refuses because he's got "friends on the line", and can't abandon them. She leaves without him.
Anya returns to Sunnydale early in Season Four, still infatuated with Xander. She seduces him (in the episode "The Harsh Light of Day"). Her lack of experience with people causes her to make straightforward, often tactless remarks, which soon put her at odds with other Scooby Gang members, especially Willow, who has little trust for the ex-demon. Anya's tactlessness is played both for humor and to highlight the truth in situations where others are reluctant to be frank. This is seen most poignantly in "The Body" when her inability to comprehend Buffy's mother's death leads to inappropriate remarks which at first make others angry, but then allow for catharsis and comfort.
Storylines as a regular cast member
Anya becomes a regular in Season Five of the show. While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism (as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud). Anya's budding retail skills encourage Giles to hire her as a cashier at The Magic Box. In the episode, "Checkpoint", Anya is questioned by members of the Watchers' Council, and invents the full name Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and claims to have been born on the Fourth of July in Indiana.
During an impending apocalypse, brought about by Glory at the end of Season Five, Xander proposes to Anya and they are engaged for most of Season Six. Xander's doubts grow, however, and it is not difficult for Stewart Burns - escaped from Hell and impersonating Xander's future self - to persuade him to leave Anya at the wedding by showing him an illusionary life where Anya apparently cheats on Xander and is later killed in an argument between the two ("Hell's Bells"). Grief-stricken, Anya is vulnerable to D'Hoffryn's coaxing, and becomes a vengeance demon again.
In the Season Six episode "Entropy" Anya returns to Sunnydale. The audience can see her as a vengeance demon but the other characters are unaware until "Villains". Anya cannot find anyone who wishes vengeance on Xander and so she takes comfort in sex with Spike, an act which puts her relationship and friendship with Xander and Buffy in jeopardy. Spike nearly wishes for some kind of vengeance upon Xander, but after seeing how much her actions hurt him, Anya stops him, unable to go through with it. In the Season Six finale, Willow destroys The Magic Box, leaving Anya jobless in the mortal world. Anya does not enjoy her return to being a vengeance demon—her experience as a human has led to empathy, which makes exacting vengeance too painful for her to manage. She spends a summer granting half-hearted wishes and gains a reputation among demons as "Miss Soft-Serve".
When asked what direction she would like to see Anya's character go, Emma Caulfield said she hoped that in Season Seven Anya would become "kind of a badass". Caulfield said that Anya has always been strong in unorthodox ways, but "I'd like to see a more blatant display of her strength." Appropriately, after Halfrek encourages Anya to return to her former level of work, Anya exacts a terrible vengeance on a group of college boys by unleashing a spider-like Grimslaw demon on them. This results in a battle with Buffy, in which they are almost evenly matched. The battle is interrupted when D'Hoffryn, summoned by Willow from the Summers home, shows up. D'Hoffryn asks Anya what she wants, and she asks that her vengeance be reversed. D'Hoffryn tells her the price will be the life of a vengeance demon; Anya agrees, assuming it is she who will die, but D'Hoffryn summons Halfrek, incinerating her before Anya. "Never go for the kill, when you can go for the pain" he tells the distressed Anya, and strips her of her powers, making her once again mortal.
Anya decides that she has been too dependent on others and resolves to find an independent purpose in life for herself. She eventually rejoins the Scooby Gang as Season Seven focuses on the long fight against the First Evil and eventually becomes friends with Xander; although Xander and Anya still love each other, they never officially resume their relationship.
In the series finale, "Chosen", Anya fights with the others in the climactic battle against the First Evil and is brutally slain from behind, bisected by a Bringer's sword. Her body lies in the school's remains although Xander attempts to locate her while fleeing the collapsing building. After Sunnydale collapses into the Hellmouth, Andrew Wells comforts Xander by telling him that Anya had died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replies, "That's my girl, always doing the stupid thing."
In an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield stated that she was okay with her character's abrupt death, stating, "She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect." Although later, at Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 she said she didn't realize it was going to be abrupt and without fanfare, and would have appreciated a little something more.
Joss Whedon joked at the Nocturnal convention in 2001 Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season Five finale, "The Gift", but he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield couldn't keep still while Xander was carrying Anya's supposedly lifeless body.
Comic book series
It was stated that Anya would return in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, even with Joss Whedon telling MTV that she was "definitely dead... but that doesn't mean she's gone." However, Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie stated that there were no current plans for Anya to appear.
In the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, Anya returns as a ghost, having a conversation with Xander during a battle with both a mindless breed of vampires, which Xander has dubbed "zompires," and another new breed who are stronger and has abilities of withstanding sunlight and shape-shifting. Currently, she is only visible to her former fiancé, and Xander hasn't yet informed the gang about Anya. It soon turns out she was a fake ghost who was created by D'Hoffryn who wanted revenge on Xander. Anya's fake ghost realizes that the one thing Anya wanted before she died was taking care of D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn was pulling Anya's strings for a long time, even when she was human. She never cut her strings and finally got her vengeance on D'Hoffryn and knew that Xander felt bad about what happened between him and Anya. Before departing, she assures Xander that he is a good man and that the original Anya would forgive him as well.
Powers and abilities
Anyanka has the power to grant wishes made by women seeking revenge against men who have wronged them, even changing reality to accommodate these wishes, a gift which is supported by her ability to detect women's emotional pain at a distance. She has supernatural strength, teleportation (although in "Same Time, Same Place" she mentions that her use of teleportation is temporarily limited and requires bureaucratic paperwork), telekinesis and rapid healing, being able to survive impalement. As a demon she will not die of old age, having lived over a thousand years, but can be killed if her body is sufficiently damaged.
With over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology and various dimensions is immense, surpassing both Giles and his successor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, but not as skilled as them in research. Although her native language is Old Norse, Anyanka/Anya speaks fluent English as well as some French, Latin and can read and speak Ancient Sumerian. It is implied that she can speak any human language, as she has granted wishes in many countries all over the world throughout many centuries. Despite being human, Anya still has contacts with some of her former associates.
Anya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic, often commenting on Willow's spellcasting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and she occasionally participates in the casting of spells herself ("Doppelgangland"). As a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her time as a demon allows her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.
As a ghost, Anya is incorporeal and invisible to everyone except Xander.
Personality
Commenting on the personality of her character, Caulfield said, "Anya remains mortal and ambivalent. She's just struggling with being human, and really, don't we all struggle with that from time to time? She's very indifferent - and definitely sarcastic and bitter at times." Anya states in the "Selfless" flashback that she likes to bowl and she's "good with math".
Bunny phobia
Anya's irrational fear of rabbits (leporiphobia) is established for the first time in the Season Four Halloween episode "Fear, Itself", in which she appears in a bunny costume after Xander tells her to come to the party as something "scary". Her phobia becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series. In "The Gift", Anya sees a stuffed rabbit in the basement of The Magic Box (while looking for the Dagon Sphere with Xander), causing her to scream and exclaim, "Who would put something like that there?!" In "Once More, With Feeling", Anya sings, "Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?", a verse reminiscent of Willow's speech about spiders ("Nightmares"). In "Tabula Rasa", while suffering from memory loss, she repeatedly casts a spell that does nothing more than cause rabbits to appear in increasing numbers. The phobia also manifests itself in her final moments. As the final battle approaches, Andrew Wells suggests she "picture happy things: a lake, candy canes, bunnies..." The change is drastic and instantaneous. She confidently raises her sword, saying grimly, "Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies."
In her "origins" episode, "Selfless", Anya (then known as Aud), is surrounded by rabbits without showing any signs of distress over their presence.
Academic analysis
Anya has been the subject of at least one academic article. For Tamy Burnett, "Anya ... stands alone as the only woman in the Buffyverse to remain unshamed and unpunished for her expressions of sexuality". Burnett argues that, among Buffys female characters, despite their varying versions of personal and/or mental strength, Anya is the only one who is truly sexually liberated. Buffy and her friends tend to be "girly girls", who learn that "Sex is bad" and have their transgressions of traditional gender performance punished; Burnett cites the loss of Angel's soul, punitive interpretations of Tara's death, and Willow's transformation into Warren among other consequences. Faith comes "the closest" after Anya to breaking these traditional patterns because, while she is "just as sexual and outspoken" as Anya, she pivotally does not achieve Anya's acceptance within the group; for Anya, this "legitimizes her perspective". She identifies this motif with typical traits of horror fiction, citing Dawn Heinecken's feminist analysis in Warrior Women of Television. Anya frankly admits to masturbation and to her favourite sexual activities with Xander, and assumes that others share her attitudes. To Burnett, Anya's death in "Chosen" positions Anya as "failing to achieve [her] ultimate narrative legitimacy". Burnett concludes that "Anya's attitude toward sexual desire marks her as transgressing traditional forms of female sexuality, a significant break to the pattern by which other women on the show are constrained."
Appearances
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya appeared in 81 canon episodes. Anya was a series regular from Seasons Five through Seven (2000–2003), but did not appear in "Normal Again", "Help" (her scenes were cut), "Conversations with Dead People", and "Dirty Girls". Prior to Season Five, Anya was a recurring character for seasons three to four, appearing in the following episodes:
Season Three (1998–1999): "The Wish", "Doppelgangland", "The Prom" and "Graduation Day, Part One".
Season Four (1999–2000): "The Harsh Light of Day", "Fear, Itself", "Pangs", "Something Blue", "Hush", "A New Man", "The I in Team", "Goodbye Iowa", "Who Are You", "Superstar", "Where the Wild Things Are", "New Moon Rising", "The Yoko Factor", "Primeval", and "Restless".
Anya has also appeared in a number of comics including Past Lives, Ugly Little Monsters, and Reunion, and in novels including Unseen, Wisdom of War and Monster Island. She also makes a brief appearance in the 2003 video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds.
Merchandise
In 2005, Diamond Select Toys produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their Buffy the Vampire Slayer line. Each figure featured a "real-scan" likeness of Caulfield and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced were: "Season 5 Anya" in red top and black skirt, "Hell's Bells Anya" in wedding dress, "Once More, With Feeling Anya" in butterfly top and green skirt, "Anyanka" in demon dress, and "Bunny Suit Anya" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of "Bunny Suit Anya" was featured in the Vengeance Book box-set.
References
External links
Anya on IMDb
Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
Buffyverse characters who use magic
Buffyverse demons
Female characters in television
Television characters introduced in 1998
Fictional characters who can teleport
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional shopkeepers
Fictional immigrants to the United States
Fictional demon hunters
Fictional ghosts
Fictional telekinetics
Fictional characters with superhuman strength
Fictional Swedish people
Female characters in comics
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"In the fictional world of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel, a vampire is a unique variety of demon that can only exist on the earthly plane by inhabiting and animating a human corpse. In Fray, a Buffy comic book spin-off set about a century in the future, vampires are also called lurks.\n\nDescription\n\nThe vampires in the canonical Buffyverse differ greatly from those that appear in the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. The movie's vampires are able to fly, look pale but relatively human, and do not crumble to dust when killed. The canonical vampires, introduced in the first episode of the television series, are demonic spirits that inhabit human corpses. \nBecause of their partly human nature, vampires are considered impure by other demons who sometimes call them \"blood rats\".\n\nAccording to Rupert Giles, when the ancient race of demons called the Old Ones were banished from Earth, the last one fed on a human and mixed their blood, creating the first vampire. This vampire then feeds on other humans and makes more of its kind, essentially being biological weapon against the human race for the Old Ones. According to Illyria, vampires existed during her time as an Old Onelong before the rest were banished from the realm. Vampires possess all the memories and skills of their human predecessors. They also retain much of their host's personality, including any mental illnesses or emotional instabilities. For example, Spike (unlike most vampires) retained his love for his dying mother and Harmony kept her vain, shallow valley girl personality and her love of unicorns. Darla tells the newly turned Liam/Angelus that \"what we were informs what we become\"; after her resurrection as a human she says that the darkness he unleashed as Angelus was always in him as a human, long before they met, resulted from the memories of the abuses by his father.\n\nVampires possess superhuman abilities, such as increased strength, heightened senses, and accelerated healingall of which increase as they grow older or when they drink the blood of powerful supernatural creatures. They can drain animalsincluding humansof their blood in a few seconds. Vampires are immortal and can live indefinitely without any signs of aging, though extremely old vampires acquire demonic features such as cloven hooves for hands, and lose their resemblance to humans. Vampiresexcept those who are skilled with powerful magic such as Count Draculacannot shape-shift.\n\nVampires in the Buffyverse live on a diet of blood, preferring fresh human blood; they can distinguish the blood of different animals by flavor, and those who do not drink human blood enjoy that of otters. They require no other food or drink, and although they can ingest it they generally find it bland. Prolonged deprivation of blood can impair a vampire's higher brain functions and they become \"living skeletons\", but lack of blood will not result in a vampire's death. They do not need to breathe airalthough they can breathe to speak or smokeand they cannot pass breath on to others via CPR. They are affected by drugs, poisons, and electricity and they can be sedated and tasered. Some vampires enjoy both alcoholic and caffeinated beverages, and tobacco.\n\nVampires can change at will between human appearance and a monstrous form with a pronounced brow ridge, yellow eyes, and sharp teeth. They make a roaring sound when angered. In human form, they can be detected by their lack of heartbeat and lower body temperature. They do not cast reflections, although they can be photographed and filmed. They are largely immune to mind-reading, but Willow Rosenberg can telepathically communicate with vampires such as Spike.\n\nVampires can be killed by beheading, burning with fire, sunlight, or excessive amount of holy water, by penetration of the heart by a wooden object, or powerful explosives. When killed, a vampire rapidly turns to dry dust. They heal quickly from most injuries but do not regrow lost limbs (although Spike was able to use his hands when they were reattached after being amputated by a mentally disturbed Slayer) and can acquire scars. Their flesh burns in direct sunlight, and on contact with blessed objects such as holy water, a Bible, recently consecrated ground or a Christian cross. They can enter consecrated buildings but appear to feel ill at ease. Vampires are attracted to bright colors and are said to dislike garlic.\n\nVampires cannot enter a human residence without having been invited once by a living resident; however, once given, such an invitation can only be revoked by a magic ritual. If all living residents die, vampires can enter freely. Areas open to the public and the homes of other vampires, demons, and non-humans are not protected.\n\nTo reproduce, vampires must drain a human being of most of his or her blood, then force the victim to drink some of the vampire's blood. This process is known as \"siring\", and the vampire who does so is called a \"sire\". Sires often act as mentors to their 'children' and form small covens of related vampires for various purposes. Some vampires can be telepathically linked to those that they have sired. The amount of time it takes for a new vampire to rise seems to vary; Buffy often kills vampires as they rise from their graves but other vampires rise after only a few hours. There is no explanation given for this in the series. They cannot normally reproduce sexually, but under mystical means allow Angel and Darla to conceive a son, Connor, who has a human soul with vampire-like abilities, but none of their weaknesses or need to drink blood.\n\nVampires in the Buffyverse do not have human souls, but Giles in \"The Harvest\" says the human corpse a vampire is born into is infected with a demon soul via vampiric blood, and therefore lacks a conscience. Angel and Spikevampires who have had their human souls restored to themfeel remorse for their previous actions. However, soulless vampires are capable of feeling human emotions such as love, though these tend to be expressed as twisted and obsessive behavior.\n\nVariations of vampires are seen on both Buffy and Angel. In the Angel season two episode \"Through the Looking Glass\", Angel and his team travel to a parallel world, Pylea, where he becomes a \"Van-Tal\" demon with green skin, spines and a bestial appearance. This form is described by Wesley as the vampire (specifically the demon that creates the vampire) in its purest form. While in this form, Angel lacks the ability to reason, possessing neither the compassion his soul gives him nor the sadism he possesses as Angelus.\n\nThe seventh season of Buffy introduces the Turok-Han, an ancient species of vampire analogous to Neanderthal man. These Turok-Han, colloquially referred to as \"über-vamps\", are stronger and harder to kill than common vampires, can usually withstand a stake to the chest without dusting and show only minor burns when doused with holy water, but can still be killed by beheading or sunlight. The Turok-Han show very little intelligence and cannot speak.\n\nAt the end of Season Eight, Buffy destroys the Seed of Wonder, affecting the magical world but not active demons and vampires on Earth. All new vampires sired after the Seed's destruction rise as mindless, feral creatures that Xander Harris dubs \"zompires\". However, at the end of Season Nine, after rogue slayer Simone Doffler's experiment to create an ultimate vampire upon the slayers who followed her, one slayer, Vicki, has risen as a vampire after Doffler's death who exhibits the abilities of immunity to sunlight and shape shifting. During the beginning of Season Ten, Vicki and the new breed of vampires she sired are shown to be as strong and able withstand a stake to the chest as Turok-Han, however exhibiting a new vulnerability to silver as werewolves.\n\nCreation\n\nThe idea of the \"vamp faces\" — to have vampires' human features distort to become more demonic — was implemented because Whedon wanted to have high school students that the other characters could interact with normally only to discover that these people would turn out be vampires, creating a sense of paranoia. He also wanted to make the vampires look demonic, stating, \"I didn't think I really wanted to put a show on the air about a high school girl who was stabbing normal-looking people in the heart. I thought somehow that might send the wrong message, but when they are clearly monsters, it takes it to a level of fantasy that is safer.\"\n\nIn early episodes, the vampires appeared \"very white-faced, very creepy, very ghoulish\". This was changed in later seasons to make the vampires look more human because of the sympathetic vampire character Angel and because elaborate make-up was time-consuming. Whedon said that people thought the white faces were \"funny looking\" but found it creepy, comparing it to the monsters in zombie movies such as Day of the Dead and The Evil Dead. The character of the Master was designed to be in permanent vamp face to highlight his age and make him appear animalistic. Make-up artist John Vulich based the Master's appearance on a bat, saying that the character has devolved to a more primal, demonic state over the years.\n\nIt was decided that vampires and their clothes would turn to dust after they died. The introduction to one episode, \"The Wish\", parodied this vampiric trait; when Buffy kills a non-humanoid demon, Willow wonders why the demon corpse \"doesn't go poof\" and must be buried. Joss Whedon had the vampires explode into dust because it was practical, it demonstrates that they are monsters, he did not want a high school girl killing bad guys every episode and have them clean up bodies for 20 minutes, and it also \"looks really cool\".\n\nIn the first episode, vampires' clothes reflect the era in which they died. Joss Whedon felt this concept was a \"charming notion\" but rejected it because he believed that if every vampire in the show were dressed in old-fashioned clothes they would cease to be scary.\n\nWhen creating the vampire \"rules\" that they would use in the show, the writers used elements from existing vampire lore. They decided the vampires would not fly as in the Buffy movie because they could not make flying vampires look convincing on a television budget. Garlic is mentioned or used as vampire repellent in a few episodes, but its effect on vampires is never stated. Some established rules, such as a vampire's inability to enter a home uninvited, both helped and hindered the storytelling. Whedon said that whereas shows such as The X-Files spend time explaining the science behind the supernatural and making it as real as possible, Buffy and Angel are more concerned with the emotion resulting from these creatures and events than justifying how they could conceivably exist. The shows therefore tend to gloss over the details of vampire and demon lore, simply using the Hellmouth as a plot device to explain unexplainable things.\n\nSee also\n Vampire fiction\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Vampires section at \"All Things Philosophical on BtVS and AtS\"\n\nFictional characters with accelerated healing\nFictional characters with superhuman strength\nFictional characters who can move at superhuman speeds\nFictional hybrid life forms\nBuffy the Vampire Slayer\nFictional warrior races",
"The Hollywood Vampires was a celebrity drinking club active in the 1970s.\n\nHollywood Vampires may also refer to:\n\n Hollywood Vampires (band), a supergroup formed to honor the club\n Hollywood Vampires (Hollywood Vampires album), the group's debut album\n Hollywood Vampires (L.A. Guns album)"
] |
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"Anya Jenkins",
"Backstory",
"Who is Anya Jenkins",
"Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village.",
"Was the show renewed?",
"I don't know.",
"Are all vampires?",
"attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women."
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Did she have many friends?
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Did Anya Jenkins have many friends?
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Anya Jenkins
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Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint Of The Women Scorned, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes. Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage -- only a few people survive -- shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity. CANNOTANSWER
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In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek,
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Anyanka Christina Emmanuella "Anya" Jenkins (born as Aud) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a recurring star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before becoming a series regular in the show's fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2003, appearing in the series finale of the show that aired on May 20, 2003.
Within the series' narrative, Anya was originally a human named Aud, but spent over a thousand years as Anyanka, a vengeance demon, wreaking havoc by granting the wishes of women who had been wronged by men. The character becomes human again in her first appearance, and is forced to learn what it means to be human again in subsequent episodes. Primarily, this is used by the writers for comic relief; Anya has a very poor sense of what behaviors are appropriate, and speaks very bluntly and honestly. However, the writers have also used this for more poignant purposes, such as when Anya finds herself struggling to deal with death. Flashbacks show that Anyanka's manner was much the same before she became a demon. Over a decade after being killed in the series finale, Anya returned as a ghost in the canonical comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.
Character history
Backstory
Anyanka "Anya" Jenkins was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes.
Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage — only a few people survive — shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692.
In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity.
Storylines as a recurring character
Anyanka arrives at Sunnydale High in 1998 (in the episode "The Wish") as a student named Anya Emerson. She came to Sunnydale in response to the distress of Cordelia, who is upset after catching her boyfriend, Xander Harris, kissing their friend Willow. After some prompting, Cordelia states: "I wish that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale." Anya shows her true demon face to Cordelia and says, "Done." and the world changes. Now they are in an alternative reality in which Buffy has not come to Sunnydale and the vampire population has multiplied and gained in power. Giles meets with Cordelia before she dies and manages to discern what has happened. He subsequently summons Anyanka and destroys her necklace. As a result, Anya is made a mortal and powerless human again and the world returns to normal.
Caulfield said, "As far as I know, I don't think Joss Whedon ever intended to have Anya around for more than one episode." However, Anya returns in the episode "Doppelgangland", duping Willow into assisting in a failed magical attempt to recover the necklace which was her power center, lost when Giles destroyed it to reverse the wish granted for Cordelia. When these efforts fail, she is forced to continue living as a typical high school student. Now with human feelings, she yearns to attend the school prom in spite of her abhorrence of all men; ironically, her only hope for a date is the last man she was sent to punish, Xander. Caulfield says, "[Whedon] found this great way to have her interact with the storylines that had developed throughout the entire [third] season."
Anya develops feelings for Xander and asks him out again just before graduation, even though Xander showed no interest in her. Her romantic plans are foiled when he tells her of the Mayor's plan for his own "Ascension", a transformation into pure demon, at the graduation ceremony. Anya decides to flee Sunnydale and invites Xander to join her, saying when she thinks something could happen to him, she "feels bad inside, like [she] might vomit". Xander refuses because he's got "friends on the line", and can't abandon them. She leaves without him.
Anya returns to Sunnydale early in Season Four, still infatuated with Xander. She seduces him (in the episode "The Harsh Light of Day"). Her lack of experience with people causes her to make straightforward, often tactless remarks, which soon put her at odds with other Scooby Gang members, especially Willow, who has little trust for the ex-demon. Anya's tactlessness is played both for humor and to highlight the truth in situations where others are reluctant to be frank. This is seen most poignantly in "The Body" when her inability to comprehend Buffy's mother's death leads to inappropriate remarks which at first make others angry, but then allow for catharsis and comfort.
Storylines as a regular cast member
Anya becomes a regular in Season Five of the show. While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism (as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud). Anya's budding retail skills encourage Giles to hire her as a cashier at The Magic Box. In the episode, "Checkpoint", Anya is questioned by members of the Watchers' Council, and invents the full name Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and claims to have been born on the Fourth of July in Indiana.
During an impending apocalypse, brought about by Glory at the end of Season Five, Xander proposes to Anya and they are engaged for most of Season Six. Xander's doubts grow, however, and it is not difficult for Stewart Burns - escaped from Hell and impersonating Xander's future self - to persuade him to leave Anya at the wedding by showing him an illusionary life where Anya apparently cheats on Xander and is later killed in an argument between the two ("Hell's Bells"). Grief-stricken, Anya is vulnerable to D'Hoffryn's coaxing, and becomes a vengeance demon again.
In the Season Six episode "Entropy" Anya returns to Sunnydale. The audience can see her as a vengeance demon but the other characters are unaware until "Villains". Anya cannot find anyone who wishes vengeance on Xander and so she takes comfort in sex with Spike, an act which puts her relationship and friendship with Xander and Buffy in jeopardy. Spike nearly wishes for some kind of vengeance upon Xander, but after seeing how much her actions hurt him, Anya stops him, unable to go through with it. In the Season Six finale, Willow destroys The Magic Box, leaving Anya jobless in the mortal world. Anya does not enjoy her return to being a vengeance demon—her experience as a human has led to empathy, which makes exacting vengeance too painful for her to manage. She spends a summer granting half-hearted wishes and gains a reputation among demons as "Miss Soft-Serve".
When asked what direction she would like to see Anya's character go, Emma Caulfield said she hoped that in Season Seven Anya would become "kind of a badass". Caulfield said that Anya has always been strong in unorthodox ways, but "I'd like to see a more blatant display of her strength." Appropriately, after Halfrek encourages Anya to return to her former level of work, Anya exacts a terrible vengeance on a group of college boys by unleashing a spider-like Grimslaw demon on them. This results in a battle with Buffy, in which they are almost evenly matched. The battle is interrupted when D'Hoffryn, summoned by Willow from the Summers home, shows up. D'Hoffryn asks Anya what she wants, and she asks that her vengeance be reversed. D'Hoffryn tells her the price will be the life of a vengeance demon; Anya agrees, assuming it is she who will die, but D'Hoffryn summons Halfrek, incinerating her before Anya. "Never go for the kill, when you can go for the pain" he tells the distressed Anya, and strips her of her powers, making her once again mortal.
Anya decides that she has been too dependent on others and resolves to find an independent purpose in life for herself. She eventually rejoins the Scooby Gang as Season Seven focuses on the long fight against the First Evil and eventually becomes friends with Xander; although Xander and Anya still love each other, they never officially resume their relationship.
In the series finale, "Chosen", Anya fights with the others in the climactic battle against the First Evil and is brutally slain from behind, bisected by a Bringer's sword. Her body lies in the school's remains although Xander attempts to locate her while fleeing the collapsing building. After Sunnydale collapses into the Hellmouth, Andrew Wells comforts Xander by telling him that Anya had died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replies, "That's my girl, always doing the stupid thing."
In an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield stated that she was okay with her character's abrupt death, stating, "She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect." Although later, at Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 she said she didn't realize it was going to be abrupt and without fanfare, and would have appreciated a little something more.
Joss Whedon joked at the Nocturnal convention in 2001 Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season Five finale, "The Gift", but he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield couldn't keep still while Xander was carrying Anya's supposedly lifeless body.
Comic book series
It was stated that Anya would return in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, even with Joss Whedon telling MTV that she was "definitely dead... but that doesn't mean she's gone." However, Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie stated that there were no current plans for Anya to appear.
In the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, Anya returns as a ghost, having a conversation with Xander during a battle with both a mindless breed of vampires, which Xander has dubbed "zompires," and another new breed who are stronger and has abilities of withstanding sunlight and shape-shifting. Currently, she is only visible to her former fiancé, and Xander hasn't yet informed the gang about Anya. It soon turns out she was a fake ghost who was created by D'Hoffryn who wanted revenge on Xander. Anya's fake ghost realizes that the one thing Anya wanted before she died was taking care of D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn was pulling Anya's strings for a long time, even when she was human. She never cut her strings and finally got her vengeance on D'Hoffryn and knew that Xander felt bad about what happened between him and Anya. Before departing, she assures Xander that he is a good man and that the original Anya would forgive him as well.
Powers and abilities
Anyanka has the power to grant wishes made by women seeking revenge against men who have wronged them, even changing reality to accommodate these wishes, a gift which is supported by her ability to detect women's emotional pain at a distance. She has supernatural strength, teleportation (although in "Same Time, Same Place" she mentions that her use of teleportation is temporarily limited and requires bureaucratic paperwork), telekinesis and rapid healing, being able to survive impalement. As a demon she will not die of old age, having lived over a thousand years, but can be killed if her body is sufficiently damaged.
With over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology and various dimensions is immense, surpassing both Giles and his successor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, but not as skilled as them in research. Although her native language is Old Norse, Anyanka/Anya speaks fluent English as well as some French, Latin and can read and speak Ancient Sumerian. It is implied that she can speak any human language, as she has granted wishes in many countries all over the world throughout many centuries. Despite being human, Anya still has contacts with some of her former associates.
Anya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic, often commenting on Willow's spellcasting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and she occasionally participates in the casting of spells herself ("Doppelgangland"). As a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her time as a demon allows her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.
As a ghost, Anya is incorporeal and invisible to everyone except Xander.
Personality
Commenting on the personality of her character, Caulfield said, "Anya remains mortal and ambivalent. She's just struggling with being human, and really, don't we all struggle with that from time to time? She's very indifferent - and definitely sarcastic and bitter at times." Anya states in the "Selfless" flashback that she likes to bowl and she's "good with math".
Bunny phobia
Anya's irrational fear of rabbits (leporiphobia) is established for the first time in the Season Four Halloween episode "Fear, Itself", in which she appears in a bunny costume after Xander tells her to come to the party as something "scary". Her phobia becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series. In "The Gift", Anya sees a stuffed rabbit in the basement of The Magic Box (while looking for the Dagon Sphere with Xander), causing her to scream and exclaim, "Who would put something like that there?!" In "Once More, With Feeling", Anya sings, "Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?", a verse reminiscent of Willow's speech about spiders ("Nightmares"). In "Tabula Rasa", while suffering from memory loss, she repeatedly casts a spell that does nothing more than cause rabbits to appear in increasing numbers. The phobia also manifests itself in her final moments. As the final battle approaches, Andrew Wells suggests she "picture happy things: a lake, candy canes, bunnies..." The change is drastic and instantaneous. She confidently raises her sword, saying grimly, "Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies."
In her "origins" episode, "Selfless", Anya (then known as Aud), is surrounded by rabbits without showing any signs of distress over their presence.
Academic analysis
Anya has been the subject of at least one academic article. For Tamy Burnett, "Anya ... stands alone as the only woman in the Buffyverse to remain unshamed and unpunished for her expressions of sexuality". Burnett argues that, among Buffys female characters, despite their varying versions of personal and/or mental strength, Anya is the only one who is truly sexually liberated. Buffy and her friends tend to be "girly girls", who learn that "Sex is bad" and have their transgressions of traditional gender performance punished; Burnett cites the loss of Angel's soul, punitive interpretations of Tara's death, and Willow's transformation into Warren among other consequences. Faith comes "the closest" after Anya to breaking these traditional patterns because, while she is "just as sexual and outspoken" as Anya, she pivotally does not achieve Anya's acceptance within the group; for Anya, this "legitimizes her perspective". She identifies this motif with typical traits of horror fiction, citing Dawn Heinecken's feminist analysis in Warrior Women of Television. Anya frankly admits to masturbation and to her favourite sexual activities with Xander, and assumes that others share her attitudes. To Burnett, Anya's death in "Chosen" positions Anya as "failing to achieve [her] ultimate narrative legitimacy". Burnett concludes that "Anya's attitude toward sexual desire marks her as transgressing traditional forms of female sexuality, a significant break to the pattern by which other women on the show are constrained."
Appearances
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya appeared in 81 canon episodes. Anya was a series regular from Seasons Five through Seven (2000–2003), but did not appear in "Normal Again", "Help" (her scenes were cut), "Conversations with Dead People", and "Dirty Girls". Prior to Season Five, Anya was a recurring character for seasons three to four, appearing in the following episodes:
Season Three (1998–1999): "The Wish", "Doppelgangland", "The Prom" and "Graduation Day, Part One".
Season Four (1999–2000): "The Harsh Light of Day", "Fear, Itself", "Pangs", "Something Blue", "Hush", "A New Man", "The I in Team", "Goodbye Iowa", "Who Are You", "Superstar", "Where the Wild Things Are", "New Moon Rising", "The Yoko Factor", "Primeval", and "Restless".
Anya has also appeared in a number of comics including Past Lives, Ugly Little Monsters, and Reunion, and in novels including Unseen, Wisdom of War and Monster Island. She also makes a brief appearance in the 2003 video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds.
Merchandise
In 2005, Diamond Select Toys produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their Buffy the Vampire Slayer line. Each figure featured a "real-scan" likeness of Caulfield and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced were: "Season 5 Anya" in red top and black skirt, "Hell's Bells Anya" in wedding dress, "Once More, With Feeling Anya" in butterfly top and green skirt, "Anyanka" in demon dress, and "Bunny Suit Anya" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of "Bunny Suit Anya" was featured in the Vengeance Book box-set.
References
External links
Anya on IMDb
Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
Buffyverse characters who use magic
Buffyverse demons
Female characters in television
Television characters introduced in 1998
Fictional characters who can teleport
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional shopkeepers
Fictional immigrants to the United States
Fictional demon hunters
Fictional ghosts
Fictional telekinetics
Fictional characters with superhuman strength
Fictional Swedish people
Female characters in comics
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"Magalene Wilson (1898–2001), also known as Magdalene Wilson, was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.\n\nLife \nWilson was close friends with Martha Jane Pettway and Loretta Pettway's grandmother Prissy. She did not have any children. She owned her land and frequently let her neighbors farm on it. She was generous with her neighbors and owned many cats. \n\nShe retired to a community in Mobile, Alabama, but remained self-sufficient and independent.\n\nWork \nAlthough her friends and neighbors often quilted communally, Wilson pieced and sewed her quilts by herself. This allowed her the space and time to quilt meticulously and with tremendous detail.\n\nReferences \n\n1898 births\n2001 deaths\nQuilters\nAmerican centenarians\nWomen centenarians",
"Shannon Farnon (born November 28, 1941) is a Canadian actress. She is best known as being the first actress to voice Wonder Woman in a Hanna-Barbera production. She is one of the last surviving original cast members of Hanna-Barbera’s Super Friends franchise, where she voiced the character for ten years, from 1973 to 1983.\n\nEarly life\nBorn into a show business family, she is the daughter of Brian Farnon, a musician and conductor and Rita Oehmen, a singer and actress, and sister of Charmian Carr and Darleen Carr. She was raised in Chicago, Illinois.\n\nFarnon majored in Theatre Arts in Los Angeles and a couple years later worked in many areas of the entertainment business.field. She graduated from Los Angeles Valley College in 1962.\n\nCareer\nThe actress starred in film, television, commercials and cartoons, however her first role was in 1965 in an uncredited role on Burke's Law. She went on to appear in multiple other television series, but was most active in commercials. In 1967, she appeared in an episode of I Dream of Jeannie as Major Nelson's date, selected by Jeannie with the use of a \"computer machine\" at a dating club. While playing a mother in a live-action commercial in 1973 for Flintstone vitamins she was approached by voice director Wally Burr to audition for what was to be her most long-running famous role, Wonder Woman on Super Friends.\n\nFrom 1973 to 1983, Farnon voiced the Amazonian superheroine on Super Friends, Challenge of the Super Friends, The All-New Super Friends Hour, The World's Greatest Super Friends and the revival of Super Friends. Farnon did voice several incidental characters, such as Lois Lane and Hawkgirl on some of the series and also played Kim Butler in Valley of the Dinosaurs in 1974, but mainly she did the voice of Wonder Woman. She made a guest appearance in the television show Emergency! (1977 S6E21 “Limelight”) as Mrs. Robinson.\n\nHowever, in 1984, her prominent character was recast in Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, when the role was given to Constance Caufield and later to B.J. Ward. This case has often been given as an example of injustice in the television and animation industry. Mary McDonald-Lewis voiced Wonder Woman in an episode of Superman.\n\nShe voiced Wonder Woman on many Cartoon Network promos and went on to appear in several films and television series, but since 2005, her acting appearances have been infrequent. She has voiced various commercials, including Betty Crocker, Nivea, Kodak, National World War II Memorial, Oil of Olay, Scotchgard and Cartoon Network spoofs of The Super Friends.\n\nPersonal life\nShe was married to William Wells from 1966 to 1975 (married twice after that) and had twins, Jeremy and Julie, born in 1971. Jeremy died from a skiing accident at the age 24. This info can be found in her sister Charmian's book, Forever Liesl.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nToon Zone News Shannon Farnon the Super Friends Wonder Woman\n\n1941 births\nLiving people\nActresses from Toronto\nCanadian film actresses\nCanadian television actresses\nCanadian voice actresses\nHanna-Barbera people\n20th-century Canadian actresses\n21st-century Canadian actresses"
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What happened to her mother?
| 5 |
What happened to Anya Jenkins' mother?
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Anya Jenkins
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Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint Of The Women Scorned, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes. Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage -- only a few people survive -- shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Anyanka Christina Emmanuella "Anya" Jenkins (born as Aud) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a recurring star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before becoming a series regular in the show's fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2003, appearing in the series finale of the show that aired on May 20, 2003.
Within the series' narrative, Anya was originally a human named Aud, but spent over a thousand years as Anyanka, a vengeance demon, wreaking havoc by granting the wishes of women who had been wronged by men. The character becomes human again in her first appearance, and is forced to learn what it means to be human again in subsequent episodes. Primarily, this is used by the writers for comic relief; Anya has a very poor sense of what behaviors are appropriate, and speaks very bluntly and honestly. However, the writers have also used this for more poignant purposes, such as when Anya finds herself struggling to deal with death. Flashbacks show that Anyanka's manner was much the same before she became a demon. Over a decade after being killed in the series finale, Anya returned as a ghost in the canonical comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.
Character history
Backstory
Anyanka "Anya" Jenkins was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes.
Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage — only a few people survive — shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692.
In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity.
Storylines as a recurring character
Anyanka arrives at Sunnydale High in 1998 (in the episode "The Wish") as a student named Anya Emerson. She came to Sunnydale in response to the distress of Cordelia, who is upset after catching her boyfriend, Xander Harris, kissing their friend Willow. After some prompting, Cordelia states: "I wish that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale." Anya shows her true demon face to Cordelia and says, "Done." and the world changes. Now they are in an alternative reality in which Buffy has not come to Sunnydale and the vampire population has multiplied and gained in power. Giles meets with Cordelia before she dies and manages to discern what has happened. He subsequently summons Anyanka and destroys her necklace. As a result, Anya is made a mortal and powerless human again and the world returns to normal.
Caulfield said, "As far as I know, I don't think Joss Whedon ever intended to have Anya around for more than one episode." However, Anya returns in the episode "Doppelgangland", duping Willow into assisting in a failed magical attempt to recover the necklace which was her power center, lost when Giles destroyed it to reverse the wish granted for Cordelia. When these efforts fail, she is forced to continue living as a typical high school student. Now with human feelings, she yearns to attend the school prom in spite of her abhorrence of all men; ironically, her only hope for a date is the last man she was sent to punish, Xander. Caulfield says, "[Whedon] found this great way to have her interact with the storylines that had developed throughout the entire [third] season."
Anya develops feelings for Xander and asks him out again just before graduation, even though Xander showed no interest in her. Her romantic plans are foiled when he tells her of the Mayor's plan for his own "Ascension", a transformation into pure demon, at the graduation ceremony. Anya decides to flee Sunnydale and invites Xander to join her, saying when she thinks something could happen to him, she "feels bad inside, like [she] might vomit". Xander refuses because he's got "friends on the line", and can't abandon them. She leaves without him.
Anya returns to Sunnydale early in Season Four, still infatuated with Xander. She seduces him (in the episode "The Harsh Light of Day"). Her lack of experience with people causes her to make straightforward, often tactless remarks, which soon put her at odds with other Scooby Gang members, especially Willow, who has little trust for the ex-demon. Anya's tactlessness is played both for humor and to highlight the truth in situations where others are reluctant to be frank. This is seen most poignantly in "The Body" when her inability to comprehend Buffy's mother's death leads to inappropriate remarks which at first make others angry, but then allow for catharsis and comfort.
Storylines as a regular cast member
Anya becomes a regular in Season Five of the show. While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism (as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud). Anya's budding retail skills encourage Giles to hire her as a cashier at The Magic Box. In the episode, "Checkpoint", Anya is questioned by members of the Watchers' Council, and invents the full name Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and claims to have been born on the Fourth of July in Indiana.
During an impending apocalypse, brought about by Glory at the end of Season Five, Xander proposes to Anya and they are engaged for most of Season Six. Xander's doubts grow, however, and it is not difficult for Stewart Burns - escaped from Hell and impersonating Xander's future self - to persuade him to leave Anya at the wedding by showing him an illusionary life where Anya apparently cheats on Xander and is later killed in an argument between the two ("Hell's Bells"). Grief-stricken, Anya is vulnerable to D'Hoffryn's coaxing, and becomes a vengeance demon again.
In the Season Six episode "Entropy" Anya returns to Sunnydale. The audience can see her as a vengeance demon but the other characters are unaware until "Villains". Anya cannot find anyone who wishes vengeance on Xander and so she takes comfort in sex with Spike, an act which puts her relationship and friendship with Xander and Buffy in jeopardy. Spike nearly wishes for some kind of vengeance upon Xander, but after seeing how much her actions hurt him, Anya stops him, unable to go through with it. In the Season Six finale, Willow destroys The Magic Box, leaving Anya jobless in the mortal world. Anya does not enjoy her return to being a vengeance demon—her experience as a human has led to empathy, which makes exacting vengeance too painful for her to manage. She spends a summer granting half-hearted wishes and gains a reputation among demons as "Miss Soft-Serve".
When asked what direction she would like to see Anya's character go, Emma Caulfield said she hoped that in Season Seven Anya would become "kind of a badass". Caulfield said that Anya has always been strong in unorthodox ways, but "I'd like to see a more blatant display of her strength." Appropriately, after Halfrek encourages Anya to return to her former level of work, Anya exacts a terrible vengeance on a group of college boys by unleashing a spider-like Grimslaw demon on them. This results in a battle with Buffy, in which they are almost evenly matched. The battle is interrupted when D'Hoffryn, summoned by Willow from the Summers home, shows up. D'Hoffryn asks Anya what she wants, and she asks that her vengeance be reversed. D'Hoffryn tells her the price will be the life of a vengeance demon; Anya agrees, assuming it is she who will die, but D'Hoffryn summons Halfrek, incinerating her before Anya. "Never go for the kill, when you can go for the pain" he tells the distressed Anya, and strips her of her powers, making her once again mortal.
Anya decides that she has been too dependent on others and resolves to find an independent purpose in life for herself. She eventually rejoins the Scooby Gang as Season Seven focuses on the long fight against the First Evil and eventually becomes friends with Xander; although Xander and Anya still love each other, they never officially resume their relationship.
In the series finale, "Chosen", Anya fights with the others in the climactic battle against the First Evil and is brutally slain from behind, bisected by a Bringer's sword. Her body lies in the school's remains although Xander attempts to locate her while fleeing the collapsing building. After Sunnydale collapses into the Hellmouth, Andrew Wells comforts Xander by telling him that Anya had died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replies, "That's my girl, always doing the stupid thing."
In an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield stated that she was okay with her character's abrupt death, stating, "She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect." Although later, at Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 she said she didn't realize it was going to be abrupt and without fanfare, and would have appreciated a little something more.
Joss Whedon joked at the Nocturnal convention in 2001 Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season Five finale, "The Gift", but he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield couldn't keep still while Xander was carrying Anya's supposedly lifeless body.
Comic book series
It was stated that Anya would return in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, even with Joss Whedon telling MTV that she was "definitely dead... but that doesn't mean she's gone." However, Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie stated that there were no current plans for Anya to appear.
In the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, Anya returns as a ghost, having a conversation with Xander during a battle with both a mindless breed of vampires, which Xander has dubbed "zompires," and another new breed who are stronger and has abilities of withstanding sunlight and shape-shifting. Currently, she is only visible to her former fiancé, and Xander hasn't yet informed the gang about Anya. It soon turns out she was a fake ghost who was created by D'Hoffryn who wanted revenge on Xander. Anya's fake ghost realizes that the one thing Anya wanted before she died was taking care of D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn was pulling Anya's strings for a long time, even when she was human. She never cut her strings and finally got her vengeance on D'Hoffryn and knew that Xander felt bad about what happened between him and Anya. Before departing, she assures Xander that he is a good man and that the original Anya would forgive him as well.
Powers and abilities
Anyanka has the power to grant wishes made by women seeking revenge against men who have wronged them, even changing reality to accommodate these wishes, a gift which is supported by her ability to detect women's emotional pain at a distance. She has supernatural strength, teleportation (although in "Same Time, Same Place" she mentions that her use of teleportation is temporarily limited and requires bureaucratic paperwork), telekinesis and rapid healing, being able to survive impalement. As a demon she will not die of old age, having lived over a thousand years, but can be killed if her body is sufficiently damaged.
With over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology and various dimensions is immense, surpassing both Giles and his successor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, but not as skilled as them in research. Although her native language is Old Norse, Anyanka/Anya speaks fluent English as well as some French, Latin and can read and speak Ancient Sumerian. It is implied that she can speak any human language, as she has granted wishes in many countries all over the world throughout many centuries. Despite being human, Anya still has contacts with some of her former associates.
Anya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic, often commenting on Willow's spellcasting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and she occasionally participates in the casting of spells herself ("Doppelgangland"). As a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her time as a demon allows her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.
As a ghost, Anya is incorporeal and invisible to everyone except Xander.
Personality
Commenting on the personality of her character, Caulfield said, "Anya remains mortal and ambivalent. She's just struggling with being human, and really, don't we all struggle with that from time to time? She's very indifferent - and definitely sarcastic and bitter at times." Anya states in the "Selfless" flashback that she likes to bowl and she's "good with math".
Bunny phobia
Anya's irrational fear of rabbits (leporiphobia) is established for the first time in the Season Four Halloween episode "Fear, Itself", in which she appears in a bunny costume after Xander tells her to come to the party as something "scary". Her phobia becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series. In "The Gift", Anya sees a stuffed rabbit in the basement of The Magic Box (while looking for the Dagon Sphere with Xander), causing her to scream and exclaim, "Who would put something like that there?!" In "Once More, With Feeling", Anya sings, "Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?", a verse reminiscent of Willow's speech about spiders ("Nightmares"). In "Tabula Rasa", while suffering from memory loss, she repeatedly casts a spell that does nothing more than cause rabbits to appear in increasing numbers. The phobia also manifests itself in her final moments. As the final battle approaches, Andrew Wells suggests she "picture happy things: a lake, candy canes, bunnies..." The change is drastic and instantaneous. She confidently raises her sword, saying grimly, "Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies."
In her "origins" episode, "Selfless", Anya (then known as Aud), is surrounded by rabbits without showing any signs of distress over their presence.
Academic analysis
Anya has been the subject of at least one academic article. For Tamy Burnett, "Anya ... stands alone as the only woman in the Buffyverse to remain unshamed and unpunished for her expressions of sexuality". Burnett argues that, among Buffys female characters, despite their varying versions of personal and/or mental strength, Anya is the only one who is truly sexually liberated. Buffy and her friends tend to be "girly girls", who learn that "Sex is bad" and have their transgressions of traditional gender performance punished; Burnett cites the loss of Angel's soul, punitive interpretations of Tara's death, and Willow's transformation into Warren among other consequences. Faith comes "the closest" after Anya to breaking these traditional patterns because, while she is "just as sexual and outspoken" as Anya, she pivotally does not achieve Anya's acceptance within the group; for Anya, this "legitimizes her perspective". She identifies this motif with typical traits of horror fiction, citing Dawn Heinecken's feminist analysis in Warrior Women of Television. Anya frankly admits to masturbation and to her favourite sexual activities with Xander, and assumes that others share her attitudes. To Burnett, Anya's death in "Chosen" positions Anya as "failing to achieve [her] ultimate narrative legitimacy". Burnett concludes that "Anya's attitude toward sexual desire marks her as transgressing traditional forms of female sexuality, a significant break to the pattern by which other women on the show are constrained."
Appearances
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya appeared in 81 canon episodes. Anya was a series regular from Seasons Five through Seven (2000–2003), but did not appear in "Normal Again", "Help" (her scenes were cut), "Conversations with Dead People", and "Dirty Girls". Prior to Season Five, Anya was a recurring character for seasons three to four, appearing in the following episodes:
Season Three (1998–1999): "The Wish", "Doppelgangland", "The Prom" and "Graduation Day, Part One".
Season Four (1999–2000): "The Harsh Light of Day", "Fear, Itself", "Pangs", "Something Blue", "Hush", "A New Man", "The I in Team", "Goodbye Iowa", "Who Are You", "Superstar", "Where the Wild Things Are", "New Moon Rising", "The Yoko Factor", "Primeval", and "Restless".
Anya has also appeared in a number of comics including Past Lives, Ugly Little Monsters, and Reunion, and in novels including Unseen, Wisdom of War and Monster Island. She also makes a brief appearance in the 2003 video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds.
Merchandise
In 2005, Diamond Select Toys produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their Buffy the Vampire Slayer line. Each figure featured a "real-scan" likeness of Caulfield and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced were: "Season 5 Anya" in red top and black skirt, "Hell's Bells Anya" in wedding dress, "Once More, With Feeling Anya" in butterfly top and green skirt, "Anyanka" in demon dress, and "Bunny Suit Anya" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of "Bunny Suit Anya" was featured in the Vengeance Book box-set.
References
External links
Anya on IMDb
Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
Buffyverse characters who use magic
Buffyverse demons
Female characters in television
Television characters introduced in 1998
Fictional characters who can teleport
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional shopkeepers
Fictional immigrants to the United States
Fictional demon hunters
Fictional ghosts
Fictional telekinetics
Fictional characters with superhuman strength
Fictional Swedish people
Female characters in comics
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[
"Annegret Wittkamp is a fictional character on the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love). She was portrayed by Gabriele Kastner from August 24, 1996, to August 28, 1996. In 2008 the actress Ursula Heyer, who is known previously for serving as the German dubbing voice for Joan Collins, took over the role and debuted on-screen on August 26, 2008. She left the show on November 25, 2008, after her three-month contract was up.\n\nCharacter's background \nAnnegret is the alcoholic mother of Tanja von Anstetten. In 1996 she came to Düsseldorf where she disgraced herself and Tanja in front of the aristocratic Anstetten family and the press. Soon after, Annegret left town and was not seen for years.\n\nIn August 2008, Annegret returns after hearing her daughter will marry rich aristocrat Ansgar von Lahnstein. Charlie Schneider uses this information to shock Tanja, her old enemy. Annegret wants to regain a connection with her daughter but Tanja refuses to let her mother back in her life. Ansgar did not marry Tanja for love and wants her out of his life. His former wife and current lover Nathalie is suspicious about Tanja's relationship with her mother and wants to find out what happened. Ansgar finds a clue by asking about Tanja's younger brother Thomas, who died under mysterious circumstances as a child. He believes that Tanja may have been involved in his death. Tanja repeatedly rejects her mother's attempts at a relationship, leading Annegret, an alcoholic, to drink. Ansgar finds Annegret and sees his chance to find out what happened. Tanja employs former jail keeper Ulla Müller to hold her mother hostage and drug her. Ansgar and Nathalie find Annegret and are locked up by Ulla Müller. They are all rescued by the police. Annegret recovers and returns to Castle Königsbrunn, where Ansgar expects to hear the truth. She refuses to turn Tanja in to the police. Annegret begins to tell how Tanja's father beat her and how Thomas tried to protect her. After being pushed down the stairs by his father, Thomas died. Tanja was blamed by her parents and placed in a psychiatric institution for two years. Annegret tearfully asks for forgiveness after telling the story.\n\nAnsgar again tries to use his mother-in-law to get out of his marriage with Tanja. He tries to provoke her with Annegret, which leads to Tanja to pressure her mother to leave Düsseldorf for good. Annegret agrees, but only if Tanja will bring her to the airport. On the way, she attempts to make peace with Tanja but blackmails her to commit suicide. To Tanja's surprise, Annegret kills herself.\n\nReferences \n\nVerbotene Liebe characters",
"\"My Mother Was Never a Kid\" is a 1981 episode of the American television anthology series ABC Afterschool Special, which aired on March 16, 1981. It was based on the 1977 Francine Pascal novel Hangin' Out With CiCi, which in turn was the first teen novel in the \"Victoria Martin\" trilogy series. It was also the first of two Pascal teen novels that were adapted into Afterschool Specials for the network, the other being The Hand-Me-Down Kid.\n\nPremise\nThe story revolved around Victoria Martin, a 14-year-old New Yorker whose attempts to be part of the current generation has gotten her into trouble at school (smoking in the girls' bathroom is cited as an example). When her mother Felicia finds out what happened and decides to ground her, Victoria argues with her and leaves the apartment, and takes a trip in the subway to meet her friend. During the ride, Victoria kept thinking about how her mother could not understand how she can relate to what she is going through and wonders if her mother was never a kid... until an accidental slam on the subway car brake causes Victoria to fall on the floor.\n\nWhen Victoria comes to a few seconds later, she starts noticing something different: The subway car is clean and has no graffiti, people are dressed differently and when she gets off the train she is shocked that her neighborhood is nothing like the present day...it's 1944. As she tries to figure out what happened, she runs into another 14-year-old teen named CiCi, with whom she becomes fast friends. Victoria also discovers that she and CiCi seem to have a lot in common, only to discover that after CiCi invites her to stay at her house that CiCi's mother is Victoria's grandmother - and CiCi is the nickname of Felicia, who will be her mother in the future. This sudden surprise of fate gives Victoria a chance to learn a lot about her mother's past and at the same time learn about her own, which she will discover as she returns to the present day.\n\nAwards\nThe program was nominated for five Daytime Emmy Awards in 1981, taking home two for \"Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming - Art Direction/Scenic Design/Set Decoration\" and \"Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming - Makeup and Hair Design.\"\n\nCast\n Mary Beth Manning as Victoria Martin\n Holland Taylor as Felicia Martin\n Rachael Longaker as CiCi\n Jane Lowry as Esther Drew\n Elizabeth Ward as Nina Martin\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1981 American television episodes\nABC Afterschool Special episodes\nTelevision episodes based on works\nTelevision episodes about time travel"
] |
[
"Anya Jenkins",
"Backstory",
"Who is Anya Jenkins",
"Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village.",
"Was the show renewed?",
"I don't know.",
"Are all vampires?",
"attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women.",
"Did she have many friends?",
"In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek,",
"What happened to her mother?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_38195211d23e47b5a963a9c122593fff_1
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what was she frank about
| 6 |
What was Anya Jenkins often frank about?
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Anya Jenkins
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Anyanka 'Anya Jenkins' was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint Of The Women Scorned, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes. Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage -- only a few people survive -- shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Anyanka Christina Emmanuella "Anya" Jenkins (born as Aud) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a recurring star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before becoming a series regular in the show's fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2003, appearing in the series finale of the show that aired on May 20, 2003.
Within the series' narrative, Anya was originally a human named Aud, but spent over a thousand years as Anyanka, a vengeance demon, wreaking havoc by granting the wishes of women who had been wronged by men. The character becomes human again in her first appearance, and is forced to learn what it means to be human again in subsequent episodes. Primarily, this is used by the writers for comic relief; Anya has a very poor sense of what behaviors are appropriate, and speaks very bluntly and honestly. However, the writers have also used this for more poignant purposes, such as when Anya finds herself struggling to deal with death. Flashbacks show that Anyanka's manner was much the same before she became a demon. Over a decade after being killed in the series finale, Anya returned as a ghost in the canonical comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.
Character history
Backstory
Anyanka "Anya" Jenkins was born as Aud in the 9th century in Sjornjost, a small Scandinavian village. Aud grew up raising rabbits and became an outsider in her community, which dismissed her as "odd", because of her strange mannerisms and out-of-the-ordinary ideas (such as not wanting to sell the rabbits she had been breeding, but instead giving them to people in the village as gifts). She eventually falls in love with the boorish Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoys hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. In 880, a furious Aud discovers that Olaf has cheated on her with a bar matron named Rannveig, and takes her revenge on him by using magic to transform him into a troll. Aud had previously used magic against her past lovers as well, casting spells to create boils on the penis, for example, but this act of vengeance against Olaf attracts the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who offers to transform her into a vengeance demon for scorned women. D'Hoffryn gives Aud the new name Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, and a pendant which gives her the power to grant wishes.
Around 1199, Anyanka goes to the Koskov valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful man. She witnesses a sorcerer's Ascension into pure demon form. The death and carnage — only a few people survive — shock even her. Around 1580, Anyanka meets (and dates) Dracula, and later is in Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch trials of 1692.
In the 19th century, Anyanka becomes a close friend and fierce competitor of the vengeance demon known as Halfrek, whose specialty is avenging wronged children. They spend time together during the Crimean War. Anyanka impresses "Hallie" with a granted wish in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that sparks a revolution in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka travels to Chicago, Illinois, to exact vengeance on a man named Stewart Burns, turning him into a demon and sending him to a hell dimension to be tortured for all eternity.
Storylines as a recurring character
Anyanka arrives at Sunnydale High in 1998 (in the episode "The Wish") as a student named Anya Emerson. She came to Sunnydale in response to the distress of Cordelia, who is upset after catching her boyfriend, Xander Harris, kissing their friend Willow. After some prompting, Cordelia states: "I wish that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale." Anya shows her true demon face to Cordelia and says, "Done." and the world changes. Now they are in an alternative reality in which Buffy has not come to Sunnydale and the vampire population has multiplied and gained in power. Giles meets with Cordelia before she dies and manages to discern what has happened. He subsequently summons Anyanka and destroys her necklace. As a result, Anya is made a mortal and powerless human again and the world returns to normal.
Caulfield said, "As far as I know, I don't think Joss Whedon ever intended to have Anya around for more than one episode." However, Anya returns in the episode "Doppelgangland", duping Willow into assisting in a failed magical attempt to recover the necklace which was her power center, lost when Giles destroyed it to reverse the wish granted for Cordelia. When these efforts fail, she is forced to continue living as a typical high school student. Now with human feelings, she yearns to attend the school prom in spite of her abhorrence of all men; ironically, her only hope for a date is the last man she was sent to punish, Xander. Caulfield says, "[Whedon] found this great way to have her interact with the storylines that had developed throughout the entire [third] season."
Anya develops feelings for Xander and asks him out again just before graduation, even though Xander showed no interest in her. Her romantic plans are foiled when he tells her of the Mayor's plan for his own "Ascension", a transformation into pure demon, at the graduation ceremony. Anya decides to flee Sunnydale and invites Xander to join her, saying when she thinks something could happen to him, she "feels bad inside, like [she] might vomit". Xander refuses because he's got "friends on the line", and can't abandon them. She leaves without him.
Anya returns to Sunnydale early in Season Four, still infatuated with Xander. She seduces him (in the episode "The Harsh Light of Day"). Her lack of experience with people causes her to make straightforward, often tactless remarks, which soon put her at odds with other Scooby Gang members, especially Willow, who has little trust for the ex-demon. Anya's tactlessness is played both for humor and to highlight the truth in situations where others are reluctant to be frank. This is seen most poignantly in "The Body" when her inability to comprehend Buffy's mother's death leads to inappropriate remarks which at first make others angry, but then allow for catharsis and comfort.
Storylines as a regular cast member
Anya becomes a regular in Season Five of the show. While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism (as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud). Anya's budding retail skills encourage Giles to hire her as a cashier at The Magic Box. In the episode, "Checkpoint", Anya is questioned by members of the Watchers' Council, and invents the full name Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and claims to have been born on the Fourth of July in Indiana.
During an impending apocalypse, brought about by Glory at the end of Season Five, Xander proposes to Anya and they are engaged for most of Season Six. Xander's doubts grow, however, and it is not difficult for Stewart Burns - escaped from Hell and impersonating Xander's future self - to persuade him to leave Anya at the wedding by showing him an illusionary life where Anya apparently cheats on Xander and is later killed in an argument between the two ("Hell's Bells"). Grief-stricken, Anya is vulnerable to D'Hoffryn's coaxing, and becomes a vengeance demon again.
In the Season Six episode "Entropy" Anya returns to Sunnydale. The audience can see her as a vengeance demon but the other characters are unaware until "Villains". Anya cannot find anyone who wishes vengeance on Xander and so she takes comfort in sex with Spike, an act which puts her relationship and friendship with Xander and Buffy in jeopardy. Spike nearly wishes for some kind of vengeance upon Xander, but after seeing how much her actions hurt him, Anya stops him, unable to go through with it. In the Season Six finale, Willow destroys The Magic Box, leaving Anya jobless in the mortal world. Anya does not enjoy her return to being a vengeance demon—her experience as a human has led to empathy, which makes exacting vengeance too painful for her to manage. She spends a summer granting half-hearted wishes and gains a reputation among demons as "Miss Soft-Serve".
When asked what direction she would like to see Anya's character go, Emma Caulfield said she hoped that in Season Seven Anya would become "kind of a badass". Caulfield said that Anya has always been strong in unorthodox ways, but "I'd like to see a more blatant display of her strength." Appropriately, after Halfrek encourages Anya to return to her former level of work, Anya exacts a terrible vengeance on a group of college boys by unleashing a spider-like Grimslaw demon on them. This results in a battle with Buffy, in which they are almost evenly matched. The battle is interrupted when D'Hoffryn, summoned by Willow from the Summers home, shows up. D'Hoffryn asks Anya what she wants, and she asks that her vengeance be reversed. D'Hoffryn tells her the price will be the life of a vengeance demon; Anya agrees, assuming it is she who will die, but D'Hoffryn summons Halfrek, incinerating her before Anya. "Never go for the kill, when you can go for the pain" he tells the distressed Anya, and strips her of her powers, making her once again mortal.
Anya decides that she has been too dependent on others and resolves to find an independent purpose in life for herself. She eventually rejoins the Scooby Gang as Season Seven focuses on the long fight against the First Evil and eventually becomes friends with Xander; although Xander and Anya still love each other, they never officially resume their relationship.
In the series finale, "Chosen", Anya fights with the others in the climactic battle against the First Evil and is brutally slain from behind, bisected by a Bringer's sword. Her body lies in the school's remains although Xander attempts to locate her while fleeing the collapsing building. After Sunnydale collapses into the Hellmouth, Andrew Wells comforts Xander by telling him that Anya had died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replies, "That's my girl, always doing the stupid thing."
In an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield stated that she was okay with her character's abrupt death, stating, "She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect." Although later, at Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 she said she didn't realize it was going to be abrupt and without fanfare, and would have appreciated a little something more.
Joss Whedon joked at the Nocturnal convention in 2001 Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season Five finale, "The Gift", but he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield couldn't keep still while Xander was carrying Anya's supposedly lifeless body.
Comic book series
It was stated that Anya would return in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, even with Joss Whedon telling MTV that she was "definitely dead... but that doesn't mean she's gone." However, Dark Horse Comics editor Scott Allie stated that there were no current plans for Anya to appear.
In the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, Anya returns as a ghost, having a conversation with Xander during a battle with both a mindless breed of vampires, which Xander has dubbed "zompires," and another new breed who are stronger and has abilities of withstanding sunlight and shape-shifting. Currently, she is only visible to her former fiancé, and Xander hasn't yet informed the gang about Anya. It soon turns out she was a fake ghost who was created by D'Hoffryn who wanted revenge on Xander. Anya's fake ghost realizes that the one thing Anya wanted before she died was taking care of D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn was pulling Anya's strings for a long time, even when she was human. She never cut her strings and finally got her vengeance on D'Hoffryn and knew that Xander felt bad about what happened between him and Anya. Before departing, she assures Xander that he is a good man and that the original Anya would forgive him as well.
Powers and abilities
Anyanka has the power to grant wishes made by women seeking revenge against men who have wronged them, even changing reality to accommodate these wishes, a gift which is supported by her ability to detect women's emotional pain at a distance. She has supernatural strength, teleportation (although in "Same Time, Same Place" she mentions that her use of teleportation is temporarily limited and requires bureaucratic paperwork), telekinesis and rapid healing, being able to survive impalement. As a demon she will not die of old age, having lived over a thousand years, but can be killed if her body is sufficiently damaged.
With over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology and various dimensions is immense, surpassing both Giles and his successor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, but not as skilled as them in research. Although her native language is Old Norse, Anyanka/Anya speaks fluent English as well as some French, Latin and can read and speak Ancient Sumerian. It is implied that she can speak any human language, as she has granted wishes in many countries all over the world throughout many centuries. Despite being human, Anya still has contacts with some of her former associates.
Anya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic, often commenting on Willow's spellcasting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and she occasionally participates in the casting of spells herself ("Doppelgangland"). As a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her time as a demon allows her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.
As a ghost, Anya is incorporeal and invisible to everyone except Xander.
Personality
Commenting on the personality of her character, Caulfield said, "Anya remains mortal and ambivalent. She's just struggling with being human, and really, don't we all struggle with that from time to time? She's very indifferent - and definitely sarcastic and bitter at times." Anya states in the "Selfless" flashback that she likes to bowl and she's "good with math".
Bunny phobia
Anya's irrational fear of rabbits (leporiphobia) is established for the first time in the Season Four Halloween episode "Fear, Itself", in which she appears in a bunny costume after Xander tells her to come to the party as something "scary". Her phobia becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series. In "The Gift", Anya sees a stuffed rabbit in the basement of The Magic Box (while looking for the Dagon Sphere with Xander), causing her to scream and exclaim, "Who would put something like that there?!" In "Once More, With Feeling", Anya sings, "Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?", a verse reminiscent of Willow's speech about spiders ("Nightmares"). In "Tabula Rasa", while suffering from memory loss, she repeatedly casts a spell that does nothing more than cause rabbits to appear in increasing numbers. The phobia also manifests itself in her final moments. As the final battle approaches, Andrew Wells suggests she "picture happy things: a lake, candy canes, bunnies..." The change is drastic and instantaneous. She confidently raises her sword, saying grimly, "Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies."
In her "origins" episode, "Selfless", Anya (then known as Aud), is surrounded by rabbits without showing any signs of distress over their presence.
Academic analysis
Anya has been the subject of at least one academic article. For Tamy Burnett, "Anya ... stands alone as the only woman in the Buffyverse to remain unshamed and unpunished for her expressions of sexuality". Burnett argues that, among Buffys female characters, despite their varying versions of personal and/or mental strength, Anya is the only one who is truly sexually liberated. Buffy and her friends tend to be "girly girls", who learn that "Sex is bad" and have their transgressions of traditional gender performance punished; Burnett cites the loss of Angel's soul, punitive interpretations of Tara's death, and Willow's transformation into Warren among other consequences. Faith comes "the closest" after Anya to breaking these traditional patterns because, while she is "just as sexual and outspoken" as Anya, she pivotally does not achieve Anya's acceptance within the group; for Anya, this "legitimizes her perspective". She identifies this motif with typical traits of horror fiction, citing Dawn Heinecken's feminist analysis in Warrior Women of Television. Anya frankly admits to masturbation and to her favourite sexual activities with Xander, and assumes that others share her attitudes. To Burnett, Anya's death in "Chosen" positions Anya as "failing to achieve [her] ultimate narrative legitimacy". Burnett concludes that "Anya's attitude toward sexual desire marks her as transgressing traditional forms of female sexuality, a significant break to the pattern by which other women on the show are constrained."
Appearances
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Anya appeared in 81 canon episodes. Anya was a series regular from Seasons Five through Seven (2000–2003), but did not appear in "Normal Again", "Help" (her scenes were cut), "Conversations with Dead People", and "Dirty Girls". Prior to Season Five, Anya was a recurring character for seasons three to four, appearing in the following episodes:
Season Three (1998–1999): "The Wish", "Doppelgangland", "The Prom" and "Graduation Day, Part One".
Season Four (1999–2000): "The Harsh Light of Day", "Fear, Itself", "Pangs", "Something Blue", "Hush", "A New Man", "The I in Team", "Goodbye Iowa", "Who Are You", "Superstar", "Where the Wild Things Are", "New Moon Rising", "The Yoko Factor", "Primeval", and "Restless".
Anya has also appeared in a number of comics including Past Lives, Ugly Little Monsters, and Reunion, and in novels including Unseen, Wisdom of War and Monster Island. She also makes a brief appearance in the 2003 video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds.
Merchandise
In 2005, Diamond Select Toys produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their Buffy the Vampire Slayer line. Each figure featured a "real-scan" likeness of Caulfield and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced were: "Season 5 Anya" in red top and black skirt, "Hell's Bells Anya" in wedding dress, "Once More, With Feeling Anya" in butterfly top and green skirt, "Anyanka" in demon dress, and "Bunny Suit Anya" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of "Bunny Suit Anya" was featured in the Vengeance Book box-set.
References
External links
Anya on IMDb
Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
Buffyverse characters who use magic
Buffyverse demons
Female characters in television
Television characters introduced in 1998
Fictional characters who can teleport
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional shopkeepers
Fictional immigrants to the United States
Fictional demon hunters
Fictional ghosts
Fictional telekinetics
Fictional characters with superhuman strength
Fictional Swedish people
Female characters in comics
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"Josette Frank (March 27, 1893 – September 9, 1989) was an American children's literature expert and educational consultant. Frank spent most of her adult life working for the Child Study Association of America (CSAA), a leading authority on child development from the 1920s to the 1960s. Frank was engaged as the CSAA's child reading expert and published a parental literary guide titled What Books For Children? in 1937 with a new edition in 1941. Due to her progressive views about parental supervision of children's reading, Frank became one of the significant pro-comics voices during the American anti-comics movement of the 1950s, for which she received praise and criticism.\n\nEarly life \nFrank was born on March 27, 1893, in Manhattan, New York City into a family of secular Jews. Her father, Leo, owned a successful furniture business. As a young girl, she was involved in early feminism and the Women's Land Army. She got her first job when she was 19, working as a secretary for Theodore Roosevelt. She also investigated child labor and worked with poor immigrants in New York's Lower East Side while living in Greenwich Village.\n\nChild Study Association of America\n\nEarly years \n\nFrank first became involved with the Federation For Child Study, group that became the CSAA, in 1923. Frank served as an assistant editor for their magazine, Child Study. Her first prominent advocacy for child-guided reading came in 1936, in an issue of Parents Magazine: \"We can best guide our children's reading if we let our children's reading guide us instead of trying to mold them into preconceived patterns of 'what the well-read child should read,' let us rather encourage them to find their way to real experiences of their own in the vast world of books.\"\n\nReflecting her increasing familiarity with children's literature, CSAA director Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg suggested Frank publish a book recommending children's literature to parents. Frank's book, What Books For Children?, came out first in 1937, and Frank promoted the book at the New York Times National Book Fair, held at Rockefeller Center in November of that year. The fair brought Frank's progressive ideas about oversight of children's reading to a much larger audience, and Frank reassured parents that their children's morals were not shaped to a great amount by reading material. The article was one of the first times Frank also discussed children's readership of comic books, saying:\n\nIn a response to a letter critical of Frank's liberalized views on children's reading, Frank noted that children could never be wholly protected from forbidden literature by parental oversight alone, saying \"...we know that prohibiting has ever had the effect of enhancing the allure of the forbidden.\"\n\nComics advocacy \nAfter Chicago Daily News writer Sterling North condemned comic books as \"graphic insanity\" and \"sex-horror serials\" in one of his columns, comic book companies rushed to save their image and prove that they were not as harmful as North made them out to be. National Comics Publications managing editor Whitney Ellsworth sent out a memo to his staff that read:\n\nIn 1941, she joined National's editorial advisory board in a part-time position. Her name, along with the rest of the board, was published in every National comic book starting in mid-1941. Members were paid regardless of their input, and they were usually sent sample story outlines to review rather than finished comic books. In 1943, she sent a letter criticizing sexual and bondage imagery in Wonder Woman stories to National's publisher, Max Gaines.\n\nIn the new chapter on comic books published in Frank's 1941 2nd edition of What Books For Children?, Frank became more candid about her comic book advocacy, posing a question towards understanding children's interest in comics. She reveals one of the main aspects of parental frustration with comic books: \"the intensity of the children's absorption in these paper-covered concentrations of color and motion leaves us aghast.\" Much of the chapter focuses on explaining the appeal of comics to a decidedly parental audience. Frank reasons that children have always craved adventure, but questions on a deeper level why children ostensibly nurtured and protected from danger craved stories (presumably) filled with \"bloodcurdling horror, mystery, violence, and sudden death\".\n\nIn the end, Frank reasoned that\n\nAfter the publication of What Books For Children?, the CSAA featured two articles by Frank in their Spring 1942 and Summer 1943 issues of Child Study, the organization's magazine. Frank's first article was largely a rehashing of the book's chapter, while the second demarcated and analyzed different types of comic books.\n\nBy 1950, reading comics books was widely considered to be harmful to children. Hilde Mosse, the acting physician in charge of the Lafargue Clinic, used Frank's position on the advisory board to discredit her pro-comic writings published in the Journal of Educational Sociology at a 1950 symposium on comics held at a New York school. In 1954, the Senate held hearings to investigate a link between comic books and juvenile delinquency. During the proceedings, Estes Kefauver grilled Child Study Association of America president Gunnar Dybwad over Frank's links to the comic book industry, suggesting as Mosse did earlier that her writing was not credible due to her professional affiliations (receiving pay from the industry). Personal life and death \nFrank married Henry Jacobs in 1923 but kept her maiden name, which was a rare decision at the time. Frank refused to open mail addressed to her using her husband's name, and would return unopened letters saying that no person with that name lived there. Her husband died in 1941. They had two children, a daughter named Judith and a son named Stephen. In addition to her work with the CSAA, she also served on committees for the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the National Committee for Program Services of the Campfire Girls.\n\nFrank died of pneumonia on September 9, 1989, in a nursing home in Alexandria, Virginia.\n\n Legacy \nAs part of the CSAA, Frank was the first editor of the Children's Book Committee at the Bank Street College of Education and had helped choose the recipient of the annual Children's Book Award for children's fiction since its inception in 1944. In 1997, the award was renamed in her honor.\n\n In popular culture \nConnie Britton portrayed Frank in the 2017 film Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, where she is depicted as a comics-critical moralist leading a National Comics Publications hearing against the sexual content of William Moulton Marston's Wonder Woman comics. The conservative image of Frank in the film was heavily criticized by her granddaughter, Yereth Rosen: \"Real Josette was pretty much the opposite of a Focus-on-the-Family-type arch-conservative Christian, for reasons beyond the fact that she was not a Christian.\"\n\nSee alsoProfessor Marston and the Wonder WomenBibliography\n What books for children?: Guideposts for Parents – a 363-page handbook first published by Doubleday, Doran & Co in 1937. A revised edition was released in 1941 with additional chapters on radio and comic books.\n\"Let's Look at the Comics\" – An introductory primer published in Child Study (the CSAA's journal) for parents on comic books and common criticisms.\n\"Looking at the Comics\" with Flora Stieglitz Straus – Another Child Study article, this one a breakdown of various types and styles of comic books with evaluation of their appropriateness for children.\n \"What's in the Comics?\" – a 9-page article published in the December 1944 edition of The Journal of Educational Sociology.\n Your Child's Reading Today – published by Doubleday in 1954.\n Comics, TV, Radio, Movies--what Do They Offer Children? – a 28-page booklet published by the Public Affairs Committee in 1955.\n Television: How to Use it Wisely with Children'' – a 28-page booklet first published by the Child Study Association of America in 1959.\n\nReferences\n\n1893 births\n1989 deaths\nAmerican children's writers\nAmerican education writers\nChild development\nJewish American writers\nWriters from New York City\n20th-century American Jews",
"Hermine \"Miep\" Gies (; née Santrouschitz; 15 February 1909 – 11 January 2010) was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family (Otto Frank, Margot Frank, Edith Frank-Holländer) and four other Dutch Jews (Fritz Pfeffer, Hermann van Pels, Auguste van Pels, Peter van Pels) from the Nazis in an annex above Otto Frank's business premises during World War II. She was Austrian by birth, but in 1920, at the age of eleven, she was taken in as a foster child by a Dutch family to whom she became very attached. Although she was initially only to stay for six months, this stay was extended to one year because of frail health, after which Gies chose to remain with them, living the rest of her life in the Netherlands. She died in 2010 at age 100, a month before her 101st birthday.\n\nIn 1933, Gies began working for Otto Frank, a Jewish businessman who had moved with his family from Germany to the Netherlands in the hope of sparing his family from Nazi persecution. She became a close, trusted friend of the Frank family and was a great support to them during the two years they spent in hiding. Together with her colleague Bep Voskuijl, she retrieved Anne Frank's diary after the family was arrested, and kept the papers safe until Otto Frank returned from Auschwitz in June 1945 and learned of his younger daughter's death. Gies had stored Anne Frank's papers in the hopes of returning them to the girl, but gave them to Otto Frank, who compiled them into a diary first published in 1947.\nIn collaboration with Alison Leslie Gold, Gies wrote the book Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family in 1987.\n\nEarly life \n\nBorn in Vienna to Karoline Maria Santrouschitz, Gies was transported to Leiden from Vienna in December 1920 to escape the food shortages prevailing in Austria after World War I. The Nieuwenburgs, a working-class family who already had five children of their own, took her as their foster daughter, and called her by the diminutive \"Miep\" by which she became known. In 1922, she moved with her foster family to Gaaspstraat 25 in Amsterdam. Gies was an honor student, and described herself as \"reserved and very independent\"; after graduating high school, she worked as an accountant and then in 1933 as a secretary with the Dutch branch of the German spice firm Opekta (later known as Gies & Company). Gies wrote, \"But the office was not the only thing in my life. My social life at this time was very lively. I loved to dance and belonged like many young Dutch girls, to a dance club.\"\n\nOtto Frank had just relocated from Germany and had been appointed managing director of Opekta's recently expanded Dutch operations. Gies, Frank's employee, became a close friend of the family, as did her fiancé, Jan Gies. After refusing to join a Nazi women's association, her passport was invalidated, and she was ordered to be deported back to Austria within 90 days (by then annexed by Germany, which classified her as a German citizen). The couple faced some difficulties, but they were married on 16 July 1941 so that she could obtain Dutch citizenship and thus evade deportation. \"Anne was impressed with my gold ring. She looked at it dreamily. (...) Because times were hard, we had only one ring, although the custom was for a couple to have two. Henk [In her book, Miep called Jan by the name of Henk, because Anne Frank had used that pseudonym in her diary] and I had barely scraped together enough money for one gold ring. He had insisted that I should wear it.\" Gies' fluency in Dutch and German helped the Frank family assimilate into Dutch society, and she and her husband became regular guests at the Franks' home.\n\nHiding the families\nWith her husband Jan and other Opekta employees (Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman and Bep Voskuijl), Miep Gies helped hide Otto and Edith Frank; their daughters Margot and Anne; Hermann, Auguste and Peter van Pels; and Fritz Pfeffer in several upstairs rooms in the company's office building on Amsterdam's Prinsengracht from 6 July 1942 to 4 August 1944. In an interview, Gies said she was glad to help the families hide because she was extremely concerned after seeing what was happening to the Jews in Amsterdam. Every day, she saw trucks loaded with Jews heading to the railway station, en route to Nazi concentration camps. She did not tell anyone, not even her own foster parents, about the people in hiding whom she was assisting.\n\nWhen purchasing food for the people in hiding, Gies avoided suspicion in many ways: for example, by visiting several different suppliers in a day. She never carried more than what one shopping bag could hold or what she could hide under her coat. To prevent the Opekta workers from becoming suspicious, Gies tried not to enter the hiding place during office hours. Her husband also helped by providing ration cards that he had obtained illegally. By visiting various grocery shops and markets on a regular basis, Gies developed a good sense of the supply situation.\n\nAt their apartment, close to the Merwedeplein where the Franks had lived before going into hiding, Gies and her husband Jan (who belonged to the Dutch resistance) also hid an anti-Nazi university student.\n\nThe capture\nOn the morning of 4 August 1944, sitting at her desk, Gies, along with Voskuijl and Kleiman, was confronted by a man with a gun commanding \"Stay put! Don't move! Not a sound!\" The families had been betrayed and the Grüne Polizei arrested the people hidden at 263 Prinsengracht, as well as Kugler and Kleiman. The next day, Gies went to the German police office to try to find the arrestees. She offered money to buy their freedom but did not succeed. Gies and the other helpers could have been executed if they had been caught hiding Jews; however, she was not arrested because the police officer who came to interrogate her was from Vienna, her birth town. She recognized his accent and told him they had the same hometown. He was amazed, then started pacing and cursing at her, finally deciding to let her stay. Gies remained safe with her husband in Amsterdam throughout the rest of the war.\n\nBefore the hiding place was emptied by the authorities, Gies retrieved Anne Frank's diaries and saved them in her desk drawer. She was determined to give them back to Anne. After the war had ended and it was confirmed that Anne Frank had perished in Bergen-Belsen, Gies gave the collection of papers and notebooks to the sole survivor from the Secret Annex, Otto Frank. After transcribing sections for his family, his daughter's literary ability became apparent and he arranged for the book's publication in 1947. Gies did not read the diaries before turning them over to Otto and later remarked that if she had, she would have had to destroy them because the papers contained the names of all five of the helpers as well as of their black-market suppliers. She was persuaded by Otto Frank to read the diary in its second printing. In 1947, Miep and Jan Gies moved to Jekerstraat 65, by the , along with Otto Frank.\n\nGies was interviewed about her memories of hiding the Frank family for the 1995 documentary film Anne Frank Remembered by Jon Blair.\n\nHonors and awards\n\nIn 1994, Gies was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the Wallenberg Medal by the University of Michigan. The following year, Gies received the Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations medal. In 1997, she was knighted in the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The minor planet 99949 Miepgies is named in her honor. She always maintained that while she appreciated the honors, they embarrassed her: \"I am not a hero. I am not a special person. I don't want attention. I did what any decent person would have done.\"\n\nOn 30 July 2009, the Austrian Ambassador to the Netherlands, Wolfgang Paul, presented Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria to Gies at her home.\n\nDeath\nOn 11 January 2010, a month before her 101st birthday, Miep Gies died in Hoorn after suffering injuries from a fall.\n\nFurther reading\n : Frauen mit Visionen – 48 Europäerinnen (Women with visions – 48 Europeans). With text by Alice Schwarzer. Munich: Knesebeck, 2004. , 88–95 p.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Official website of Miep Gies (English)\n \n Profile of Miep Gies from the Anne Frank Museum\n Miep Gies – her activity to save Jews' lives during the Holocaust, at Yad Vashem website\n Holocaust Rescuers Bibliography with information and links to books about Miep Gies and other Dutch rescuers\n Miep Gies - Daily Telegraph obituary\n Miep Gies Find a Grave\n\n1909 births\n2010 deaths\nAccidental deaths from falls\nAustrian emigrants to the Netherlands\nDutch centenarians\nDutch humanitarians\nWomen humanitarians\nDutch Roman Catholics\nAustrian Roman Catholics\nDutch people of World War II\nDutch resistance members\nDutch Righteous Among the Nations\nOfficers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany\nRecipients of the Grand Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria\nKnights of the Order of Orange-Nassau\nWomen in World War II\nAustrian centenarians\nWomen centenarians\nPeople from Vienna\nAnne Frank"
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[
"Etruscan civilization",
"Art and music"
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C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?
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What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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figurative sculpture in terracotta (
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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"Luisa Banti (1894-1978) was an Italian archaeologist, art historian, and educator specializing in the Etruscan and Minoan civilizations. Her best known work is Il mondo degli Etruschi (The World of the Etruscans). First published in 1960 and translated into several languages, it influenced scholarly opinion for many years and became a classic text.\n\nEarly life and education\n\nLuisa Banti was born into a well-to-do family in Florence in 1894, the oldest of six children. Her father, Guido Banti, was a prominent physician and Professor of Pathology at the University of Florence. Having inherited her father's propensity for analytical research, she defied expectations for women of her day by enrolling in the University of Florence when she was in her thirties, to study philology and classical antiquity. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the Luni site and her post-doctoral thesis on the cult of the dead in archaic Rome. Among her professors were Giacomo Devoto, who introduced her to Etruscology, and Luigi Pernier, who trained her in Etruscan archaeology.\n\nCareer\n\nBanti's earliest published research papers were on historical topography. In the 1930s she spent summers with the Italian Archaeological Mission at Crete, where she organized and wrote about artifacts discovered earlier at Festos and Haghia Triada. After publishing several articles on Minoan religion, she was appointed to the History of Religions Department at the University of Rome. In the 1940s she also served as editorial assistant for the journal Bolletino d'Arte, and wrote book reviews for Studi Etruschi and Athenaeum.\n\nBanti chaired the Department of Archaeology and History of Greek and Roman Art at the University of Pavia from 1948 to 1950, and the Department of Etruscan Studies and Italic Archaeology at the University of Florence from 1950 to 1965. During this period she also lectured at American universities, including Columbia and Princeton. From 1965 to 1972 she presided over L'Istituto di Studi Etruschi (the Institute for Etruscan Studies).\n\nIn 1960, Banti published the first edition of what would become her best known work, Il mondo degli Etruschi (The World of the Etruscans). A second edition was published in 1968, and the first English translation, The Etruscan Cities and Their Culture, was published by the University of California in 1973. Although primarily a technical archaeological report, the book provided the best overview of Etruscan art available at the time. It influenced scholarly opinion for many years and became a classic text.\n\nBanti spent her final years at the American Academy in Rome studying the villa at Hagia Triada. She died in 1978, bequeathing her library of some 930 volumes to the University of Florence.\n\nPublications\nItalian:\n \"Culto dei morti nella Roma antichissima\", Studi italiani di filologia classica, VII, 1929 \n Luni, 1937 \n I culti minoici e greci di Haghia Triada (Creta), 1941 \n Il palazzo minoico di Festo, 1951 \n \"Problemi della pittura arcaica etrusca: la tomba dei Tori a Tarquinia\" in Studi etruschi, vol. XXIV, 1955-1956\n Il mondo degli Etruschi, 1960 \n F. Halbherr, E. Stefani, L. Banti, \"Haghia Triada nel periodo tardo palaziale\" in Annuario della Scuola archeologica italiana di Atene, LV [1977], p. 13.\n\nEnglish:\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1894 births\n1978 deaths\nItalian women archaeologists\nArchaeologists from Florence\nItalian art historians\nUniversity of Florence faculty\nUniversity of Florence alumni\n20th-century archaeologists\n20th-century women educators",
"Carved amber bow of a fibula, also known as the Morgan Amber, is a 5th-century BCE Etruscan fibula by an unknown artist. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.\n\nEarly history and creation\nCarved from amber, this fibula dates to about 500 B.C.E. The artist is unknown, and there is some debate if the piece is Etruscan made or Etruscan influenced. Amber was a popular material in both Greek and Etruscan art, with the Etruscans using it frequently, often in funerary art.\n\nDescription and interpretation\nThe work depicts a couple reclining on a sofa, with the woman in the forefront and the man behind her. A bird, possibly a duck, sits on the shoulders on the couple, and at the feet of the reclining duo is a small attendant. It is thought that this piece is a fibula because of the holes at the bottom which show some indications of an iron pin being there. The object is large, allowing for fine detail on the piece. In particular are the folds of the clothing on both the man and woman, their hair, and the woman's gesture of holding out a bottle of perfume or other oil in her right hand and holding two fingers out in her left hand, appearing to offer some to her companion. This gesture is visible in other pieces of Etruscan art, including the Sarcophagus of the Spouses in the Villa Giulia Etruscan museum located in Rome. The depiction of couples laying together and seemingly banqueting is also common, and be seen in the fresco of the Monterozzi necropolis of Tarquina, such as the Tomb of the Leopards and the Tomb of the Triclinium. Etruscan society allowed for women to participate in banquets and public life to a much greater extent than in Greece or Rome.\n\nIt is unknown if the couple carved in the amber are divine or simply two humans. Andrew Richter suggested that it may be Turan and Atunis (the Etruscan version of Aphrodite and Adonis) in 1940, since the motif of Turan and Atunis was popular in Etruscan art.\n\nLater history and influence\nThe fibula was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1917 by J. Pierpont Morgan. Supposedly it was found in Falconara Marittima, near Ancona, ancient Greek colony on the Adriatic coast of Italy. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual report from the time of acquisition simply describes the piece as \"an amber group of two reclining figures\" and as part of a larger donation given by Morgan.\n\nReferences\n\nMetropolitan Museum of Art 2017 drafts\nJewellery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\nEtruscan artefacts\nArchaeological discoveries in Italy"
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"Etruscan civilization",
"Art and music",
"What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?",
"figurative sculpture in terracotta ("
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C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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what shapes did they make?
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what shapes did Etruscan make?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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"Mister Maker Comes to Town is a spin-off of children's television series Mister Maker commissioned by Michael Carrington at the BBC for CBeebies. The TV series launched in 2010 and ended in 2011. Three spin-offs followed: Mister Maker Around the World, Mister Maker's Arty Party, and Mister Maker at Home, which began airing in 2013, 2015 and 2020, respectively.\n\nEpisode format\nEvery episode has the following sequence:\n\nHelps a child with something they can make - Helping As Children Your Arts & Crafts\nShape dance and guessing game - Awesome Shape Dance & Games\nMinute make it time - 1 Minute Your Arts & Crafts\nColoured Kids - All Art Big Color\nBig surprise - For Your Art & Crafts Bigger\nTime to go - Meet Tocky\nAt the start of every show, Mister Maker uses various objects to make a Makermobile. He shrinks himself, then the episode starts. Tocky, the cuckoo clock, gives Mister Maker a \"mini maker message\", a child who needs help from Mister Maker. The child tells Mister Maker what they would like to do or make something out of old things. This inspires him to do something related to them. He collects the essential items from the Doodle drawers and makes them.\n\nWhen Mister Maker can't find what he needs, he honks the horn, summoning Scraps (a blue puppet with a scarf, a hat with straws and pipe cleaners on it, and googly eyes), who gives him what he wants. After they make it, Mister Maker tells us, \"it's brilliant being out and about in the Makermobile; there's always so much to see and do.\" Then he hears a noise, then a quartet of shapes fly out and sing a silly song and dance, followed by a random shape (circle, triangle, square, or rectangle) to form a picture or find how many shapes there are.\n\nTocky then appears on the Makervideophone for Minute Make Time, and Mister Maker goes to a place where he can make something in a minute—usually completing it just before the timer stops. Then the coloured kids ask Mister Maker from the videophone to guess what they would make with their colourful costumes.\n\nIt is followed by A Big Surprise, where Mister Maker sees some kids who were not expecting him. The kids tell Mister Maker what they would like to do. Mister Maker tells the kids what they will do, which will give him an idea of what to do next. In the middle of making it, he wonders why not make a (insert thing related to what the Mini Makers are making here). The show ends with Tocky telling Mister Maker to go and then shows Mister Maker how to put the Makermobile back into the art box.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2010s British children's television series\n2010 British television series debuts\n2011 British television series endings\nBBC children's television shows\nBritish preschool education television series\nBritish television shows featuring puppetry\nTreehouse TV original programming\nTelevision series by RDF Media Group\nBritish television spin-offs",
"\"Mis-Shapes\" is a song written and released by Sheffield band Pulp from their 1995 album Different Class. Lyrically inspired by Cocker's experiences socializing in Sheffield as an outcast, the song features lyrics that call for misfits to unite and take over. This lyrical theme would make Cocker uncomfortable with Pulp's growing popularity with \"townies\" after the song's release.\n\n\"Mis-Shapes\" was released as a double-A sided single with \"Sorted for E's & Wizz\", the second single from Different Class after \"Common People.\" Like its predecessor, the single reached number two in the UK charts and has since seen critical acclaim.\n\nBackground\n\"Mis-Shapes\" was written as an ode to the outcasts that Pulp as a band identified with. Drummer Nick Banks summed up the song's message, stating, \"What an opener, a call to arms, a rallying cry, now is the time to storm the barricades. If you've ever been bullied, called a weirdo, hit, spat at for being, looking, or feeling different... this is your tune!\" At a 1995 concert, frontman Jarvis Cocker introduced the song as a call to take on the \"blokes with 'taches in short-sleeved white shirts telling you that you're the weirdo.\"\n\nLyrically, the song was inspired by Cocker's experience going to clubs in his home town of Sheffield during the 1980s. He recalled:\n\nCocker reflected on the song's contradiction with the laddish audience the Britpop scene attracted, \"All you can do is be as precise and be as good at what you do as possible and throw it out there. You can't control who goes into the shop and buys your records, you can't say, 'Oh, we're going to move into a more mature market.' People have to decide that. I mean, you write a song like 'Mis-Shapes' and it should be perfectly clear that it's saying, 'I don't like intolerant people.' But it's become clear to me after that last tour that it goes over some people's heads. Townies were coming out to see us.\"\n\nThe song's guitar solo was initially composed by Cocker, but its final version was modified by recently-joined guitarist Mark Webber, who called the song one of his favorites in 1996. The song's title, according to Cocker, originates from his \"mum buying mis-shaped chocolates.\" Cocker recalled, Mis-Shapes' are these chocolates and they used to have them in the sweet-shop next to our house. They were the ones that had gone wrong in the factory - they were misshapen - kind of 'elephant man' of the sweet world! You could buy them in a bag much cheaper than a normal box of chocolates would be and they tasted as good, it's just that aesthetically they weren't that pleasing so that seemed to be a fairly reasonable metaphor.\"\n\nLyrics and music\nDeborah Orr of The Guardian described \"Mis-Shapes\" as \"the song that contains Cocker's statement of intent,\" while The Telegraph called the track \"[Cocker's] anthem to nerd youth, a battle-cry to misfits everywhere.\" Cocker said of the song's lyrical content:\n\nDavid Stubbs of Melody Maker described the song as \"musically is so cleverly redolent of the glitzy plasticity of glam but also lino on bedsit floors.\" Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called the song a \"faux-show tune romp.\"\n\nRelease\n\"Mis-Shapes\" was released as a double A-sided single with \"Sorted for E's & Wizz\" on 25 September 1995. The double-A sided single reached number two on the UK Singles Chart, though the single did attract controversy due to the drug themes of \"Sorted for E's and Wizz\". It was Pulp's second successive number-two hit in 1995, with \"Common People\" having reached the same position in June. As a standalone single, \"Mis-Shapes\" reached number 15 in Finland and number 25 in Sweden.\n\nDespite being one of Pulp's biggest hits it did not appear on their best of album Hits. Cocker reflected on the song in 1999, \"I can't really listen to that song anymore to be honest but I know at the time I was quite excited. It was like all the kind of speccy losers were coming out the libraries and taking over. That was my idea. It was a nice idea but unfortunately it didn't quite happen did it?\"\n\nMusic video\nThe band also produced a music video for the song where Cocker appeared as both the singer of the band and as a \"blokey\" character that spat beer in the face of his \"misfit\" performer role. Cocker explained, \"In the 'Mis-Shapes' video I acted, which is something I was very dubious about because pop stars acting is normally very tragic. Let's mention Sting there. So, being dubious, I got very drunk to do it. And then I started getting into it, I could see the attraction was not giving a shit about anything.\"\n\nThe background extras were found at a club; Cocker stated, \"The kids they got for the video were from this really savage nightclub, and they were totally intimidating everybody on the set - they weren't acting. But I liked it, because after all this time of running away from these people I could be one for two days.\"\n\nReception\n\"Mis-Shapes\" has seen positive reception from critics. Awarding it five out of five and \"best new single\" in Smash Hits, Mark Sutherland called the song \"a brilliant rallying call to anyone else who's ever felt they didn't quite fit in. Like 'Common People,' it's an epic single, all spiralling keyboards and brilliant lyrics.\" Time Out praised the song as \"a splenetic, stuttering, demolition of all the people who made Jarvis's life a misery before fate knocked on the wrong door and made him a sex symbol.\" Melody Makers David Stubbs described \"Mis-Shapes\" as \"a song that so brazenly pushes all of the right buttons, it's hard to see how they were ever anything less than an instant pop success.\" Rolling Stones David Fricke called the song \"a blast of plastic, fantastic vengeance against the plebes, sort of the Pet Shop Boys meet the Clash's 'White Riot.\n\nNME readers ranked the song as Pulp's seventh best in a fan vote. The Guardian named it as one of Pulp's ten best songs, writing, \"It's an intellectual putsch, a nerdy spring, and it's still as convincing today as it was back then.\"\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written and composed by Jarvis Cocker, Nick Banks, Steve Mackey, Russell Senior, Candida Doyle and Mark Webber; except where noted.7-inch vinyl and cassette single \"Mis-Shapes\" – 3:45\n \"Sorted for E's & Wizz\" – 3:42CD single one (Catalogue no. CID 620) and 12-inch vinyl\n \"Mis-Shapes\" – 3:45\n \"Sorted for E's & Wizz\" – 3:42\n \"P.T.A. (Parent Teacher Association)\" – 3:15\n \"Common People\" (Live at Glastonbury) – 7:38CD single two' (Catalogue no. CIDX 620)\n \"Sorted for E's & Wizz\" – 3:42\n \"Mis-Shapes\" – 3:45\n \"Common People\" (Motiv 8 Club Mix) – 7:50\n \"Common People\" (Vocoda Mix) – 6:18\n\nPersonnel\nJarvis Cocker: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar\nRussell Senior: Electric Guitar\nMark Webber: Electric Guitar\nCandida Doyle: Piano, Synthesizers\nAnne Dudley: Strings\nSteve Mackey: Bass Guitar\nNick Banks: Drums\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\n\"Mis-Shapes\"\n\n\"Mis-Shapes\"/\"Sorted for E's & Wizz\"\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Mis-Shapes & Sorted For E's & Wizz at Discogs\n\n1995 singles\n1995 songs\nIsland Records singles\nPulp (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Chris Thomas (record producer)\nSongs written by Candida Doyle\nSongs written by Jarvis Cocker\nSongs written by Mark Webber (guitarist)\nSongs written by Nick Banks\nSongs written by Russell Senior\nSongs written by Steve Mackey"
] |
[
"Etruscan civilization",
"Art and music",
"What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?",
"figurative sculpture in terracotta (",
"what shapes did they make?",
"particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples"
] |
C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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are there any pieces still around today?
| 3 |
are there any pieces of Etruscan still around today?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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"Lotus is a board game for two to four players developed by Dominique Tellier and published by Ravensburger Spieleverlag. The object of the game is to move one's pieces off the board before the other players. The game board is hexagonal in shape; it has a large image of a Chinese dragon in the middle, and a Chinese character in each board position.\n\nGameplay\nIf you have two players, one player is given ten white game pieces while the other player gets ten black game pieces. The pieces are stacked in the middle of the board as one stack of 4 pieces, one stack of 3 pieces, one stack of 2 pieces and one stack of 1 piece. If you have 3 or 4 players then each player gets 6 pieces, stacked in the middle in stacks of 3, 2 and 1. Each player takes turns moving their pieces in an attempt to get to the exit space on the game board. A player can only move a piece that is on top of a stack or that is the only piece left in a stack. The height of the stack determines how far you can move your piece. Therefore; a piece in a stack of 1 can only move 1 space forward, a piece in a stack of 2 can move 2 spaces forward.\n\nA player may decide which of the two starting positions to move their piece to, both positions lead to one exit position and no piece can be moved backwards.\n\nDuring your turn, you can stack any of your colored pieces on top of any other single piece, empty position, or existing stack. After the game starts there is no limit to how many pieces can be in a stack. You can move any of your pieces forward, even if you still have pieces in the start square.\n\nIf during the game one of your pieces lands on the trampoline space (flower marked with a red border) he may choose to forward that piece the same amount of spaces as he used to reach the trampoline space.\n\nThe finish position is after the last square on the board. You do not have to land exactly on it. If you have moved a piece to the finish take it off the board out of play. The game is over when a player has moved all their pieces off the board.\n\nThere are two types of play for when you have no possible moves. In regular gameplay if no piece of your color is on top of a stack or by itself on a square, you cannot move any of your pieces. You can however, move any other players pieces forward, or you can lose your turn.\nAdditionally there are professional rules in this scenario. They state that if you have no possible moves you must skip your turn and wait until one of your pieces is free to move. Additionally in two player games the person to start the game can use their initial turn to move two pieces at once. Then the next player moves one piece, according to the main rules. Usually if there are only two players in the game the regular rules apply.\n\nExternal links\n\nBoard games introduced in 1998\nAbstract strategy games\nRavensburger games",
"Chinese folk flute music are folk songs written to tell the traditions and tales of various tribes in China, around the 12th century. They were played mostly on wooden flutes, and thus the pieces that have survived till today are written in D, which is the key these early flutes were made in. This is also why, unlike most Chinese music, these pieces are not written in a pentatonic scale, but in a more middle eastern style. We can tell this because the ornamentation of these pieces is very similar to that of the bagpipes, which were invented in India, and also surprisingly the penny whistle and other Celtic instruments.\n\nThese pieces were highly ornamented. Grace notes are used instead of tonguing, a technique used by the bagpipes. Unlike in most western music, any two notes were used as grace notes, rather than a tone gap.\nThese pieces were written by taking a short theme and developing it in three sections, each section adding more complex ornaments and rhythms as it progresses. Unlike the European folk structure which normally goes ABABAB etc., as in modern pop music, Chinese folk songs have a structure of AAA, or if you count the development as a change then: ABC.\n\nSee also\nList of Chinese folk songs\n\nReferences\n\nChinese folk music\nFlutes"
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"What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?",
"figurative sculpture in terracotta (",
"what shapes did they make?",
"particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples",
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"I don't know."
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C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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what type of music is the Etruscan civilization known for?
| 4 |
what type of music is the Etruscan civilization known for?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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different types of pipes,
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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"In Etruscan mythology and religion, Selvans is god of the woodlands and boundaries, including sacred boundaries. He is possibly cognate with Roman Silvanus. As the god of boundaries, he is known by the epithet tularias as stated by a dedication of a statue to the god. His name is 10th on the list of 16 gods on the outer rim of the Piacenza Liver (a bronze model of a sheep’s liver used as a reference or teaching tool for divination). Votive inscriptions from the liver show that he was a popular god in Etruria. \n\nOnly one certain representation of Selvans has been found alongside a statue of Culśanś. He is portrayed as a naked youth wearing a hide of a bear’s cap and high boots. This contrasts from the Roman Silvanus, who is usually shown as a bearded man.\n\nSee also\n Etruscan civilization \nEtruscan Religion\nCulśanś\n\nReferences\n\nEtruscan gods\nEtruscan religion\nNature gods",
"Vegoia (Etruscan: Vecu) is a sibyl, prophet, or nymph within the Etruscan religious framework who is identified as the author of parts of their large and complex set of sacred books, detailing the religiously correct methods of founding cities and shrines, draining fields, formulating laws and ordinances, measuring space and dividing time; she initiated the Etruscan people to the arts, as originating the rules and rituals of land marking, and as presiding over the observance, respect, and preservation of boundaries. Vegoia also is known as Vecu, Vecui, and Vecuvia, as well as Vegoe; her name is also given as Begoe or Bigois.\n\nIn the Etruscan religious framework\nThe Etruscan religious system remains mostly obscure. There being few bilingual documents comparable to the Rosetta stone that could facilitate translation, the Etruscan language is poorly understood. Therefore, the existing ancient Etruscan documents of the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries BCE that would reveal their religious concepts, do not yield much. Moreover, during the later period of the fifth through the first centuries BCE, Etruscan civilization heavily absorbed elements of Greek civilization and eventually, it was diluted in the Greco-Roman cultural mix with their powerful Roman neighbors. Lastly, while the Etruscans formalized their religious concepts and practices in a series of \"sacred books\", most no longer exist and they are known only through commentaries or quotes by Roman authors of the late first century, and hence, may be biased.\n\nTwo mythological figures have been set by the Etruscans as presiding over the writing of their sacred books: Vegoia, the subject of this article, and Tages, a monstrous childlike figure gifted with the knowledge and prescience of an ancient sage. Those books are known from Latin authors under a classification pertaining to their content according to their mythological author (whether delivered through speeches or lectures, such as Tages, or inspiration).\n\nThe attributes of Vegoia\nThe figure of Vegoia is almost entirely blurred in the mists of the past. She is known mostly from the traditions of the Etruscan city of Chiusi (Latin: Clusium; Etruscan: Clevsin; Umbrian: Camars) (now in the province of Siena). The revelations of the prophetess Vegoia are designated as the Libri Vegoici that included the Libri Fulgurales and part of the Libri Rituales, especially the Libri Fatales.\n\nShe is barely designated as a \"nymph\" and as the author of the Libri Fulgurales, that give the keys to interpreting the meaning of lightning strokes sent by the deities using a cartography of the sky that, as a sort of property division and use assignment, is attributed to Vegoia. Her assignment of sectors of the horizon to various deities is paralleled in the microcosm that is interpreted using the liver of a sacrificed animal. The sacred divisions also seem to have a correspondence in the measurement and division of land that, since the very dawn of Etruscan history, obeyed religious rules. Her dictates taught the correct methods of measuring space. \n\nVegoia also was depicted as lording over the observation of these rules, to be upheld under threat of dire woe or malediction. Thus, she was established as the power presiding over land property and land property rights, laws, and contracts (as distinct from commercial contract laws).\n\nShe also is indicated as having established the laws relative to hydraulic works, thus having a special relationship to \"tamed\" water.\n\nInfluence of Etruscan sacred books\nThis imposing system of \"revealing\" and \"sacred texts\" left a significant imprint on the neighboring italic peoples. There is ample evidence of the Etruscan culture having heavily permeated the less-advanced communities of their Latin and Sabine neighbours. For example, the Etruscan alphabet that was derived from the Greek one, is solidly established as having inspired the Latin alphabet. The principles and structural rules of the Etruscan decimal numeral system, likewise, are recognized as the origin of the Roman numerals that are a simplified version of the Etruscan system. Similarly derived are the symbols of supreme power (see Etruscan civilization), the structure of the Roman calendar, and the Etruscan Craeci is the source for the word \"Greeks\" (who self-identified as Hellenes), etc.\n\nRelationship to Sibylline books \nWhile the Roman religion has precious little written basis, they nonetheless had a very abstruse set of texts known as the Sibylline Books that were under the exclusive control of special religious figures, the duumviri (then decemviri). The books were resorted to solely in times of ultimate crisis. The devolution of these \"sacred books\" to the Romans through a rocambolesque scene, was attributed to an Etruscan, Tarquinius Superbus, the last of the legendary kings of Rome. Hence, their relationship to Vegoia.\n\nRelationship to Egeria\nLikewise, one may suspect that the legend of Egeria is related to Vegoia. Egeria is the name of the nymph who inspired the second legendary king of Rome, Numa Pompilius (in Latin, \"numen\" designates \"the expressed will of a deity\"), who succeeded its founder, Romulus, when she dictated to him the rules that established the original framework of laws and rituals of Rome that also are associated with \"sacred books\". \n\nNuma is reputed to have written down the teachings of Egeria in \"sacred books\" that he caused to be buried with him. According to Plutarch, when a chance accident brought them back to light some 500 years later, the books were deemed by the Roman Senate to be inappropriate for disclosure to the people and they ordered that the books be destroyed. What made these sacred books 'inappropriate' was certainly of a \"political\" nature, but precisely what that was, had not been handed down by Valerius Antias, the source that Plutarch was using. However, sacred books were the source used to interpret the abstruse omens of deities (episode of the omen from Faunus). Sacred books also were associated with beneficial water, which also would have been linked to Vegoia.\n\nSee also\n List of Etruscan mythological figures\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n \n French original:\n\nEtruscan mythology\nEtruscan goddesses\nEtruscan religion\nWisdom goddesses\nClassical oracles"
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[
"Etruscan civilization",
"Art and music",
"What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?",
"figurative sculpture in terracotta (",
"what shapes did they make?",
"particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples",
"are there any pieces still around today?",
"I don't know.",
"what type of music is the Etruscan civilization known for?",
"different types of pipes,"
] |
C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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what types of pipes?
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what types of pipes is the Etruscan civilization known for?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes,
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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[
"The double flute is an ancient category of wind instrument, a set of flutes that falls under more than one modern category in the Hornbostel Sachs system of musical instrument classification. The flutes may be double because they have parallel pipes that are connected with a single duct. They may be \"double vertical flutes\" without a duct. There is also a double-transverse flutes.\n\nDouble flutes are not the same as double pipes, which are reed instruments. Flutes use resonant pipes to make their sound, whereas pipes use vibrating reeds. The sounding mechanisms for the two types of instrument are different.\n\nDouble flutes can be divided into instruments that consist of a melody pipe matched with a drone pipe, and chord flutes in which the instruments can play the same melody at the same time in two different pitches.\n\nSome forms of double flute include:\n\n some types of Native American flutes\n the Serbian dvojnice, can be either a flute or a reed pipe.\n the Bulgarian dvoyanka\nthe Indian and Pakistani Alghoza\nthe Iranian and Pakistani Donali, pair of fipple flutes\n the Russian double svirel, pair of fipple flutes\n\nSome forms that are reed pipes, not double flutes include:\n the ancient Greek aulos, pair of (double-reed) pipes.\n the Indian and Pakistani pungi, reed pipes\n Mijwiz\n\nReferences\n\nFlutes\nHornbostel–Sachs",
"The Zetland pipes were a type of bagpipe designed and crafted by Pipe Major Royce Lerwick in the 1990s.\n\nHistorical impetus\nLerwick believed that the bagpipes had been introduced to the British Isles by the Vikings. His \"Zetland pipes\" were intended to resemble single-drone, single-reeded pipes such as might have been brought to the Shetland Islands by the Vikings. The term \"Zetland\" is an antiquated variant of \"Shetland\".\n\nThe original impetus for the design, according to Lerwick, was the Lady Maket pipes, or Silver Pipes of Ur. This was an archaeological find, resembling bagpipes, dating back to 2500 BCE.\n\nPractical impetus\nLerwick's Zetland pipes were also intended to be a type of smallpipe that would be easy to learn and maintain, and applicable to popular folk and Celtic music. The handbook supplied with the pipes offered options for adapting different types of open or closed fingerings for the pipe, for maximum versatility, and also methods to change the modal scale of the pipe for playing different types of music.\n\nDesign\nThe pipes consisted of a mouth-blown blowpipe, a single bass drone, and a single-reeded chanter in the key of D. This key was chosen as it was ideally suited for much of the Celtic repertoire. The single-reed gave the chanter a mellow sound, akin to the Swedish sackpipa.\n\nMarketing\nThe Zetland pipes were sold online, offered in either \"American green ebony\" or striped ebony. Natural drone reeds were included, with synthetic Highland drone reeds an option for both drone and chanter. Lerwick ceased production of the pipes around the year 2000.\n\nReferences\n\nBagpipes\nReconstructed musical instruments\nShetland musical instruments"
] |
[
"Etruscan civilization",
"Art and music",
"What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?",
"figurative sculpture in terracotta (",
"what shapes did they make?",
"particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples",
"are there any pieces still around today?",
"I don't know.",
"what type of music is the Etruscan civilization known for?",
"different types of pipes,",
"what types of pipes?",
"such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes,"
] |
C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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where did they play this music?
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where did is the Etruscan civilization known for play the music plagiaulos ?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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"Grayson|Reed are an American Christian music duo from Nashville, Tennessee, and they started making music together in 2016. They released an extended play, Walk (2017), with Centricity Music. This release charted on two Billboard magazine charts.\n\nBackground\nGrayson|Reed are a husband-and-wife duo based in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was the lead singer with Mikeschair, and she was half of the group City Harbor.\n\nMusic history\nTheir first release, an extended play, Walk, was released on January 13, 2017, with Centricity Music. The extended play charted on two Billboard magazine charts, where it peaked on the Christian Albums at No. 21, and No. 12 on the Heatseekers Albums.\n\nMembers\n Michael Alan \"Mike\" Grayson (born October 21, 1984, Orlando, Florida)\n Molly Elizabeth Reed Grayson (born February 5, 1985, East Aurora, New York)\n\nDiscography\nEPs\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican musical duos\nMusical groups established in 2016\nMusical groups from Nashville, Tennessee\n2016 establishments in Tennessee",
"The Tempers are an American electronic art rock band based in Seattle, WA. The group consists of siblings Corina (vocals), Chalia (drums), and James (synth) Bakker. They play \"electronic music that blends the more psychedelic sounds of the early 70's with an experimental electronic sound inspired by artists of the last two decades...Dead Disco, Love wave, Tropical Black Magic–it has yet to be defined by a genre.\"\n\nHistory\nThe Tempers formed in the summer of 2006, when they wrote and put their first song on Myspace, \"Scissors.\" The Tempers continued to release songs, such as \"White Walls\" and \"Fix\" via Myspace. \"Scissors\" and \"White Walls\" were never released on an album and are no longer available commercially. \"Fix\" was later rerecorded and released on \"Vol. 1 (The Tempers album)\".\n\nThe Tempers started playing shows in 2009, their first show being at the High Dive in Seattle, WA. On October 31, 2010, they self-released their debut studio album, Vol. 1. They also released a self-directed music video for the track \"Alone Again\".\n\nFor The Tempers second release, they enlisted the help of Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. They raised enough money for the production of an EP, \"Together We Are The Love Vortex,\" that they self-released on July 6, 2012. Another self-directed music video for the track \"You Must Be Crazy\" was released as well.\n\nThe Tempers are currently working on new material with Producer Gordon Raphael (The Strokes, Regina Spektor).\n\nIn 2021, they released a new EP entitled \"Vol. 2\"\n\nInfluences\nOn \"The Tempers picks\", a part of the weeklong series SSG Music did on The Tempers, they selected songs they liked by The Knife, Fever Ray, Roxy Music, Funkadelic, Cee-Lo, Peter Gabriel, and Kate Bush. In another interview done by City Arts Magazine where Corina was asked \"What kind of music did you listen to growing up? What about now?\", she responded \"Marvin Pontiac. Marvin Pontiac.\" In an interview with Mute Magazine (Argentina) Corina also cites Bryan Ferry, Antony and the Johnsons, Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen, Sufjan Stevens, Fever Ray, Towns Van Zandt, Joy Division, Kate Bush, Arthur Brown, and Robert Plant as influences.\n\nEarly life\nCorina and Chalia are twins and were born in Seattle, WA September 24, 1987. At the age of 3 they moved to Spokane, WA where their brother James was born February 24, 1991. While still in elementary school they moved back to the Seattle area, which is where they have resided ever since. Their parents, James and Elisa Bakker, who play drums and bass (respectively), were musicians in the 1980s Seattle music scene, just prior to Grunge.\n\nDiscography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican synth-pop groups\nArt rock musical groups\nFamily musical groups\nMusical groups established in 2006\nMusical groups from Seattle"
] |
[
"Etruscan civilization",
"Art and music",
"What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?",
"figurative sculpture in terracotta (",
"what shapes did they make?",
"particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples",
"are there any pieces still around today?",
"I don't know.",
"what type of music is the Etruscan civilization known for?",
"different types of pipes,",
"what types of pipes?",
"such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes,",
"where did they play this music?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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is there anything noteworthy about their art and music in this article?
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is there anything noteworthy about the art and music in this article?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion;
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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"Tonkunst, literally \"The Art of Tone\", is an obsolete term in the German language applied for art music of the 19th century, and often used in music history and musical aesthetic representations. It probably originated from the need to give the music a place among the classical arts like architecture, sculpture, painting, prose and poetry, and also recognize the composer or musician as a creative individual. The term is found for example in the inscriptions of the Walhalla memorial built in 1842, where a good example is Joseph Haydn, titled as \"Doctor der Tonkunst\" (\"Doctor of Tone-Art\"), and Ludwig van Beethoven as \"Tondichter\" (\"Tone-poet\"). Today the term is rarely used, but lives on, for example, in the name of the Tonkünstler Orchestra.\n\nReferences\n\nAttribution\nThis article is based on the translation of the corresponding article of the German Wikipedia. A list of contributors can be found there at the History section.\n\nGerman words and phrases\nMusicology\nMusic education\n\nno:Lydkunst",
"Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, mainstream popular music culture. Underground music is intimately tied to popular music culture as a whole, so there are important tensions within underground music because it appears to both assimilate and resist the forms and processes of popular music culture.\n\nUnderground music may be perceived as expressing sincerity, intimacy, freedom of creative expression in opposition to those practices deemed formulaic or commercially driven. Notions of individuality non-conformity are also commonly deployed in extolling the virtue of underground music. There are examples of underground music that are particularly difficult to encounter, such as the underground rock scenes in the pre-Mikhail Gorbachev Soviet Union, in which has amassed a devoted following over the years (most notably for bands such as Kino), or the modern anti-Islamic metal scene of theocratic states in the Arabian Peninsula. However, most underground music is readily accessible, although performances and recordings may be difficult for the uninitiated to find.\n\nHistory \nSome underground rock bands never got non-mainstream roots. They are radical, aggressive 1960s bands such as The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, MC5, 70s bands like Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash, and 80s hardcore punk bands like Discharge. Some underground styles eventually became mainstream, commercialized pop styles, as did for example, the underground hip hop style of the early 1980s. In the 2000s, the increasing availability of the Internet and digital music technologies has made underground music easier to distribute using streaming audio and podcasts. Some experts in cultural studies now argue that \"there is no underground\" because the Internet has made what was underground music accessible to everyone at the click of a mouse. One expert, Martin Raymond, of London-based company The Future Laboratory, commented in an article in The Independent, saying trends in music, art, and politics are:\n\n... now transmitted laterally and collaboratively via the internet. You once had a series of gatekeepers in the adoption of a trend: the innovator, the early adopter, the late adopter, the early mainstream, the late mainstream, and finally the conservative. But now it goes straight from the innovator to the mainstream.\n\nIn effect, this means a boy band (for instance) could be influenced by a (formerly) obscure 1960s garage rock, early 1980s post punk, noise rock acts like Pussy Galore or even composers of avant-garde classical music such as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, while maintaining recognizability as a boy band.\n\nOverview\nThe term \"underground music\" has been applied to various artistic movements, for instance the psychedelic music movement of the mid-1960s, but the term has in more recent decades come to be defined by any musicians who tend to avoid the trappings of the mainstream commercial music industry otherwise it tells only truth through the music. Frank Zappa attempted to define \"underground\" by noting that the \"mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground.\" In the 1960s, the term \"underground\" was associated with the hippie counterculture and psychedelic drugs, and applied to journalism and film as well as music, as they sought to communicate psychedelic experiences and free love ideals. In modern popular music, the term \"underground\" refers to performers or bands ranging from artists that do DIY guerrilla concerts and self-recorded shows to those that are signed to small independent labels. In some musical styles, the term \"underground\" is used to assert that the content of the music is illegal or controversial, as in the case of early 1990s death metal bands in the US such as Cannibal Corpse for their gory cover art and lyrical themes. Black metal is also an underground form of music and its Norwegian scene are notorious for their association with church burnings, the occult, murders and their Anti-Christian views. All of extreme metal is considered underground music for its extreme nature. Gothic and Industrial are two other types of underground music originating in the late 1970s to mid 1990s with goth rock centering around vampires, black magic and the occult and Industrial using primarily computer generated sounds and hard driving beats.\n\nShlomo Sher's \"philosophy for artists\" argues that there are three common misconceptions about the \"underground\": that it refers exclusively to the rave/electronica scene; that it can be described with a vague, broad definition of \"anything which is not mainstream\"; and the myth that underground music is kept secret; he points out that no band or performer \"exclud[es] virtually anyone or anything\" using \"secret passwords and hidden map points\". Instead, Sher claims that \"underground music\" is linked by shared values, such as a valuing of grassroots \"reality\" over music with \"pre-wrapped marketing glossing it up\"; sincerity and intimacy; freedom of creative expression is valued over commercial success; art is appreciated as deeply meaningful fashion; and the Underground \"difficult to find\", because the scene hides itself from \"less committed visitors\" who would trivialize the music and culture.\n\nIn a CounterPunch article, Twiin argues that \"Underground music is free media\", because by working \"independently, you can say anything in your music\" and be free of corporate censorship. The genre of post-punk is often considered a \"catchall category for underground, indie, or lo-fi guitar rock\" bands which \"initially avoided major record labels in the pursuit of artistic freedom, and out of an 'us against them' stance towards the corporate rock world\", spreading \"west over college station airwaves, small clubs, fanzines, and independent record stores.\" Underground music of this type is often promoted through word-of-mouth or by community radio DJs. In the early underground scenes, such as the Grateful Dead jam band fan scenes or the 1970s punk scenes, crude home-made tapes were traded (in the case of Deadheads) or sold from the stage or from the trunk of a car (in the punk scene). In the 2000s, underground music became easier to distribute, using streaming audio and podcasts.\n\nA music underground can also refer to the culture of underground music in a city and its accompanying performance venues. The Kitchen is an example of what was an important New York City underground music venue in the 1960s and 1970s. CBGB is another famous New York City underground music venue claiming to be \"Home of Underground Rock since 1973\".\n\nSee also \nIndependent music\nUnderground hip hop\nUnderground art\n\nReferences \n\nUnderground culture\nMusical culture\nCassette culture 1970s–1990s"
] |
[
"Etruscan civilization",
"Art and music",
"What kind of art was the Etruscan known for?",
"figurative sculpture in terracotta (",
"what shapes did they make?",
"particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples",
"are there any pieces still around today?",
"I don't know.",
"what type of music is the Etruscan civilization known for?",
"different types of pipes,",
"what types of pipes?",
"such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes,",
"where did they play this music?",
"I don't know.",
"is there anything noteworthy about their art and music in this article?",
"Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion;"
] |
C_15f21e1c196940a0bca257c69575ab00_1
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what religion were they?
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what religion were plagiaulos?
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Etruscan civilization
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The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna. The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi). Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites. In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC. Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara. CANNOTANSWER
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The Etruscan civilization () of ancient Italy covered a territory, at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region. Etruscan civilization endured until it was assimilated into Roman society. Assimilation began in the late 4thcenturyBC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; it accelerated with the grant of Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and became complete in 27 BC, when the Etruscans' territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.
The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.
The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.
Legend and history
Ethnonym and etymology
The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or Raśna (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.
In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, Tyrrhēnoi, earlier Tyrsēnoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians).
The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Toscana", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan," based an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.
As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means "tower", and comes from the Greek word for tower: . On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."
Origins
Ancient sources
Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.
It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively.
The 5th-century BC historians Thucydides and Herodotus, and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo, did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. And, according to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.
There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a "Tyrrhenian language group" comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.
However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.
The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.
Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.
First-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):
Archeological evidence and modern etruscology
The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.
Several archaeologists who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and the consequent orientalizing period.
Genetic research
An mtDNA study in 2004, based on Etruscan samples from Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, stated that the Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European, but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from South West England (five haplotypes in common), the Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common).
A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that the Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscans' mtDNA appear to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture, as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T) and U5, with a minority of mtDNA H1b.
In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy".
A 2019 genetic study published in the journal Science analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from the areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between the examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 30% steppe ancestry. Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283), found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly the M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631-1531 calBCE). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1, H, T2b32, K1a4. Therefore, Etruscans had also Steppe-related ancestry despite speaking a non-Indo-European language.
A 2021 genetic study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed the autosomal DNA of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio, spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and confirmed that in the Etruscan individuals was present the ancestral component Steppe in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscans' DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia or the Eastern Mediterranean, concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, with the main cluster closest to modern Spaniards, west of modern Italians. The main Etruscan cluster is a mixture of WHG, EEF and Steppe ancestry; 75% of the Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, especially R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152, while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H.
In his book, A Short History of Humanity published in 2021, German geneticist Johannes Krause, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena, concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution".
Periodization of Etruscan civilization
The Etruscan civilization begins with the Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with the phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called "Proto-Villanovan", part of the central European Urnfield culture system. In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with the introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase. In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from the most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of the ancient Greek civilization.
Chronology
Expansion
Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in the south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia, Spain and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica. From the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily. A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites.
In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars, Etruria was conquered by Rome in the 3rd century BC.
Etruscan League
According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League, Etruscan Federation, or Dodecapolis (in Greek Δωδεκάπολις). According to a legend the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus. Tarchon lent his name to the city of Tarchna, or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians, the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium, Caisra, Clevsin, Curtun, Perusna, Pupluna, Veii, Tarchna, Vetluna, Volterra, Velzna, and Velch. Some modern authors include Rusellae. The league was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy, the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii, where a leader was chosen to represent the league.
There were two other Etruscan leagues ("Lega dei popoli"): that of Campania, the main city of which was Capua, and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna, Spina and Adria.
Possible founding of Rome
Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighbouring Etruria. The prevailing view is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology, when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with the same suffix -χ: Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana'. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar (Tiber) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus, the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome was founded by Etruscans. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius, the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Few Etruscan words entered Latin, but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin – the golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. This allowed archaeologists to identify the depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns.
Roman families of Etruscan origin
Society
Government
The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC.
The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: The , the , the , the , the , and so on. The people were the mech.
Family
The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking the growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the centre of the society was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing.
Similarly, the behaviour of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the Earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. It is worth noting that a number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in the form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family.
Military
The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as a means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs as an honor to fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles.
Cities
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic, or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age, marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic.
That many Roman cities were formerly Etruscan was well known to all the Roman authors. Some cities were founded by Etruscans in prehistoric times, and bore entirely Etruscan names. Others were colonized by Etruscans who Etruscanized the name, usually Italic.
Culture
Religion
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favour of human affairs. How to understand the will of deities, and how to behave, had been revealed to the Etruscans by two initiators, Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land and immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. Their teachings were kept in a series of sacred books. Three layers of deities are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun; Tivr, the moon; Selvans, a civil god; Turan, the goddess of love; Laran, the god of war; Leinth, the goddess of death; Maris; Thalna; Turms; and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus, possibly, the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition, some Greek and Roman gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Dionysus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
Architecture
Relatively little is known about the architecture of the ancient Etruscans. They adapted the native Italic styles with influence from the external appearance of Greek architecture. In turn, ancient Roman architecture began with Etruscan styles, and then accepted still further Greek influence. Roman temples show many of the same differences in form to Greek ones that Etruscan temples do, but like the Greeks, use stone, in which they closely copy Greek conventions. The houses of the wealthy were evidently often large and comfortable, but the burial chambers of tombs, often filled with grave-goods, are the nearest approach to them to survive. In the southern Etruscan area, tombs have large rock-cut chambers under a tumulus in large necropoleis, and these, together with some city walls, are the only Etruscan constructions to survive. Etruscan architecture is not generally considered as part of the body of Greco-Roman classical architecture.
Art and music
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (particularly lifesize on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking (especially engraved bronze mirrors). Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze was famous and widely exported, but few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was apparently little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble, which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. Most surviving Etruscan art comes from tombs, including all the fresco wall-paintings, a minority of which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects.
Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting, which sprung from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases. Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where the wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art.
The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as the plagiaulos (the pipes of Pan or Syrinx), the alabaster pipe and the famous double pipes, accompanied on percussion instruments such as the tintinnabulum, tympanum and crotales, and later by stringed instruments like the lyre and kithara.
Language
Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language, and the majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family, which in itself is an isolate family, that is unrelated directly to other known language groups. Since Rix (1998), it is widely accepted that the Tyrsenian family groups Raetic and Lemnian are related to Etruscan.
Literature
Etruscan texts, written in a space of seven centuries, use a form of the Greek alphabet due to close contact between the Etruscans and the Greek colonies at Pithecusae and Cumae in the 8th century BC (until it was no longer used, at the beginning of the 1st century AD). Etruscan inscriptions disappeared from Chiusi, Perugia and Arezzo around this time. Only a few fragments survive, religious and especially funeral texts most of which are late (from the 4th century BC). In addition to the original texts that have survived to this day, there are a large number of quotations and allusions from classical authors. In the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus wrote that literary culture was one of the great achievements of the Etruscans. Little is known of it and even what is known of their language is due to the repetition of the same few words in the many inscriptions found (by way of the modern epitaphs) contrasted in bilingual or trilingual texts with Latin and Punic. Out of the aforementioned genres, is just one such Volnio (Volnius) cited in classical sources mention. With a few exceptions, such as the Liber Linteus, the only written records in the Etruscan language that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. The language is written in the Etruscan alphabet, a script related to the early Euboean Greek alphabet. Many thousand inscriptions in Etruscan are known, mostly epitaphs, and a few very short texts have survived, which are mainly religious. Etruscan imaginative literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors, but it is evident from their visual art that the Greek myths were well-known.
References
Sources
Further reading
Bartoloni, Gilda (ed). Introduzione all'Etruscologia (in Italian). Milan: Hoepli, 2012.
Sinclair Bell and Carpino A. Alexandra (eds). A Companion to the Etruscans, Oxford; Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
Bonfante, Giuliano and Bonfante Larissa. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bonfante, Larissa. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South. Oxford: B.A.R., 1981.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.
Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Myths. London: British Museum Press, 2006.
Briquel, Dominique. Les Étrusques, peuple de la différence, series Civilisations U, éditions Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.
Briquel, Dominique. La civilisation étrusque, éditions Fayard, Paris, 1999.
De Grummond, Nancy T. (2014). Ethnicity and the Etruscans. In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.). A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 405–422.
Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
Izzet, Vedia. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Naso, Alessandro (ed). Etruscology, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Pallottino, Massimo. Etruscologia. Milan: Hoepli, 1942 (English ed., The Etruscans. David Ridgway, editor. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975).
Shipley, Lucy. The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Smith, C. The Etruscans: a very short introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Spivey, Nigel. Etruscan Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Swaddling, Judith and Philip Perkins. Etruscan by Definition: The Culture, Regional, and Personal Identity of the Etruscans: Papers in Honor of Sybille Haynes. London: British Museum, 2009.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (ed). The Etruscan World. London: Routledge, 2013.
Turfa, Jean MacIntosh. The Etruscans. In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Gary (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 637–672.
Cities and sites
(Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria) "The Cai Cutu Etruscan tomb" An undisturbed late Etruscan family tomb, reused between the 3rd and 1st century BC, reassembled in the National Archeological Museum of Perugia
Hypogeum of the Volumnis digital media archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from a University of Ferrara/CyArk research partnership
External links
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Ancient peoples of Italy
9th-century BC establishments in Italy
States and territories established in the 9th century BC
States and territories disestablished in the 1st century BC
Former confederations
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[
"Indigenous religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate the religious belief systems of communities described as being \"indigenous\". This category is often juxtaposed against others such as the \"world religions\" and \"new religious movements\". The term is commonly applied to a range of different belief systems across the Americas, Australasia, Asia, Africa, and Northern Europe, particularly to those practiced by communities living under the impact of colonialism.\n\nThe term \"indigenous religions\" is usually applied to the localised belief systems of small-scale societies. These belief systems do not typically engage in proselytization, thus distinguishing them from movements like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism that all seek converts and which are typically classified as \"world religions\"; unlike Judaism, even though it is often referred to as a “world religion”. They are also often characterised as being distinct from the \"world religions\" because they are orally transmitted, intertwined with traditional lifestyles, and pluralist. Numerically, the majority of the world's religions could be classed as \"indigenous\", although the number of \"indigenous religionists\" is significantly smaller than the number of individuals who practice one of the \"world religions\".\n\nWithin the study of religion there has been much debate as to what the scope of the category should be, largely arising from debates over what the term \"indigenous\" should best encompass. For instance, the Japanese religion of Shinto is often referred to as an \"indigenous religion\" although, because the Japanese are not a colonised society but have colonised neighbouring societies like that of the Ainu, there is debate as to whether they meet the definition of \"indigenous\". In some cases, practitioners of new religions like Heathenry have sought to present theirs as \"indigenous religions\" although have faced scepticism from scholars of religion.\n\nDefinition\n\nThe academic study of religions has used three concepts through which to categorise different religious groups: \"world religions\", \"new religious movements\", and \"indigenous religions\". The scholar of religion Carole M. Cusack noted that \"indigenous religions\" were rejected from the \"world religions\" category because they \"are typically this-wordly, orally transmitted, non-proselytizing, folk-oriented, expressed in myths and traditional law, and pluralist.\"\n\nIn the nineteenth century, the dominant ways to refer to these religions were \"primitive religion\" or \"non-literate religion,\" as they were seen as offering insight into how religion was practiced by the earliest humans. Another term, \"primal religion,\" was coined by Andrew Walls in the University of Aberdeen in the 1970s to provide a focus on non-Western forms of religion as found in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. However, according to the scholar of religion Graham Harvey, such approaches preference Western industrialized people and the course of Protestant Enlightenment culture. Likewise, James Cox, Walls's student, argues that terms such as \"primal religion,\" \"primitive religion,\" and \"tribal religion\" suggest an undeveloped religion which can be seen as a preparation for conversion to Christianity.\n\nGraham Harvey states that indigenous religions constitute the majority of the world's religions. At the same time, he noted that \"indigenous religionists\" do not numerically make up the majority of religious people.\n\nSome indigenous religions have gained as much global visibility as some of the \"world religions\". For instance, musicians influenced by the belief systems of the Maori, Indigenous Australian, and Canadian First Nations peoples have had their work exposed to an international audience.\n\nExamples\n\nThe Japanese religion Shinto is often described as an \"indigenous religion\", although the scholar of Asian studies John K. Nelson noted that it is often left \"unclear\" as to what is meant by the term \"indigenous\" in this context. He noted, for example, that there remain debates as to when the ancestors of the Japanese arrived in the islands that now make up Japan and that there were other communities, such as the Ainu, who lived on some of these islands before them.\n\nMany followers of Heathenry, a modern Pagan religion that scholars recognise as a new religious movement, like to regard their belief system as an \"indigenous religion\". In claiming a sense of indigeneity, some Heathens—particularly in the United States—attempt to frame themselves as the successors to the pre-Christian belief systems of linguistic Germanic communities in Northern Europe and thus victims of Medieval Christian colonialism and imperialism. The scholars Jenifer Snook, Thad Horrell, and Kirsten Horton argued that in doing so, these Heathens ignore the fact that most of them are white, and thus members of the same ethnic community which has perpetrated and benefitted from colonial and imperial policies against indigenous communities in the Americas and elsewhere.\n\nSee also\n Ethnic religion\n Ethnoreligious group\n\nSources\n\nFootnotes\n\nBibliography\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nReligious faiths, traditions, and movements\nReligious studies\nIndigenous culture",
"My Religion may refer to:\n\nMy Religion (album), an album by TNT\n\"My Religion\" (song), a song by Ryan Starr\nLight in My Darkness, a book by Helen Keller originally published as My Religion\nWhat I Believe, a book by Leo Tolstoy also known as My Religion"
] |
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"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style"
] |
C_e3274b2d48f5448cb59429eb9218ee90_0
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What style of music did Hadden prefer
| 1 |
What style of music did Hadden prefer
|
Charlie Haden
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In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER
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In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass.
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Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease
| true |
[
"Hadden is the place name of:\n Hadden, Roxburghshire, Scotland\n\nHadden is the surname of:\n\nAl Hadden (1899-1969), American professional football player\nAlf Hadden (1877-1936), Australian cricketer\nBriton Hadden (1898–1929), co-founder of Time magazine with Henry Luce and its first editor\nCharles Hadden (1854–1924), British Army major-general and Master-General of the Ordnance\nDianne Hadden (born 1951), Australian politician\nFrank Hadden (born 1954), Scottish rugby union coach\nH. G. Hadden (1874–1945), American college football player and coach\nJames Cuthbert Hadden (1861-1914), Scottish author, journalist, biographer and organist\nJames Murray Hadden (died 1817) British Army office and Master General of the Ordnance\nJeffrey K. Hadden (1937–2003), American professor of sociology\nJulie Hadden, author, speaker, and finalist on the TV show The Biggest Loser (season 4)\nMartin Hadden (born c. 1970), British chef who won a Michelin star at two restaurants\nMatty Hadden (born 1990), rugby league player from Northern Ireland\nPeter Hadden (1950–2010), leading member of the Socialist Party in Northern Ireland\nSally Hadden, American historian\nSid Hadden (1877–1934), English cricketer\nSusan Hadden (1945–1995), American political scientist and professor\nThomas Hadden (1871–1940), Scottish maker of ornamental ironwork\nTommy Hadden (1840–1881), American saloon keeper, criminal and underworld figure in New York City\nWhitney Hadden (born 1949), known by his stage name, Whit Haydn or \"Pop Haydn\", magician and stage performer \nWilliam J. Hadden (1921-1995), Protestant minister, local politician and civil rights advocate\nWilliam L. Hadden (1896–1983), American politician, 67th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1943 to 1945\nHadden (Hampshire cricketer) (), amateur English cricketer, full name unknown\n\nSee also\nHadden Clark (born 1952), American murderer\nArter & Hadden LLP, a Cleveland, Ohio-based law firm that traced its founding to 1843 and ceased operations in 2003\nHadden-Margolis House, historic home located at Harrison, Westchester County, New York\nRuth Hadden Memorial Award, award for the best first novel published in Britain\nHadden Industries, a company in the 1997 science-fiction movie Contact\nHaddon (disambiguation)",
"Sidney Hadden (26 August 1877 – 2 November 1934) was an English cricketer. Hadden's batting style is unknown, but it is known he fielded as a wicket-keeper. He was born at Hastings, Sussex.\n\nHe made his first-class debut for Essex against Derbyshire in the 1912 County Championship. He made three further first-class appearances in 1912, following World War I he made two further appearances for Essex in the 1920 County Championship against Gloucestershire and Middlesex. In his total of six first-class appearances, he scored 29 runs at an average of 9.66, with a high score of 17 not out. Behind the stumps he took 5 catches and made a single stumping.\n\nHadden died at Whipps Cross, Essex on 2 November 1934.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSid Hadden at ESPNcricinfo\nSid Hadden at CricketArchive\n\n1877 births\n1934 deaths\nSportspeople from Hastings\nEnglish cricketers\nEssex cricketers\nWicket-keepers"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What style of music did Hadden prefer",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass."
] |
C_e3274b2d48f5448cb59429eb9218ee90_0
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Did his musical style evolve over time?
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Did Charlie Haden's musical style evolve over time?
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Charlie Haden
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In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease
| false |
[
"Evolve Wrestling was an American professional wrestling promotion which was founded in 2010 by former Ring of Honor booker and Dragon Gate USA vice president, Gabe Sapolsky. Over the course of its history, it held 146 events.\n\nEvolve 1: Richards vs. Ibushi\n\nThe inaugural Evolve show, Evolve 1: Richards vs. Ibushi, was held in Rahway, New Jersey at the Rahway Rec Center. Lenny Leonard and Leonard F. Chikarason served as the commentators. In the main event, Davey Richards, accompanied by Kyle O'Reilly and Tony Kozina, faced against Kota Ibushi, who was accompanied by Michael Nakazawa.\n\nEvolve 2: Hero vs. Hidaka\n\nElimination match\n\nEvolve 3: Rise Or Fall\n\nEvolve 4: Danielson vs. Fish\n\nEvolve 5: Danielson vs. Sawa\n\nEvolve 6: Aries vs. Taylor\n\nEvolve 7: Aries Vs. Moxley\n\nEvolve 8: Style Battle\n\nEvolve 8: Style Battle, was held in Union City, New Jersey at The ACE Arena. The show featured the Style Battle, a one night tournament between eight wrestlers that representing different wrestling style, who was won by AR Fox.\n\nTournament participants\n\nStyle Battle tournament\n\nEight-way fray match\n\nEvolve 9: Gargano vs. Taylor\n\nEvolve 10: A Tribute To The Arena\n\nEvolve 11: Finlay vs. Callihan\n\nEvolve 12: Fox vs. Callihan\n\nEvolve 13: Gargano vs. Fox\n\nEvolve 14: Generico vs. del Sol\n\nEvolve 15: Generico vs. del Sol II\n\nEvolve 16: Davis vs. Fish\n\nEvolve 17: Generico vs. del Sol III\n\nEvolve 18: Gargano vs. Callihan\n\nEvolve 19: Crowning the Champion\n\nEvolve 20: Fox vs. Jackson\n\nSix-way fray match\n\nEvolve 21: USA vs. The World\n\nEvolve 22: Gargano vs. del Sol\n\nEvolve 23: Fox vs. Nese\n\nEvolve 24: Fox vs. Ricochet\n\nEvolve 25: Fox vs. Richards\n\nEvolve 26: Hero vs. Nese\n\nEvolve 27: Gargano vs. Nation\n\nEvolve 28: Hero vs. Barreta\n\nEvolve 29: Fox/Nation vs. Nese/Barreta\n\nEvolve 30: Barreta Vs. Nation\n\nEvolve 31: Hero vs. Galloway\n\nEvolve 32: Sydal vs. Ricochet\n\nEvolve 33: Gargano vs. Swann - Evolution's End\n\nEvolve 34: Galloway vs. Swann\n\nEvolve 35\n\nElimination match\n\nEvolve 36\n\nEvolve 37\n\nEvolve 38\n\nEvolve 39\n\nEvolve 40\n\nEvolve 41\n\nEvolve 42\n\nEvolve 43\n\nEvolve 44\n\nEvolve 45\n\nEvolve 46\n\nEvolve 47\n\nEvolve 48\n\nEvolve 49\n\nEvolve 50\n\nEvolve 51\n\nEvolve 52\n\nEvolve 53\n\nEvolve 54\n\nEvolve 55\n\nEvolve 56\n\nEvolve 57\n\nEvolve 58\n\nEvolve 59\n\nEvolve 60\n\nEvolve 61\n\nEvolve 62\n\nEvolve 63\n\nCruiserweight Classic Flashpoint match\n\nEvolve 64\n\nEvolve 65\n\nEvolve 66\n\nEvolve 67\n\nEvolve 68\n\nEvolve 69: A Farewell To An Icon\n\nEvolve 70\n\nEvolve 71\n\nEvolve 72\n\nEvolve 73\n\nElimination match\n\nEvolve 74\n\nEvolve 75\n\nEvolve 76: A Hero's Exit - Part 1\n\nEvolve 77: A Hero's Exit - Part 2\n\nEvolve 78\n\nEvolve 79\n\nEvolve 80\n\nEvolve 81\n\nEvolve 82\n\nEvolve 83\n\nEvolve 84\n\nEvolve 85\n\nEvolve 86\n\nEvolve 87\n\nEvolve 88\n\nEvolve 89\n\nEvolve 90\n\nEvolve 91\n\nEvolve 92\n\nEvolve 93\n\nEvolve 94\n\nEvolve 95\n\nElimination match\n\nEvolve 96\n\nEvolve 97\n\nEvolve 98\n\nEvolve 99\n\nEvolve 100\n\nEvolve 101\n\nFour-way elimination match\n\nEvolve 102\n\nEvolve 103\n\nEvolve 104\n\nEvolve 105\n\nEvolve 106\n\nEvolve 107\n\nEvolve 108\n\nEvolve 109\n\nEvolve 110\n\nEvolve 111\n\nEvolve 112\n\nEvolve 113\n\nEvolve 114\n\nEvolve 115\n\nEvolve 116\n\nEvolve 117\n\nEvolve 118\n\nEvolve 119\n\nEvolve 120\n\nEvolve 121\n\nEvolve 122\n\nEvolve 123\n\nEvolve 124\n\nEvolve 125\n\nEvolve 126\n\nEvolve 127\n\nEvolve 128\n\nEvolve 129\n\nEvolve 130\n\nEvolve's 10th Anniversary Celebration\n\nEvolve 132\n\nEvolve 133\n\nEvolve 134\n\nEvolve 135\n\nEvolve 136\n\nEvolve 137\n\nEvolve 138\n\nEvolve 139\n\nEvolve 140\n\nEvolve 141\n\nEvolve 142\n\nEvolve 143\n\nEvolve 144\n\nEvolve 145\n\nEvolve 146\n\nReferences\n\nProfessional wrestling-related lists\nProfessional wrestling shows\nEvolve (professional wrestling)",
"Fred Yehi is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances in Full Impact Pro, Major League Wrestling and Evolve.\n\nProfessional wrestling career\n\nEvolve and Full Impact Pro (2015–2020)\nYehi made his Evolve debut at Evolve 51 losing to Lio Rush. Yehi returned to Evolve in early 2016 in the Style Battle 2016 Tournament Round Robin Challenge losing to Tracy Williams and Matt Riddle. At Evolve 55 he lost to Anthony Nese in a four-way match. At Evolve 56, Yehi joined Catch Point after a loss to Drew Gulak. At Evolve 61, Yehi lost a WWE Cruiserweight Classic qualifying match to T.J. Perkins. Yehi defeated Anthony Nese at Evolve 62 after applying a Koji Clutch after Nese attempted a 450 Splash, this was Yehi's first win in Evolve. At Evolve 65, Catch Point defeat Jonathan Gresham, Darby Allin and Chris Dickinson. At Evolve 73, Yehi and Tracy Williams became the Evolve tag team champions for the first time after defeating Chris Hero (replacement for Drew Galloway) and DUSTIN, Tony Nese and Drew Gulak, and The Gatekeepers. Catch Point successfully defended the Evolve Tag Team titles at Evolve 74, defeating Peter Kaasa and Ricochet.\n\nYehi debuted for Full Impact Pro at Everything Burns in 2016 teaming with Gary Jay and defeating Aaron Solo and Jason Cade. Yehi defeated Caleb Konley at Accelerate 2016 to win the FIP World Heavyweight Championship. Yehi successfully retained his championship by defeating Aaron Solow at Declaration Of Independence in July, 2016. On December 10, 2017, Yehi lost the FIP World Title against Austin Theory at EVOLVE 97.\n\nIndependent circuit (2018–present)\nIn 2018 Yehi debuted with Major League Wrestling (MLW), a promotion owned by former WWE creative team member Court Bauer, which has a weekly televised program MLW Fusion on the BeIN Sports network. During his time, he was a member of Team Filthy.\n\nIn 2018, Yehi defeated Simon Grimm in his debut for Black Label Pro.\n\nIn 2018, Yehi debuted for United Kingdom promotion, Revolution Pro Wrestling (RevPro) defeating Josh Bodom. In his second match, he defeated Chris Brookes.\n\nIn 2020, Yehi wrestled a one hour Iron Man Match defeating Jeremy Wyatt in a charity event put on by Journey Pro and Saint Louis Anarchy.\n\nRing of Honor (2020-present) \n\nOn September 26, 2020 on Ring of Honor Television, Yehi made an appearance wrestling Silas Young in the ROH Pure Tournament and defeated Young and On October 17, 2020, Yehi wrestled Tracy Williams in the tournament, but was defeated by Williams, Yehi was eliminated from the tournament.\n\nChampionships and accomplishments\nAAW: Pro Wrestling\nAAW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)\nAllied Independent Wrestling Federations\nAIWF America's Heavyweight Champion (1 time)\nAnarchy Wrestling\nAnarchy Tag Team Championship (1 time) with Slim J\nEvolve\nEvolve Tag Team Championship (1 time) with Tracy Williams\nFull Impact Pro\nFIP World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)\nPeachstate Wrestling Alliance\nPWA No Limits Championship (1 time)\n\tPremiere Wrestling Xperience \nPWX Innovative Television Championship (1 time, current)\nPro Wrestling Illustrated\nPWI ranked him #107 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2021\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nAfrican-American male professional wrestlers\nAmerican male professional wrestlers\n21st-century African-American people"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What style of music did Hadden prefer",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass.",
"Did his musical style evolve over time?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_e3274b2d48f5448cb59429eb9218ee90_0
|
What was important about his musical style
| 3 |
What was important about Charlie Haden's musical style
|
Charlie Haden
|
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER
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Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
|
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease
| true |
[
"Poison was a German extreme metal band from Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany that formed in 1982. The band was prolific within the Teutonic thrash underground until their disestablishment in 1987. Throughout their career, the band released eight demos, one album, and one compilation called Further Down into the Abyss that was released in 2006.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly years \nThe band was formed in 1982 by close friends Uli Hildenbrand, Armin Weber, Alex Gilliar, and Andy Krampulz. They were huge fans of the bands Venom (the name Poison comes from the Venom song of the same name), Hellhammer, and Sodom, which the band tried to emulate on many of their early demos. In 1984, the Sons of Evil demo was released by the band. The demo was mocked by fanzines, deriding its raw production and Venom/Hellhammer worship. A year later, the demo called Live Terror was released. This demo consisted of rough recordings of songs played at their first live gig in Kupferdächle in Pforzheim, Germany. Later that same year, they released their Bestial Death demo. That demo had songs that were more tightly knit together and at times more technical than their first output that was Hellhammer style punk-metal. That style is what the band would continue with for the rest of their career.\n\nFallout with Roadrunner and final years \nIn 1987, Poison partook on the Roadrunner Records sampler LP called Teutonic Invasion Part I and also a chance to be signed. By partaking in that, Poison was not allowed to talk or make deals with any other labels, which greatly hindered them. The only bands that got signed were Violent Force and Paradox that were on the Teutonic Invasion LP. Poison released one last demo called Into the Abyss before calling it quits. Into the Abyss was later re-released as a proper studio album by Midian Creations and then later by Iron Pegasus Records.\n\nStyle \n\nPoison is often cited as one of the first black metal bands to use extreme fast tempos and blasting beats, along with Sarcófago and Mayhem, and was very important for what would end up as the second wave of black metal.\n\nReferences\n\nGerman black metal musical groups\nGerman death metal musical groups\nGerman thrash metal musical groups\nGerman musical groups\nMusical groups established in 1982\nMusical groups disestablished in 1987\n1982 establishments in Germany",
"Corlies–Hart–Ritter House is a historic home located at Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York. It was built about 1872, and is a -story, Second Empire style frame dwelling with a -story rear section. A garage was added about 1920. It has a fishscale slate-covered, concave-shaped mansard roof. The front façade features a full-width, one-story, flat-roofed, porch. It was home to three successive families important in local musical history.\n\nIt was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.\n\nReferences \n\nHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)\nSecond Empire architecture in New York (state)\nHouses completed in 1872\nHouses in Poughkeepsie, New York\nNational Register of Historic Places in Poughkeepsie, New York"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What style of music did Hadden prefer",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass.",
"Did his musical style evolve over time?",
"I don't know.",
"What was important about his musical style",
"Haden's \"combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones.\""
] |
C_e3274b2d48f5448cb59429eb9218ee90_0
|
Did he write his own lyrics?
| 4 |
Did Charlie Haden write his own lyrics?
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Charlie Haden
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In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease
| false |
[
"A. Maruthakasi (13 February 1920 – 29 November 1989) was an Indian poet and film lyricist who wrote mainly in the Tamil language. He penned more than 4000 lyrics in more than 250 Tamil films.\n\nEarly life \nBorn in Melakudikadu in Tiruchirappalli district on 13 February 1920 to parents Ayyamperumal Udayar and Milagayi Ammal, he had his primary education in the local village school. He had his higher education at Government College, Kumbakonam.\n\nAfter college, he wrote lyrics for the dramas staged by Devi Nadaga Sabha and to Mandirikumari a drama written by M. Karunanidhi. He also wrote lyrics for the drama company owned by Ka. Mu. Sheriff. The songs for the dramas were composed by Thiruchi Loganathan. Later, he joined as an assistant to Rajagopala Iyer, brother of Papanasam Sivan.\n\nCareer \nIn 1949, Modern Theatres was producing a Tamil film. G. Ramanathan was the composer. During the song recording rehearsals, Thiruchi Loganathan sang a song penned by Maruthakasi. Producer T. R. Sundaram appreciated the meaning of the lyrics and gave a chance to Maruthakasi in the film. Pen Enum Maayap Peyaam ... Poi Maadharai Yen Manam Naadumo is the first film lyric penned by Maruthakasi and the film Mayavathi released in 1949.\n\nSince then he has written more than 4000 lyrics for more than 250 Tamil films. He had the ability to write lyrics to an already set tune. As such, he has penned lyrics for many films dubbed from other language films.\n\nWhen Modern Theatres decided to produce Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum in 1956, T. R. Sundaram decided to use the same tunes set for the Hindi film of the same name. Udumalai Narayana Kavi was called to write the lyrics. But he declined saying that he will write lyrics for fresh tunes and recommended Maruthakasi. Maruthakasi wrote 9 songs for the set tunes.\n\nOne of his greatest hits, Neelavanna Kanna Vaadaa from the film (Mangaiyar Thilakam was first assigned to Kannadasan. But film-maker L. V. Prasad was not impressed by that song. He asked Maruthakasi to write the song and it became a big hit.\n\nDuring the earlier decades of Tamil films, songs were written as per old Tamil literature. Maruthakasi is a foremost lyricist who started writing lyrics that could be understood by the common man.\n\nMany of his lyrics have taken root in the hearts of audience.\nNeelavanna Kanna Vaadaa (Mangaiyar Thilakam – 1955)\nSathiyame Latchiyamaayi Kollada (Neelamalai Thirudan – 1957)\nMullai Malar Mele (Uthama Puthiran – 1958)\nYer Munaikku Ner Inge Edhuvumeyille (Pillai Kani Amudhu – 1958)\nSirippu Idhan Sirappai (Raja Rani – 1956)\n\nare some of his songs that still remain evergreen among Tamil film music lovers.\n\nPersonal life \nHe married Dhanakodi Ammal in 1940. The couple have 6 sons and 3 daughters.\n\nHe encouraged young persons who were looking for a career in Tamil films.\nWhen Vaali was looking for opportunities in the early sixties, he was given a chance to write a song for the film Nallavan Vazhvan. The recording of the song Sirikindral inru sirikindral was being postponed several times for various reasons. The producers thought the 'omen' was not good and asked Maruthakasi to write a song. Maruthakasi read Vaali's lyrics and told the producer that it is an excellent song and told the producer to record Vaali's song. The song was a hit.\nWhen Modern Theatres in Salem produced Paasavalai in 1956, they invited Maruthakasi to write the lyrics. But Maruthakasi was busy in Chennai. He recommended Pattukkottai Kalyanasundaram for writing the lyrics.\nIn 1954 he recommended T. M. Soundararajan as a playback singer for the film Thookku Thookki to music director G. Ramanathan. T. M. Soundararajan went on to become a legend in Tamil film music.\n\nAfter 1960s most of the producers sought Kannadasan as lyricist for their films. Maruthakasi did not get much opportunities. He tried to produce films but sustained losses so he returned to his village. M. G. Ramachandran called him back to Chennai and made him to write lyrics for all films produced by Devar films. Maruthakasi wrote lyrics for films produced by K. S. Gopalakrishnan.\n\nWorks \nHis works have been made public by the State government of Tamil Nadu.\n\nDeath \nHe died on 29 November 1989.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nMaruthakasi Lyrics\nMaruthakasi Songs\nMaruthakasi and Kannadasan (in Tamil) by Vamanan\nCentenary of lyricist Maruthakasi ignored\n\nTamil film poets\nIndian male poets\nPeople from Tiruchirappalli district\n1920 births\n1989 deaths",
"Shree Mani (born 15 September 1988), also known as SriMani, is an Indian lyricist well known for his works in Telugu cinema and his unique style of lyrics. He won Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist – Telugu for the film Attarintiki Daredi, penning the song \"Aaradugula Bullet\".\n\nEarly life \nShree Mani's parents died during his young age and he was raised by his grandparents I.e respected koniki dathatreyulu (late)and koniki ramanamma. Since the age of 8, he developed an interest in poetry and writing.\n\nCareer \nDuring his days of bachelor's degree, his grandfather died, which planted a thought of his own employment and career. He moved then to Hyderabad for the job of a lyricist, after a lot of struggles director Sukumar gave him the first chance to write lyrics for a song in his film 100% Love and later on he shot to fame for his lyrics in Sega, which gave him good fame and name the great and legendary singer Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan SPBalasubramaniyam gave compliments to him for Varsham Munduga song in Sega in Padutha Theeyagaa program, which telecasts in Eenadu TV, leading him to Trivikram Srinivas to give him a chance in Julai, AtharintikiDaredhi, S/O Sathyamurthy and more. He used to say the most memorable moment is when he got compliments for the lyrics in 100% Love and from Devi Sri Prasad and Sukumar. He was told never once sat down seriously with an intention to write, and his songs always used to happen spontaneously while travelling, working, with a few friends or on the move which he recorded in his phone immediately.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nIndian male songwriters\nLiving people\nFilm musicians from Andhra Pradesh\nTelugu-language lyricists\nPeople from Guntur district\nFilmfare Awards South winners\n1988 births"
] |
[
"Charlie Haden",
"Musical style",
"What style of music did Hadden prefer",
"In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass.",
"Did his musical style evolve over time?",
"I don't know.",
"What was important about his musical style",
"Haden's \"combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones.\"",
"Did he write his own lyrics?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_e3274b2d48f5448cb59429eb9218ee90_0
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Was his musical style popular during his time?
| 5 |
Was Charlie Haden musical style popular during his time?
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Charlie Haden
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In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass. In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones." Haden owned one three-quarter-sized bass, and one seven-eighth-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish. Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider. "American Quartet" pianist, Keith Jarrett, said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. German musicologist Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote that Haden's "ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies (…) in an incredible ability to make the double bass 'sound out'. Haden cultivated the instrument's gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve." Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation. In 1969, he formed his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, featuring arrangements by pianist Carla Bley. In the late 1960s, he became a member of pianist Keith Jarrett's trio, quartet and quintet. In the 1980s, he formed his band, Quartet West. Haden also often recorded and performed in a duo setting, with musicians including guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Hank Jones.
Biography
Early life
Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar (brainstem) form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles. At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach. Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.
Early career
Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes. He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and from 1958 to 1959, with Hampton Hawes whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.
In May 1959, he recorded his first album with the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come. Haden's folk-influenced style complemented Coleman's microtonal, Texas blues elements. Later that year, the Quartet moved to New York City and secured an extended booking at the avant-garde Five Spot Café. This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of their unique, free and avant-garde jazz. Ornette's quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”
In 1960, drug problems caused him to leave Coleman's band. He went to self-help rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was during the time he was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen David. They moved to New York City's Upper West Side where their four children were born: their son, Josh, in 1968, and in 1971, their triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.
1964 to 1984
Haden resumed his career in 1964, working with saxophonist John Handy and pianist Denny Zeitlin's trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, playing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Coleman's group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to skillfully follow the shifting directions and modulations of Ornette's improvised lines.
Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman. The group also included percussionist Guilherme Franco. He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who had been members of Coleman's band. These musicians understood, and could independently express and honor Coleman's improvisational concepts, applying it to their performances with this band. They continued to play Coleman's music in addition to their own original compositions.
In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Over the years, Haden received several NEA grants for composition. Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in 1969, working with arranger Carla Bley. Their music was very experimental, exploring both the realms of free jazz and political music. The first album focused specifically on music from the Spanish Civil War which had markedly inspired Haden. Also inspired by the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he superimposed songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Happy Days are Here Again", contrasted with "We Shall Overcome".
The original lineup consisted of Haden and Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Redman, Motian, Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, Mike Mantler, Roswell Rudd, Bob Northern, Howard Johnson (tuba and bass saxophone), Perry Robinson, and Sam Brown.
Over the years, the LMO had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.
Its members also included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Tony Malaby (tenor saxophonist) Joseph Daley (tuba), Seneca Black (trumpet), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums). Through Bley's arranging, they employed not only more common trombone, trumpet and reeds but included the tuba and French horn. The group won multiple awards in 1970, including France's Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan's Gold Disc Award from .
In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea. The following day, he was detained at Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS, the Portuguese secret police. He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, and he was later interviewed in the United States by the FBI about his choice of dedication.
Haden decided to form the LMO at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government's energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden's goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO's 1982 album The Ballad of the Fallen on ECM commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States involvement in Latin America. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, the orchestra returned with Dream Keeper, inspired by a poem of Langston Hughes, and which also drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on racism in the US and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.
In 2005, Haden released the fourth Liberation Music Orchestra album Not in Our Name, a protest against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as "Jazz Educator of the Year" for his educational work in this program. Haden's students included John Coltrane's son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist and composer James Carney and bassist Scott Colley.
1984–2000
In 1984, Haden met the singer and former actress Ruth Cameron. They married in New York City, and throughout their marriage, Ruth managed Haden's career as well as co-producing many albums and projects with him.
In 1986, Haden formed his band Quartet West at Ruth's suggestion. The original quartet consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marable. When Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. In addition to original compositions by Haden and Broadbent, their repertoire also included 1940s pop ballads which they played in a noir-infused, bop-oriented style.
A brief collaboration with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.
In 1989, Haden inaugurated the "Invitation" series at the Montreal Jazz Festival. With different musicians he selected, they performed in concert for eight consecutive nights of the festival. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series, The Montreal Tapes.
In 1994, Ginger Baker, legendary drummer from the band Cream, formed another trio called The Ginger Baker Trio with Haden and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Duets: Haden performing in duets as he loved the intimacy the format provided. In 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on and produced the album. In late 1996, he collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in, respectively southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri, with what Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
In 1997, classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote By the Vaar, an extended adagio for Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, on the album Farewell to Philosophy. It is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden's bass sound.
2000–2014
In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun. Haden reconvened the Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.
In 2008, Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron Haden, the album Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. It features several members of his immediate family, including Ruth Cameron, his musician triplets, son Josh, and Tanya's husband, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Black. They were joined by banjoist Béla Fleck, and guitarist/singers Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby (piano and keyboards), among other top Nashville musicians. The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room, as that was a song everyone knew. Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.
In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden's life, titled Rambling Boy. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed again with Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and pianist Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.
Awards:
In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place at the French Cultural Services in January 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.
Posthumous releases:
In September 2014, three months after his death, the newly reactivated Impulse! label released Charlie Haden-Jim Hall, a recording of a duo performance at the 1990 Montreal International Jazz Festival. "This album documents a rarified journey", wrote pianist Ethan Iverson in the album's liner notes. Although terminally ill, Haden produced and worked on the album. In June 2015, Impulse released Tokyo Adagio, a 2005 collaboration with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, similarly produced by Haden when he was near death.
Legacy
Spirituality and teaching method
While he did not identify himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: "there's no yesterday or tomorrow, there's only right now", he explained. In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one's spiritual self, Haden urged one to aspire to have humility, and respect for beauty; to be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he taught it to his students in return. Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."
Musical philosophy
Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and was interested in musical collaboration with individuals who shared his sensibilities in music and life. His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”
Musical style
In addition to his lyrical playing, Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet where he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman's free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines. He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.
In an interview with Haden, pianist Ethan Iverson noted that Haden's "combination of folk song, avant-garde sensibility, and Bach-like classical harmony is a stream in this music just as distinctive as Thelonious Monk or Elvin Jones."
Haden owned one three-quarters-sized bass, and one seven-eighths-sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to risk damaging it in transit. He attributed the bass's special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.
Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he acquired from constant exposure to playing in proximity to drums, and possibly from an extremely loud concert in which he played during the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.
"American Quartet" pianist Keith Jarrett said of Charlie's way of playing, "He wanted to relate to the material in a very personal style all the time. He wasn't somebody to get into a groove and just enjoy it simply because it was a groove".
Personal life
Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome and complications from liver disease.
A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, produced and organized by his wife Ruth, where his fellow musicians, family members, friends and fans remembered and celebrated his life.
His son, Josh Haden, is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel plays the piano and bass guitar, and Tanya, a visual artist, plays the cello. They have a band called The Haden Triplets and recorded their self-titled album in 2012. Comedian/actor/musician Jack Black is his son-in-law via Tanya.
Discography
Closeness (1976)
The Golden Number (1977)
As Long as There's Music (1978)
Gitane (1978)
Mágico (1979)
Folk Songs (1979)
Etudes (1987)
Silence (1987)
Dialogues (1990)
Haunted Heart (1991)
First Song (1992)
Steal Away (1995)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1997)
None But the Lonely Heart (1997)
Nocturne (2001)
American Dreams (2002)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Tokyo Adagio (2005 [2015])
Heartplay (2006)
Come Sunday (2012)
References
External links
Heffley. "Haden, Charlie". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press
Charlie Haden Official Web site
Charlie Haden interview on Democracy Now!, September 1, 2006
Official documentary website
DTM Interview
Charlie Haden Discography, All About Jazz
NPR interview
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
Free jazz double-bassists
Hard bop double-bassists
Latin jazz double-bassists
Mainstream jazz double-bassists
Post-bop double-bassists
Progressive big band bandleaders
American session musicians
1937 births
2014 deaths
Jazz musicians from California
Musicians from Los Angeles
Musicians from Iowa
ECM Records artists
Verve Records artists
People from Shenandoah, Iowa
People with polio
20th-century American musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Mingus Dynasty (band) members
Old and New Dreams members
Sunnyside Records artists
Deaths from liver disease
| false |
[
"The Jack Smith Show was a radio program of popular music in the United States. It was broadcast on CBS Aug. 21, 1945-Dec. 26, 1952. It first originated from New York, but production was moved to Hollywood in 1948 to allow more opportunities for Smith to work in movies.\n\nFormat\nStarring Smilin' Jack Smith (not to be confused with Whispering Jack Smith, who was also featured on musical programs on radio), The Jack Smith Show offered light music that was \"more or less contrary to the crooning style that was popular during the time.\" One newspaper article described the program as \"a fast moving musical mélange that puts the accent on informality and music.\"\n\nPersonnel\nIn addition to its star, The Jack Smith Show featured other singers as co-stars. At various times during the show's run they included Eugenie Baird, Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, Martha Tilton, the Clark Sisters and Margaret Whiting. The program also featured guests, including Dorothy Shay, Kay Starr, Ella Fitzgerald, Martha Raye and The Pied Pipers.\n\nMusical accompaniment was by Earl Sheldon and his orchestra and Herman Chittison Don Hancock was the announcer. William Brennan was the director.\n\nSee also\nClub Fifteen and The Chesterfield Supper Club, programs similar in format to The Jack Smith Show\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Two episodes of The Jack Smith Show from Old Time Radio Researchers Group library\n Episodic log of The Jack Smith Show from RadioGOLDINdex\n Episodic log of The Jack Smith Show from Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs\n\n1940s American radio programs\n1950s American radio programs\nAmerican music radio programs\nCBS Radio programs\n1945 radio programme debuts\n1952 radio programme endings",
"Videoclub (stylized as VIDEOCLUB) was a French musical project formed in Nantes, France in 2018 by Adèle Castillon and Matthieu Reynaud.\n\nThey became popular for the song \"Amour Plastique\", which was released in the September of 2018, which has accumulated more than 86 million views on YouTube as of February 2022. Additionally, they were characterized by being a romantic couple for most of the time that the duo was together.\n\nThey released a total of 7 singles, a collaboration, and a studio album, Euphories.\n\nOn March 31, 2021, the duo announced that Matthieu would be leaving the project, due to the breakup of the couple.\n\nHistory \nPrior to Videoclub, Castillon was an actress and had her own YouTube channel while Reynaud learned to produce music with his father, who was a musician. Castillon and Reynaud met through a mutual friend and subsequently decided to make music together.\n\nMusical style and influences \nThe group's musical style is heavily influenced by music during the 1980s but draws inspiration from contemporary music as well. Musical artists Odezenne, Superbus, Fauve, Vendredi sur Mer, Dinos, Mac DeMarco, Tame Impala, and Chromatics have been cited as sources of inspiration for the group's music; in particular, Reynaud's guitar riffs were influenced by 1980s groups such as The Cure, New Order, and Pixies. The duo have also taken inspiration from Jacques Demy films for their lyrics.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nSingles\n\nReferences \n\n2018 establishments in France\nFrench synthpop groups\nFrench electronic music groups\nMusical groups established in 2018"
] |
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career"
] |
C_769430fdb832430db7d66c2a444c9214_1
|
Where was he born?
| 1 |
Where was Charles Kuralt born?
|
Charles Kuralt
|
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER
|
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.
|
Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina
| true |
[
"Miguel Skrobot (Warsaw, 1873 – Curitiba, February 20, 1912) was a businessman Brazilian of Polish origin.\n\nMiguel Skrobot was born in 1873, in Warsaw, Poland, to José Skrobot and Rosa Skrobot. When he was 18 he migrated to Brazil and settled in Curitiba as a merchant.\n\nHe married Maria Pansardi, who was born in Tibagi, Paraná, to Italian immigrants, and she bore him three children. He kept a steam-powered factory where he worked on grinding and toasting coffee beans under the \"Rio Branco\" brand, located on the spot where today stands the square called Praça Zacarias (square located in the center of Curitiba). He also owned a grocery store near Praça Tiradentes (also a square in the center of Curitiba, where the city was born). He died an early death, when he was 39, on February 20, 1912.\n\nReferences\n\n1873 births\n1912 deaths\nBrazilian businesspeople\nPeople from Curitiba\nPolish emigrants to Brazil",
"Adolf von Rauch (22 April 1798 - 12 December 1882) was a German paper manufacturer in Heilbronn, where he was born and died and where he was a major builder of social housing.\n\nPapermakers\n1798 births\n1882 deaths\nPeople from Heilbronn"
] |
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"Where was he born?",
"Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina."
] |
C_769430fdb832430db7d66c2a444c9214_1
|
Did he go to school?
| 2 |
Did Charles Kuralt go to school?
|
Charles Kuralt
|
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER
|
Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed.
|
Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina
| true |
[
"California Concordia College existed in Oakland, California, United States from 1906 until 1973.\n\nAmong the presidents of California Concordia College was Johann Theodore Gotthold Brohm Jr.\n\nCalifornia Concordia College and the Academy of California College were located at 2365 Camden Street, Oakland, California. Some of the school buildings still exist at this location, but older buildings that housed the earlier classrooms and later the dormitories are gone. The site is now the location of the Spectrum Center Camden Campus, a provider of special education services.\n\nThe \"Academy\" was the official name for the high school. California Concordia was a six-year institution patterned after the German gymnasium. This provided four years of high school, plus two years of junior college. Years in the school took their names from Latin numbers and referred to the years to go before graduation. The classes were named:\n\n Sexta - 6 years to go; high school freshman\n Qunita - 5 years to go; high school sophomore\n Quarta - 4 years to go; high school junior\n Tertia - 3 years to go; high school senior\n Secunda - 2 years to go; college freshman\n Prima - 1 year to go; college sophomore\n\nThose in Sexta were usually hazed in a mild way by upperclassmen. In addition, those in Sexta were required to do a certain amount of clean-up work around the school, such as picking up trash.\n\nMost students, even high school freshmen, lived in dormitories. High school students were supervised by \"proctors\" (selected high school seniors in Tertia). High school students were required to study for two hours each night in their study rooms from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Students could not leave their rooms for any reason without permission. This requirement came as quite a shock to those in Sexta (freshmen) on their first night, when they were caught and scolded by a proctor when they left their study room to go to the bathroom without permission. Seniors (those in Tertia) were allowed one night off where they did not need to be in their study hall.\n\nFrom 9:00 to 9:30 pm all students gathered for a chapel service. From 9:30 to 10 pm, high school students were free to roam, and sometimes went to the local Lucky Supermarket to purchase snacks. All high school students were required to be in bed with lights out by 10:00 pm. There were generally five students in each dormitory room. The room had two sections: a bedroom area and (across the hallway) another room for studying. Four beds, including at least one bunk bed, were in the bedroom, and four or five desks were in the study room\n\nA few interesting words used by Concordia students were \"fink\" and \"rack.\" To \"fink\" meant to \"sing like a canary\" or \"squeal.\" A student who finked told everything he knew about a misbehavior committed by another student. \"Rack\" was actually an official term used by proctors and administrators who lived on campus in the dormitories with students. When students misbehaved they were racked (punished). Proctors held a meeting once a week and decided which students, if any, deserved to be racked. If a student were racked, he might be forbidden from leaving the campus grounds, even during normal free time School hours were from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. After 3:30 pm and until 7:00 pm, students could normally explore the local area surrounding the school, for example, to go to a local store to buy a snack. However, if a student were racked for the week, he could not do so.\n\nProctors made their rounds in the morning to make sure beds were made and inspected rooms in the evening to ensure that students were in bed by 10:00 pm. Often after the proctors left a room at night, the room lights would go back on and students enjoyed studying their National Geographic magazines. Student might be racked if they failed to make their beds or did not make them neatly enough.\n\nAlthough California Concordia College no longer exists, it does receive some recognition by Concordia University Irvine. This is also the location of its old academic records.\n\nSources\n\nExternal links \n Photos of old campus\n\nEducational institutions disestablished in 1973\nDefunct private universities and colleges in California\nEducational institutions established in 1906\n1906 establishments in California\n1973 disestablishments in California\nUniversities and colleges affiliated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod",
"Kyree Walker (born November 20, 2000) is an American professional basketball player for the Capital City Go-Go of the NBA G League. At the high school level, he played for Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, California before transferring to Hillcrest Prep Academy. A former MaxPreps National Freshman of the Year, Walker was a five-star recruit.\n\nEarly life and high school career\nIn eighth grade, Walker drew national attention for his slam dunks in highlight videos. He often faced older competition, including high school seniors, in middle school with his Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team Oakland Soldiers. As a high school freshman, Walker played basketball for Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, California, averaging 21.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and four assists per game. After leading his team to a California Interscholastic Federation Division II runner-up finish, he was named MaxPreps National Freshman of the Year. Entering his sophomore season, Walker transferred to Hillcrest Prep, a basketball program in Phoenix, Arizona, with his father, Khari, joining the coaching staff. On October 25, 2019, during his senior year, he left Hillcrest Prep, intending to move to the college or professional level. In December 2019, Walker graduated from high school but did not play high school basketball while weighing his options.\n\nRecruiting\nOn June 30, 2017, Walker committed to play college basketball for Arizona State over several other NCAA Division I offers. At the time, he was considered a five-star recruit and a top five player in the 2020 class by major recruiting services. On October 21, 2018, Walker decommitted from Arizona State. On April 20, 2020, as a four-star recruit, he announced that he would forego college basketball.\n\nProfessional career\n\nCapital City Go-Go (2021–present)\nWalker joined Chameleon BX to prepare for the 2021 NBA draft. For the 2021-22 season, he signed with the Capital City Go-Go of the NBA G League, joining the team after a successful tryout.\n\nPersonal life\nIn 2018, Walker's mother, Barrissa Gardner, was diagnosed with breast cancer but achieved remission in the following months.\n\nReferences\n\n2000 births\nLiving people\n21st-century African-American sportspeople\nAfrican-American basketball players\nAmerican men's basketball players\nBasketball players from Oakland, California\nCapital City Go-Go players\nSmall forwards\nTwitch (service) streamers"
] |
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"Where was he born?",
"Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.",
"Did he go to school?",
"Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted \"Most Likely to Succeed."
] |
C_769430fdb832430db7d66c2a444c9214_1
|
Did he attend college?
| 3 |
Did Charles Kuralt attend college?
|
Charles Kuralt
|
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER
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After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
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Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina
| false |
[
"Walter Drumstead (born Dremstadt; September 4, 1898 – May 18, 1946) was an American football guard who played one game in the National Football League (NFL) for the Hammond Pros. He did not attend college, and also played independent ball with the Hammond Scatenas, Boosters, and Colonials.\n\nHe was born Walter Dremstadt on September 4, 1898, in Hammond, Indiana. He did not attend college, and a 1923 article called him, \"from the college of hard knocks.\"\n\nIn 1921, Drumstead started a football career with the independent Hammond Scatenas. He joined the Hammond Boosters in 1924 after three seasons played with the Scatenas, and scored a touchdown in one of his first appearances with the team.\n\nAfter playing most of the 1925 season with the Boosters, Drumstead left the team for one game to play in the National Football League (NFL) with the Hammond Pros. He was a starter in their 0–13 loss against the Chicago Cardinals, and returned to the Boosters afterwards. The Times reported him as a \"fan favorite\". He played for the Boosters again in 1926.\n\nDrumstead played the left guard position for the Hammond Colonials in 1929.\n\nHe died in on May 18, 1946, at the age of 47.\n\nReferences\n\n1898 births\n1946 deaths\nPlayers of American football from Indiana\nPeople from Hammond, Indiana\nAmerican football guards\nHammond Pros players",
"James Thomas Norman (born January 2, 1934 in Fortress Monroe, Virginia) is a former American football offensive lineman in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins. He did not attend college.\n\n1934 births\nLiving people\nSportspeople from Hampton, Virginia\nAmerican football offensive tackles\nWashington Redskins players\nHamilton Tiger-Cats players"
] |
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"Where was he born?",
"Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.",
"Did he go to school?",
"Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted \"Most Likely to Succeed.",
"Did he attend college?",
"After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,"
] |
C_769430fdb832430db7d66c2a444c9214_1
|
Did he do well there?
| 4 |
Did Charles Kuralt do well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill?
|
Charles Kuralt
|
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER
|
While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World"
|
Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina
| false |
[
"Do-support (or do-insertion), in English grammar, is the use of the auxiliary verb do, including its inflected forms does and did, to form negated clauses and questions as well as other constructions in which subject–auxiliary inversion is required.\n\nThe verb \"do\" can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, and it usually serves to add emphasis, as in \"I did shut the fridge.\" However, in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the conventions of Modern English syntax permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is present. It is not idiomatic in Modern English to add the negating word not to a lexical verb with finite form; not can be added only to an auxiliary or copular verb. For example, the sentence I am not with the copula be is fully idiomatic, but I know not with a finite lexical verb, while grammatical, is archaic. If there is no other auxiliary present when negation is required, the auxiliary do is used to produce a form like I do not (don't) know. The same applies in clauses requiring inversion, including most questions: inversion must involve the subject and an auxiliary verb so it is not idiomatic to say Know you him?; today's English usually substitutes Do you know him?\n\nDo-support is not used when there is already an auxiliary or copular verb present or with non-finite verb forms (infinitives and participles). It is sometimes used with subjunctive forms. Furthermore, the use of do as an auxiliary should be distinguished from the use of do as a normal lexical verb, as in They do their homework.\n\nCommon uses\nDo-support appears to accommodate a number of varying grammatical constructions:\nquestion formation,\nthe appearance of the negation not, and\nnegative inversion.\nThese constructions often cannot occur without do-support or the presence of some other auxiliary verb.\n\nIn questions\nThe presence of an auxiliary (or copular) verb allows subject–auxiliary inversion to take place, as is required in most interrogative sentences in English. If there is already an auxiliary or copula present, do-support is not required when forming questions:\n\n He will laugh. → Will he laugh? (the auxiliary will inverts with the subject he)\n She is at home. → Is she at home? (the copula is inverts with the subject she)\n\nThis applies not only in yes–no questions but also in questions formed using interrogative words:\n\n When will he laugh?\n\nHowever, if there is no auxiliary or copula present, inversion requires the introduction of an auxiliary in the form of do-support:\n\n I know. → Do I know? (Compare: *Know I?)\n He laughs. → Does he laugh? (Compare: *Laughs he?)\n She came home. → Did she come home? (Compare: *Came she home?)\n\nThe finite (inflected) verb is now the auxiliary do; the following verb is a bare infinitive which does not inflect: does he laugh? (not laughs); did she come? (not came).\n\nIn negated questions, the negating word not may appear either following the subject, or attached to the auxiliary in the contracted form n't. That applies both to do-support and to other auxiliaries:\n\n Why are you not playing? / Why aren't you playing?\n Do you not want to try? / Don't you want to try?\n\nThe above principles do not apply to wh-questions if the interrogative word is the subject or part of the subject. Then, there is no inversion and so there is no need for do-support: Who lives here?, Whose dog bit you?\n\nThe verb have, in the sense of possession, is sometimes used without do-support as if it were an auxiliary, but this is considered dated. The version with do-support is also correct:\n\n Have you any idea what is going on here?\n Do you have any idea what is going on here?\n (Have you got any idea what is going on here? – the order is similar to the first example, but have is an auxiliary verb here)\n\nFor elliptical questions and tag questions, see the elliptical sentences section below.\n\nWith not\nIn the same way that the presence of an auxiliary allows question formation, the appearance of the negating word not is allowed as well. Then too, if no other auxiliary or copular verb is present, do-support is required.\n\n He will laugh. → He will not laugh. (not attaches to the auxiliary will)\n She laughs. → She does not laugh. (not attaches to the added auxiliary does)\n\nIn the second sentence, do-support is required because idiomatic Modern English does not allow forms like *She laughs not. The verb have, in the sense of possession, is sometimes negated thus:\n\n I haven't the foggiest idea.\n\nMost combinations of auxiliary/copula plus not have a contracted form ending in -n't, such as isn't, won't, etc. The relevant contractions for negations formed using do-support are don't, doesn't and didn't. Such forms are used very frequently in informal English.\n\nDo-support is required for negated imperatives even when the verb is the copula be:\n\nDo not do that.\nDon't be silly.\n\nHowever, there is no do-support with non-finite, as they are negated by a preceding not:\n\nIt would be a crime not to help him (the infinitive to help is negated)\nNot knowing what else to do, I stood my ground (the present participle knowing is negated)\nNot eating vegetables can harm your health (the gerund eating is negated)\n\nWith subjunctive verb forms, as a present subjunctive, do is infrequently used for negation, which is frequently considered ambiguous or incorrect because it resembles the indicative. The usual method to negate the present subjunctive is to precede the verb with a not, especially if the verb is be (as do-support with it, whether it be indicative or subjunctive, is ungrammatical):\n\nI suggest that he not receive any more funding (the present subjunctive receive is negated)\nIt is important that he not be there (the present subjunctive be is negated)\n\nAs a past subjunctive, however, did is needed for negation (unless the verb is be, whose past subjunctive is were):\n\nI wish that he did not know it\nI wish that he were not here\n\nThe negation in the examples negates the non-finite predicate. Compare the following competing formulations:\n\nI did not try to laugh. vs. I tried not to laugh.\nThey do not want to go. vs. They want not to go.\n\nThere are two predicates in each of the verb chains in the sentences. Do-support is needed when the higher of the two is negated; it is not needed to negate the lower nonfinite predicate.\n\nFor negated questions, see the questions section above. For negated elliptical sentences, see the elliptical sentences section below.\n\nNegative inversion\nThe same principles as for question formation apply to other clauses in which subject–auxiliary inversion is required, particularly after negative expressions and expressions involving only (negative inversion):\n\n Never did he run that fast again. (wrong: *Never he did run that fast again. *Never ran he that fast again.)\n Only here do I feel at home. (wrong: *Only here feel I at home.)\n\nFurther uses\nIn addition to providing do-support in questions and negated clauses as described above, the auxiliary verb do can also be used in clauses that do not require do-support. In such cases, do-support may appear for pragmatic reasons.\n\nFor emphasis\nThe auxiliary generally appears for purposes of emphasis, for instance to establish a contrast or to express a correction:\n Did Bill eat his breakfast? Yes, he did eat his breakfast (did emphasizes the positive answer, which may be unexpected).\n Bill doesn't sing, then. No, he does sing (does emphasizes the correction of the previous statement).\n\nAs before, the main verb following the auxiliary becomes a bare infinitive, which is not inflected (one cannot say *did ate or *does sings in the above examples).\n\nAs with typical do-support, that usage of do does not occur with other auxiliaries or a copular verb. Then, emphasis can be obtained by adding stress to the auxiliary or copular:\n\n Would you take the risk? Yes, I would take the risk.\n Bill isn't singing, then. No, he is singing.\n\n(Some auxiliaries, such as can, change their pronunciation when stressed; see Weak and strong forms in English.)\n\nIn negative sentences, emphasis can be obtained by adding stress either to the negating word (if used in full) or to the contracted form ending in n't. That applies whether or not do-support is used:\n\n I wouldn't (or would not) take the risk.\n They don't (or do not) appear on the list.\n\nEmphatic do can also be used with imperatives, including with the copula be:\n\n Do take care! Do be careful!\n\nIn elliptical sentences\nThe auxiliary do is also used in various types of elliptical sentences, where the main verb is omitted (it can be said to be \"understood\", usually because it would be the same verb as was used in a preceding sentence or clause). That includes the following types:\n\nTag questions:\n He plays well, doesn't he?\n You don't like Sara, do you?\nElliptical questions:\n I like pasta. Do you?\n I went to the party. Why didn't you?\nElliptical statements:\n They swam, but I didn't.\n He looks smart, and so do you.\n You fell asleep, and I did, too.\n\nSuch uses include cases that do-support would have been used in a complete clause (questions, negatives, inversion) but also cases that (as in the last example) the complete clause would normally have been constructed without do (I fell asleep too). In such instances do may be said to be acting as a pro-verb since it effectively takes the place of a verb or verb phrase: did substitutes for fell asleep.\n\nAs in the principal cases of do-support, do does not normally occur when there is already an auxiliary or copula present; the auxiliary or copula is retained in the elliptical sentence:\n\nHe is playing well, isn't he?\nI can cook pasta. Can you?\nYou should get some sleep, and I should too.\n\nHowever, it is possible to use do as a pro-verb (see below section #Pro-verbs & Do-so Substitution even after auxiliaries in some dialects:\n\nHave you put the shelf up yet? I haven't done (or I haven't), but I will do (or I will).\n(However it is not normally used in this way as a to-infinitive: Have you put the shelf up? I plan to, rather than *I plan to do; or as a passive participle: Was it built? Yes, it was, not *Yes, it was done.)\n\nPro-verbal uses of do are also found in the imperative: Please do. Don't!\n\nPro-verbs and do-so substitution\nThe phrases do so and do what for questions are pro-verb forms in English. They can be used as substitutes for verbs in x-bar theory grammar to test verb phrase completeness. Bare infinitives forms often are used in place of the missing pro-verb forms.\n\nExamples from Santorini and Kroch:\n\nTests for constituenthood of a verb-phrase in X'-grammar\nThe do so construction can be used to test if a verb-phrase is a constituent phrase in X'-grammar by substitution similarly to how other pro-forms can be used to test for noun-phrases, etc.\n\nIn X-bar theory, the verb-phrase projects three bar-levels such as this:\n\n VP\n / \\\n ZP X'\n / \\\n X' YP\n |\n X \n |\n head\n\nWith a simple sentence:\n\n S\n |\n VP\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n NP \\\n / \\ \\ \n DP N' V'\n | | / \\\nThe children / \\\n / \\\n V' PP\n / \\ /_\\\n / \\ with gusto\n V NP\n | /_\\\n ate the pizza\n\nHere again exemplified by Santorini and Kroch, do so substitution for testing constituent verb phrases in the above sample sentence:\n\n S\n |\n VP\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n NP \\\n / \\ \\ \n DP N' V'\n | | / \\\nThe children / \\\n / \\\n V' PP\n / \\ /_\\\n / \\ with gusto\n V NP\n | /_\\\n did so the pizza\n\nUse of do as main verb\nApart from its uses as an auxiliary, the verb do (with its inflected forms does, did, done, doing) can be used as an ordinary lexical verb (main verb):\n\nDo your homework!\nWhat are you doing?\n\nLike other non-auxiliary verbs, do cannot be directly negated with not and cannot participate in inversion so it may itself require do-support, with both auxiliary and lexical instances of do appearing together:\n\n They didn't do the laundry on Sunday. (did is the auxiliary, do is the main verb)\n Why do you do karate? (the first do is the auxiliary, the second is the main verb)\n How do you do? (a set phrase used as a polite greeting)\n\nMeaning contribution\nIn the various cases seen above that require do-support, the auxiliary verb do makes no apparent contribution to the meaning of the sentence so it is sometimes called a dummy auxiliary. Historically, however, in Middle English, auxiliary do apparently had a meaning contribution, serving as a marker of aspect (probably perfective aspect, but in some cases, the meaning may have been imperfective). In Early Modern English, the semantic value was lost, and the usage of forms with do began to approximate that found today.\n\nOrigins\n\nSome form of auxiliary \"do\" occurs in all West Germanic languages except Afrikaans. It is generally accepted that the past tense of Germanic weak verbs (in English, -ed) was formed from a combination of the infinitive with a past tense form of \"do\", as exemplified in Gothic. The origins of the construction in English are debated: some scholars argue it was already present in Old English, but not written due to stigmatization. Scholars disagree whether the construction arose from the use of \"do\" as a lexical verb in its own right, or whether periphrastic \"do\" arose from a causative meaning of the verb or vice versa. Examples of auxiliary \"do\" in Old English writing appear to be limited to its use in a causative sense, which is parallel to the earliest uses in other West Germanic languages. Others argue that the construction arose either via the influence of Celtic speakers or that the construction arose as a form of creolization when native speakers addressed foreigners and children.\n\nSee also\n\nEnglish verbs\nEnglish clause syntax\nIntensifier\n\nReferences\n\nEnglish grammar\nWord order\nSyntax\nGenerative syntax",
"In linguistics, a pro-verb is a verb or partial phrase that substitutes for a contextually recognizable verb phrase (via a process known as grammatical gapping), obviating the need to repeat an antecedent verb phrase. A pro-verb is a type of anaphora that falls within the general group of word classes called pro-forms.\n\nIn English\nEnglish does not have dedicated pro-verbs; however, a bare infinitive can generally be implied rather than expressed, such that the verbs that take bare infinitives (including most of the auxiliary verbs) can be said to double as pro-verbs. Additionally, have and be can double as pro-verbs for perfect, progressive, and passive constructions (by eliding the participle). Finally, the dummy auxiliary verb do can be used when there is no other auxiliary verb, except if the main verb is be. The following are some examples of these kinds of pro-verb:\n\nWho can tell? —No-one can .\nWhy can't he do it? —He can , he just won't .\nI like pie, as does he .\nWhy did you break the jar? —He made me .\nCan you go to the park? No, I cannot [go to the park].\nNote that, when there are multiple auxiliary verbs, some of these may be elided as well. For example, in reply to \"Who's been leaving the milk out of the refrigerator?\", any of \"You've been doing it\", \"You have been\", or \"You have\" would have the same meaning.\n\nSince a to-infinitive is just the particle to plus a bare infinitive, and a bare infinitive can be elided, the particle to doubles as a pro-verb for a to-infinitive:Clean your room! —I don't want to .He refused to clean his room when I told him to .Finally, even in dialects where bare infinitives and participles can be elided, there does exist the pro-verb do so: \"He asked me to leave, so I did so\". This pro-verb, unlike the above-described pro-verbs, can be used in any grammatical context; however, in contexts where another pro-verb could be used, it can be overly formal. For example, in \"I want to get an 'A', but to do so, I need to get a perfect score on the next test,\" there is no other pro-verb that could be used; whereas in \"I want to get an 'A', but I can't do so,\" the do so'' could simply be elided, and doing so would make the sentence sound less formal.\n\nReferences\n\nParts of speech"
] |
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"Where was he born?",
"Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.",
"Did he go to school?",
"Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted \"Most Likely to Succeed.",
"Did he attend college?",
"After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,",
"Did he do well there?",
"While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called \"American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World\""
] |
C_769430fdb832430db7d66c2a444c9214_1
|
Was that the start of his career?
| 5 |
Was the starring role in the radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" the start of Charles Kuralt's career?
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Charles Kuralt
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Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER
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After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People,"
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Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina
| true |
[
"Joseph Start (October 14, 1842 – March 27, 1927), nicknamed \"Old Reliable\" or \"Rocks\", was one of the most durable regulars of baseball's earliest era, and one of the top first basemen of his time. He began his playing career in 1859, before the formation of organized leagues and before ballplayers received payment for their services. He continued to play regularly until 1886, when he was 43. Start's career spanned countless innovations that transformed the game in fundamental ways, but he adjusted and continued to play at a high level for almost three decades. Baseball historian Bill Ryczek said that Start \"was the last of the pre–Civil War players to hang up his cleats.\"\n\nAmateur era\n\nThe New York City-born Start played first base for the amateur Enterprise Club of Brooklyn in 1859, before the advent of salaried ballplaying. The following year he joined the powerful Atlantic Club of Brooklyn, with whom he would remain through the 1870 season. The Atlantics were undefeated in 1864 and 1865. During this decade, unofficial payment for exceptional players became common and the practice was eventually legitimized.\n\nStart made a pivotal contribution to one of the most celebrated games of the late Amateur Era. The all-salaried Cincinnati Red Stockings had 81 consecutive wins across two seasons when they faced off against the Atlantics on June 14, 1870, at Brooklyn's Capitoline Grounds. After nine innings, the game was tied 5-5. The umpire ordered the teams to continue playing until the game was decided. In the top of the 11th, Cincinnati scored twice to take the lead, 7-5. In the bottom of the 11th, Atlantics third baseman Charlie Smith singled. Start then hit a booming triple, driving in Smith. Catcher Bob Ferguson drove in Start with a single to tie the game 7-7. Ferguson scored the winning run on a throwing error by Cincinnati shortstop George Wright on a hard-hit grounder by George Hall, ending the Red Stockings' legendary winning streak.\n\nIn an 1895 post-retirement interview with sportswriter Tim Murnane, Start revealed a little-known secret: “We wanted to stop playing when the score was five each, but [Cincinnati team leader] Harry Wright wouldn’t have it. You see, the Atlantics were playing on the co-operative plan, and another game meant $300 or $400 for each man.” Murnane confessed: “This was the first time I ever knew why the Brooklyn men left the field after the ninth inning, and I was present at the game.”\n\nProfessional era\n\nIn 1871, Start joined the new—and fully professional—National Association (NA), playing for the New York Mutuals and, at age 28, hitting a career-high .360, second highest on the team. He also hit the team's only home run that season. In 1873 he served as the Mutuals' field leader (a pre-managerial position) for 25 games.\n\nThe NA failed after five years. When the National League (NL) was formed in 1876, the Mutuals joined, and Start remained with the team. However, the Mutuals were a poor team in 1876, and after refusing to finish their season schedule because of a financial shortfall, they were expelled from the NL. The following year Start joined the Hartford Dark Blues, and in 1878 moved over to the Chicago White Stockings. 1878 was possibly Start's best season with the bat. He led the league with 100 hits and 125 total bases. He came close to the league lead with 12 doubles, 5 triples, and one home run. His 58 runs that year were second in the league. These statistics came in only 285 at bats, and at the age of 35, long after most players have begun to decline. \n\nFrom 1879 until 1885, when he was 42, Start held down first base for the Providence Grays and continued to hit well; he also served as team captain, a role that provided field leadership before the establishment of team managers. Start's 1879 Providence team won the NL flag, and in 1884 they won what is considered the first inter-league championship, beating the New York Metropolitans of the American Association.\n\nAfter Providence left the NL following the 1885 season, in 1886 Start signed with the Washington Nationals for what proved to be his final season. He only played 31 games for the Nationals, did not hit well, and retired from professional play. After this final sub-par season, his lifetime Major League batting average dipped below .300, to .299. For the final nine seasons of Start's career, he was the oldest player on any major league roster. Start played the final game of his professional career on July 9, 1886.\n\nOver his full major league career Start amassed 1,418 hits, 854 runs, and 544 RBI in NL and NA play. He logged a .299 batting average, a .322 on-base percentage, and a .367 slugging percentage. These totals do not include his first twelve pre-league years, during which cumulative player statistics were not recorded. In addition, since Start's lifetime totals were achieved in much shorter seasons than today's professionals play, they tend to under-represent his sustained quality as a ballplayer.\n\nLegacy\n\nBill Ryczek wrote: \"There have been a number of 20th-century players who had long careers, but the game that Tommy John played during his [1963] rookie year was very much like the game he played during his final season in 1989. When 16-year-old Joe Start began playing in 1859, pitchers threw underhand with a stiff wrist from behind a line 45 feet from home plate, a fly ball caught on one bounce was an out, and gloves were unheard of, as were professional ballplayers. During his final season, pitchers threw over-hand or sidearm with velocity that was unimaginable in 1859. The one-bounce out was 20 years in the grave, and most players wore fielding gloves. All of the top players were professionals, and baseball had become big business, far removed from the amateur affair of 1859. Despite the dramatic changes in the game of baseball, Joe Start remained a steady, productive player, adapting to the changes as quickly as they appeared. He was a regular until his final year.\"\n\nWriting at 19cBaseball.com, early game historian Eric Miklich asserted that \"Start was reported to be an excellent fielder and may have been the first first baseman to play off of the bag when not receiving a throw, enabling him to increase the area of the infield that he covered. At that time first basemen played close to or on top of the base, waiting to take throws from the infielders.\"\n\nAlthough born in an era when baseball was an amateur leisure pursuit, had no press coverage, and was little-known outside of New York City, Start lived long enough to see the worldwide popularity of slugger Babe Ruth's exploits during the 1920s.\n\nPost-baseball life\n\nAfter his retirement from the game, Start returned to Rhode Island and operated the Hillside Hotel, near Pawtuxet, and later the Lakewood Inn, in Warwick. His wife, Angeline, died in February, 1927, and Start died one month later, in Providence, Rhode Island, at age 84.\n\nExternal links\n\nReferences\n\nMajor League Baseball first basemen\nBrooklyn Enterprise players\nBrooklyn Atlantics (NABBP) players\nHartford Dark Blues players\nNew York Mutuals players\nChicago White Stockings players\nProvidence Grays players\nNew York Mutuals managers\nBaseball players from New York (state)\nBaseball player-managers\n19th-century baseball players\n1842 births\n1927 deaths",
"Roy C. Start (November 3, 1877 – December 15, 1956), born in Holmes Township, Ohio, was the Republican mayor of Toledo from 1936–40. He is the namesake for Roy C. Start High School in Toledo, Ohio. Start also founded the West Toledo YMCA.\n\nEarly career\nStart (1877–1956) graduated from Ohio Northern University in 1899. After college he moved to Toledo where he served as a clerk in a drug store owned by Paul Loesser. A year later, in 1902, he opened his own drug store on the corner of Franklin Avenue and Cherry Street in Toledo. Later he opened two more drug stores in the city, along Sylvania Avenue under the name of the Start Drug Company.\n\nCity Council and Mayor\nIn 1935 he was elected to city council and was also elected mayor by the newly rechartered city council. He served as the first mayor under a new City Manager style government. He was re-elected in 1937 by one vote over Ollie Czelusta to both city council. He was then elected to the role of mayor. In 1939 he announced that he would not seek re-election to a third term on council, thus ending his run as mayor.\n\nNotably, in 1938 the \"All Negro\" fire company was formed by Mayor Start. The company operated the former No. 8 station at Indiana Avenue and Division Street, in Toledo, Ohio. It was disbanded 11 months later due to court battles by disgruntled whites.\n\nLater Public Service\nIn May 1942 Start was elected to serve as President of the Toledo Council of Churches. He was chairman of the board of trustees of Plymouth Congregational Church and the superintendent of its Sunday School. He was a member of several civic and masonic organizations, including the Barton Smith Lodge F&AM, Collingwood Chapel, Scottish Rite, Zenobia Shrine, West Toledo Exchange Club, West Toledo Commerce Club, Municipal League, Ohio Congregational Church Union, Lucas County Pharmaceutical Association. He was also a member of the Lafayette Lyttle Commandery Knights Templar. Shortly before his death he was honored by the West Toledo branch of the YMCA which he founded.\n\nLasting Influence\nStart's role as a businessman and public servant would inspire other businessmen in Toledo to take up public service. Gilbert Siegel a Republican running for Mayor of Toledo and also a drug store owner like Start, was quoted as saying, \"Yes Sir... I do expect to win. The Republican party has been successful in running druggists for mayor. Mayors Fred Mery and Roy Start were both druggists. Drugstores can be potent political factors. They are strategically located. Many people frequent drugstores, to buy, to ask advice.\" This was more than 12 years after Start had died, proof that his legacy was lasting in the Toledo and Northwest Ohio area.\n\nAfter his death, the Toledo school district named a new high school (Roy C. Start High School) after him, which opened in 1962. It is adjacent to the West Toledo YMCA that Start founded.\n\nInterment\nRoy C. Start died in 1956, and is buried at the Toledo Memorial Park and Mausoleum.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Website of the City of Toledo\n\nMayors of Toledo, Ohio\nOhio Republicans\n1877 births\nOhio Northern University alumni\nOhio city council members\n1956 deaths"
] |
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"Where was he born?",
"Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.",
"Did he go to school?",
"Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted \"Most Likely to Succeed.",
"Did he attend college?",
"After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,",
"Did he do well there?",
"While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called \"American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World\"",
"Was that the start of his career?",
"After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote \"Charles Kuralt's People,\""
] |
C_769430fdb832430db7d66c2a444c9214_1
|
How long did he work there?
| 6 |
How long did Charles Kuralt work for the Charlotte News?
|
Charles Kuralt
|
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER
|
He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer,
|
Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina
| true |
[
"The Migraine Disability Assessment Test (MIDAS) is a test used by doctors to determine how severely migraines affect a patient's life. Patients are asked questions about the frequency and duration of their headaches, as well as how often these headaches limited their ability to participate in activities at work, at school, or at home.\n\nThe test was evaluated by the professional journal Neurology in 2001; it was found to be both reliable and valid.\n\nQuestions\nThe MIDAS contains the following questions:\n\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss work or school because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last 3 months was your productivity at work or school reduced by half or more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 1 where you missed work or school.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you not do household work because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last three months was your productivity in household work reduced by half of more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 3 where you did not do household work.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss family, social or leisure activities because of your headaches?\n\nThe patient's score consists of the total of these five questions. Additionally, there is a section for patients to share with their doctors:\n\nWhat your Physician will need to know about your headache:\n\nA. On how many days in the last 3 months did you have a headache?\n(If a headache lasted more than 1 day, count each day.)\t\n\nB. On a scale of 0 - 10, on average how painful were these headaches? \n(where 0 = no pain at all and 10 = pain as bad as it can be.)\n\nScoring\nOnce scored, the test gives the patient an idea of how debilitating his/her migraines are based on this scale:\n\n0 to 5, MIDAS Grade I, Little or no disability \n\n6 to 10, MIDAS Grade II, Mild disability\n\n11 to 20, MIDAS Grade III, Moderate disability\n\n21+, MIDAS Grade IV, Severe disability\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMigraine Treatment\n\nMigraine",
"How Long: Ultra Naté Best Remixes, Vol. 2 is a compilation consisting of remixes of the singles from Ultra Naté's second album, One Woman's Insanity. This compilation was released on March 30, 1999.\n\nTrack listings\n 1. \"How Long\" (Wingston Hip-Hop Edit)\n 2. \"Show Me\" (Original Extended Version)\n 3. \"Joy\" (What Rave? Mix)\n 4. \"Incredibly You\"\n 5. \"Show Me\" (Masters at Work 12\" Dub)\n 6. \"How Long\" (Fire Island Remix)\n 7. \"How Long\" (Ultra's House Swing)\n 8. \"Show Me\" (Chameleon House Mix)\n 9. \"Joy\" (Never Ending Joy Mix)\n 10. \"How Long\" (118th Street Instrumental)\n\nExternal links\n[ All Music: Situation: Critical]\n\nUltra Naté albums\n1999 remix albums\nWarner Records remix albums"
] |
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"Where was he born?",
"Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.",
"Did he go to school?",
"Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted \"Most Likely to Succeed.",
"Did he attend college?",
"After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,",
"Did he do well there?",
"While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called \"American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World\"",
"Was that the start of his career?",
"After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote \"Charles Kuralt's People,\"",
"How long did he work there?",
"He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer,"
] |
C_769430fdb832430db7d66c2a444c9214_1
|
What did he write?
| 7 |
What did Charles Kuralt write?
|
Charles Kuralt
|
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER
|
he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series.
|
Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina
| true |
[
"This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) is the third studio album by American rock band Chevelle. Debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 based on nearly 90,000 copies sold in its first week, it charted higher than its predecessor, Wonder What's Next but did not exceed its debut position. The album did not manage to match its predecessor's commercial success, but was certified platinum. This Type of Thinking follows generally the same heavy style as Wonder What's Next with popular singles like \"Vitamin R\" and \"The Clincher\". It would be the first of two records produced by Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette. This was also the final album featuring bassist Joe Loeffler, who departed from the band in 2005.\n\nBackground and recording\nComing off a highly successful major label debut, Chevelle finishing touring on December 17, 2003. They set out to write a follow-up album from scratch at the onset of the following year in what drummer Sam Loeffler described as a different approach to writing. He also noted how the band felt significant pressure from their label to not simply match but topple the platinum success of Wonder What's Next. In a 2004 interview, Loeffler described the process of approaching This Type of Thinking:\n\"We went home for Christmas and after New Year's we went into the studio and we said, 'All right, we have to write a whole record in basically four months.' We had no songs, so we had to write that whole record and we ended up taking five months. We wanted to go heavy, we wanted to do a lot of double-bass drum, kind of syncopated rhythms, and we wanted to basically write songs that we could bob our heads to. That was sort of where we started. We're a heavy melodic rock band, that's what we like to write, and that's what we like to play. And that's what we did.\"\n\nThis time around, Chevelle opted to produce their own album with the help of Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette. This Type of Thinking would continue the balance of melody and heaviness of its predecessor. And much like the final track on Wonder What's Next, \"Bend the Bracket\" would be recorded simply as an acoustic demo for its unpolished presentation.\n\nCritical reception\n\nAllMusic editor Johnny Loftus observes the album as \"...flatly mixed, lost in depression, and obsessed with rewriting \"Sober\" for a new generation of lank-haired misunderstoods.\"\n\nMelodic calls it \"...a real quality album that you will never get bored of.\", praising the songs \"The Clincher\", \"Vitamin R (Leading Us Along)\" and \"Another Know It All\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nChevelle\n Pete Loeffler – guitar, vocals\n Joe Loeffler – bass, backing vocals\n Sam Loeffler – drums\n\nTechnical personnel\n Andy Wallace – mixing\n Ben Goldman – A&R\n Christian Lantry – photography\n Dave Holdredge – digital editing, drum programming, engineer\n Eddy Schreyer – mastering\n Farra Mathews – A&R\n Jef Moll – assistant\n Josh Wilbur – digital editing\n Katharina Fritsch – cover sculpture\n Kevin Dean – assistant\n Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette – engineer, producer\n Sean Evans – art direction\n Steve Sisco – assistant\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2004 albums\nAlbums produced by Michael Baskette\nChevelle (band) albums\nEpic Records albums",
"I Write What I Like (full name I Write What I Like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko) is a compilation of writings from anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.\n\nI Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Student Organisation, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. Originally published in 1978, the book was republished in 1987 and April 2002. The book's title was taken from the title under which he had published his writings in the SASO newsletter under the pseudonym Frank Talk.\n\nI Write What I Like reflects Biko's conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness Movement that he helped found.\n\nThe collection was edited by Aelred Stubbs. The book includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness Movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.\n\nReferences\n\n1978 non-fiction books\n2002 non-fiction books\nBooks about apartheid\nPolitical books\nSouth African non-fiction books"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism"
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
|
What were his criticisms of creationism?
| 1 |
What were Richard Dawkins' criticisms of creationism?
|
Richard Dawkins
|
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
|
He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood";
|
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
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Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Former Anglicans
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[
"Laurie R. Godfrey (born August 27, 1945) is an American paleontologist and physical anthropologist. She is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research has focused on the evolutionary history of the present-day lemur populations of Madagascar. An outspoken critic of creationism and advocate for the teaching of evolution in schools, she has edited three books on the subject: Scientists Confront Creationism (1983), What Darwin Began: Modern Darwinian and Non-Darwinian Perspectives on Evolution (1985), and (with A.J. Petto) Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism (2007).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\n1945 births\nAmerican women anthropologists\nAmerican paleontologists\nWomen paleontologists\nHarvard University alumni\nUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst faculty\nCritics of creationism\nPhysical anthropologists\nAmerican anthropologists\nAmerican women academics\n21st-century American women",
"Creationism is a doctrine held by some Christians that God creates a soul for each body that is generated. Alternative Christian views on the origin of souls are traducianism and also the idea of a pre-existence of the soul. The Scholastic philosophers held the theory of Creationism.\n\nConcept\nCreationism holds that the origin of the soul cannot be by spiritual generation from the souls of parents (as the German theologian Jakob Frohschammer (1821-1893) maintained) because human souls, being essentially and integrally simple and indivisible, can give forth no spiritual germs or reproductive elements. The creation of the soul by the First Cause, when second causes have posited the pertinent conditions, falls within the order of nature; it is a so-called \"law of nature\", not an interference therewith. \n\nAs regards the time when the individual soul is created, philosophical speculation varies. The traditional philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church holds that the rational soul is created at the moment when it is infused into the new organism. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle's embryology, taught that rational soul is created when the antecedent principles of life have rendered the foetus an appropriate organism for rational life, though some time is required after birth before the sensory organs are sufficiently developed to assist in the functions of intelligence. On the other hand, most neo-Scholastics hold that the rational soul is created and infused into the incipient human being at the moment of conception.\n\nHistory\nAugustine of Hippo was undecided between creationism and traducianism, while Jerome condemned traducianism and held that creationism was the opinion of the Church. Augustine attempted to reconcile the statement in Genesis 2:2 \"On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken,\" with Jerome's citation of John 5:17, \"“My Father is at work until now, so I am at work,”if, I say, … we affirm that for each individual He creates separately a new soul when he is born, we do not herein affirm that He makes anything which he had not already made. For He had already made man after His own image on the sixth day; and this work of His is unquestionably to be understood with reference to the rational soul of man. The same work He still does, not in creating what did not exist, but in multiplying what already existed. Wherefore it is true, on the one hand, that He rested from creating things which previously did not exist, and equally true, on the other hand, that He continues still to work, not only in governing what He has made, but also in making (not anything which did not previously exist, but) a larger number of those creatures which He had already made. Wherefore, either by such an explanation, or by any other which may seem better, we escape from the objection advanced by those who would make the fact that God rested from His works a conclusive argument against our believing that new souls are still being daily created, not from the first soul, but in the same manner as it was made.\n\nPhilo and some rabbis insisted that God’s providence remains active, keeping all things in existence, giving life in birth and taking it away in death. Other rabbis taught that God rested from creating, but not from judging, ruling, or governing. \n\nCreationism, which had always prevailed in Eastern Christianity, became the general opinion of the medieval theologians. Amongst the Scholastics there were no defenders of Traducianism. Hugh of Saint Victor and Alexander of Hales alone characterize Creationism as the more probable opinion; all the other Schoolmen hold it as certain. Peter Lombard's creando infundit animas Deus et infundendo creat (\"in creating, God pours in the soul, and in pouring, He creates\") was an accepted formula. \n\nMartin Luther, like Augustine, was undecided, but Lutherans have as a rule been traducianists. John Calvin favoured creationism.\n\nGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz argued that Creationism guards the dignity and spirituality of the rational soul, and is the proper seat of the image of God.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=DKo8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA557&dq=Creationism+(soul)&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicn5TqqKvgAhWCVN8KHarWCSE4ChDoAQhZMAg#v=onepage&q=Creationism%20(soul)&f=false McClintock, John and Strong, James. \"Creationism\", Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol. 2, Harper, 1894]</ref> \nHermann Lotze, however, who may be taken as representing the believers in the immanence of the divine Being, puts forth – but as a \"dim conjecture\" – something very like creationism. \n\nThis view is generally held by the contemporary magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, most notably in the instruction Dignitas Personae''. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 366, states that \"The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God— it is not 'produced' by the parents….\"\n\nReferences\n\nChristian anthropology\nChristian terminology"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism",
"What were his criticisms of creationism?",
"He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as \"a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood\";"
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
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How were his criticisms received?
| 2 |
How were Richard Dawkins criticisms of creation received?
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Richard Dawkins
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Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
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Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
1941 births
20th-century atheists
20th-century British biologists
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
21st-century atheists
21st-century British biologists
21st-century English male writers
21st-century English writers
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Articles containing video clips
Atheist feminists
English atheist writers
British atheism activists
British critics of Islam
British secularists
British zoologists
Critics of religions
Critics of alternative medicine
Critics of conspiracy theories
Critics of creationism
Critics of neoconservatism
Critics of new religious movements
Critics of postmodernism
Critics of the Catholic Church
Education activists
English biologists
English activists
English atheists
English feminists
English humanists
English memoirists
English republicans
English sceptics
English science writers
English social commentators
Ethologists
Evolutionary biologists
Evolutionary psychologists
Fellows of New College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Former Anglicans
Genetics education
Living people
Male feminists
Modern synthesis (20th century)
New College of the Humanities
People educated at Chafyn Grove School
People educated at Oundle School
People from Nairobi
People stripped of awards
Philosophers of culture
Philosophers of education
Philosophers of science
Psychology writers
Recipients of the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic
Science activists
Secular humanists
Simonyi Professors for the Public Understanding of Science
Social critics
Theorists on Western civilization
University of California, Berkeley faculty
White Kenyan people
Writers about religion and science
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[
"Lifestyle gurus (also called lifestyle coaches, lifestyle trainers, lifestyle consultants) advise people how they can make themselves happier through changes in their lifestyle. Lifestyle gurus are a profession popularised by several celebrities, including Cherie Blair and Madonna in the 1990s and 2000s.\n\nProminent examples of lifestyle gurus include Carole Caplin, who worked as a lifestyle guru for the Blair family.\n\nCriticism\nLifestyle gurus have come under heavy criticism in recent years, with most criticisms concerning their utility. Other criticisms have centred on the perception that they are a symptom of the indecisiveness of today's society.\n\nFrank Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent, has been a prominent critic of lifestyle gurus. Lifestyle gurus have received criticism for preaching unscientific ideas and thus influencing public opinion.\n\nA 2017 article in Vox accused personal-growth gurus of being \"all smoke and mirrors\", \"a hypocrite's game\", and \"bullshit artistry\" aimed at making money from selling a product, such as books or conferences.\n\nSee also\nLife coaching\nMotivational speaker\nPeer support specialist\n\nReferences\n\nLife coaching\nLifestyle",
"Aleš Berger (born 18 September 1946) is a Slovene writer, translator and literary critic.\n\nBerger was born in Ljubljana in 1946. He studied comparative literature and French at the University of Ljubljana and worked as an editor and theatre critic. He is known for his translations into Slovene from French (Lautréamont, Apollinaire, Beckett, René Char, Raymond Queneau and Jacques Prévert) and Spanish (Jorge Luis Borges). \n \nIn 1987 he received the Prešeren Foundation Award for his translation of Les Chants de Maldoror. In 1998 he received the Rožanc Award for Krokiji in beležke (Sketches and Notes). \n \nIn February 2017, he received the Prešeren Award for lifetime achievement in translation. In particular, he has translated eminent French writers and poets, his favourite being the poet Jacques Prévert (1900–1977).\n\nPublished works\n\n Omara v kleti (Drawer in the Cellar), essay, 2010\n Zmenki (Dates), drama, 2006\n Zagatne zgodbe (Embarrassing Tales), short stories, 2004\n Krokiji in beležke (Sketches and Notes), essays, 1998\n Novi ogledi in pogledi (New Views and Viewings), theatre criticisms, 1997\n Ogledi in pogledi (Views and Viewings), theatre criticisms, 1984\n Gledališki besednjak (A Theatrical Glossary), 1981\n Dadaizem in nadrealizem (Dadaism and Surrealism), 1981\n\nReferences\n\nWriters from Ljubljana\nSlovenian translators\nSlovenian literary critics\nLiving people\n1946 births\nUniversity of Ljubljana alumni\nPrešeren Award laureates"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism",
"What were his criticisms of creationism?",
"He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as \"a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood\";",
"How were his criticisms received?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
|
Did he have anything else to say about creationism?
| 3 |
Did Richard Dawkins have anything else to say about creationism besides criticism?
|
Richard Dawkins
|
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
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Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening."
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Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
1941 births
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| true |
[
"Creationism is a doctrine held by some Christians that God creates a soul for each body that is generated. Alternative Christian views on the origin of souls are traducianism and also the idea of a pre-existence of the soul. The Scholastic philosophers held the theory of Creationism.\n\nConcept\nCreationism holds that the origin of the soul cannot be by spiritual generation from the souls of parents (as the German theologian Jakob Frohschammer (1821-1893) maintained) because human souls, being essentially and integrally simple and indivisible, can give forth no spiritual germs or reproductive elements. The creation of the soul by the First Cause, when second causes have posited the pertinent conditions, falls within the order of nature; it is a so-called \"law of nature\", not an interference therewith. \n\nAs regards the time when the individual soul is created, philosophical speculation varies. The traditional philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church holds that the rational soul is created at the moment when it is infused into the new organism. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle's embryology, taught that rational soul is created when the antecedent principles of life have rendered the foetus an appropriate organism for rational life, though some time is required after birth before the sensory organs are sufficiently developed to assist in the functions of intelligence. On the other hand, most neo-Scholastics hold that the rational soul is created and infused into the incipient human being at the moment of conception.\n\nHistory\nAugustine of Hippo was undecided between creationism and traducianism, while Jerome condemned traducianism and held that creationism was the opinion of the Church. Augustine attempted to reconcile the statement in Genesis 2:2 \"On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken,\" with Jerome's citation of John 5:17, \"“My Father is at work until now, so I am at work,”if, I say, … we affirm that for each individual He creates separately a new soul when he is born, we do not herein affirm that He makes anything which he had not already made. For He had already made man after His own image on the sixth day; and this work of His is unquestionably to be understood with reference to the rational soul of man. The same work He still does, not in creating what did not exist, but in multiplying what already existed. Wherefore it is true, on the one hand, that He rested from creating things which previously did not exist, and equally true, on the other hand, that He continues still to work, not only in governing what He has made, but also in making (not anything which did not previously exist, but) a larger number of those creatures which He had already made. Wherefore, either by such an explanation, or by any other which may seem better, we escape from the objection advanced by those who would make the fact that God rested from His works a conclusive argument against our believing that new souls are still being daily created, not from the first soul, but in the same manner as it was made.\n\nPhilo and some rabbis insisted that God’s providence remains active, keeping all things in existence, giving life in birth and taking it away in death. Other rabbis taught that God rested from creating, but not from judging, ruling, or governing. \n\nCreationism, which had always prevailed in Eastern Christianity, became the general opinion of the medieval theologians. Amongst the Scholastics there were no defenders of Traducianism. Hugh of Saint Victor and Alexander of Hales alone characterize Creationism as the more probable opinion; all the other Schoolmen hold it as certain. Peter Lombard's creando infundit animas Deus et infundendo creat (\"in creating, God pours in the soul, and in pouring, He creates\") was an accepted formula. \n\nMartin Luther, like Augustine, was undecided, but Lutherans have as a rule been traducianists. John Calvin favoured creationism.\n\nGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz argued that Creationism guards the dignity and spirituality of the rational soul, and is the proper seat of the image of God.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=DKo8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA557&dq=Creationism+(soul)&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicn5TqqKvgAhWCVN8KHarWCSE4ChDoAQhZMAg#v=onepage&q=Creationism%20(soul)&f=false McClintock, John and Strong, James. \"Creationism\", Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol. 2, Harper, 1894]</ref> \nHermann Lotze, however, who may be taken as representing the believers in the immanence of the divine Being, puts forth – but as a \"dim conjecture\" – something very like creationism. \n\nThis view is generally held by the contemporary magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, most notably in the instruction Dignitas Personae''. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 366, states that \"The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God— it is not 'produced' by the parents….\"\n\nReferences\n\nChristian anthropology\nChristian terminology",
"Say Anything may refer to:\n\nFilm and television\n Say Anything..., a 1989 American film by Cameron Crowe\n \"Say Anything\" (BoJack Horseman), a television episode\n\nMusic\n Say Anything (band), an American rock band\n Say Anything (album), a 2009 album by the band\n \"Say Anything\", a 2012 song by Say Anything from Anarchy, My Dear\n \"Say Anything\" (Marianas Trench song), 2006\n \"Say Anything\" (X Japan song), 1991\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Aimee Mann from Whatever, 1993\n \"Say Anything\", a song by the Bouncing Souls from The Bouncing Souls, 1997\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Good Charlotte from The Young and the Hopeless, 2002\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Girl in Red, 2018\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Will Young from Lexicon, 2019\n \"Say Anything (Else)\", a song by Cartel from Chroma, 2005\n\nOther uses\n Say Anything (party game), a 2008 board game published by North Star Games\n \"Say Anything\", a column in YM magazine\n\nSee also\n Say Something (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism",
"What were his criticisms of creationism?",
"He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as \"a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood\";",
"How were his criticisms received?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he have anything else to say about creationism?",
"Dawkins stated that \"evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening.\""
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
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Has he ever debated anyone about creationism?
| 4 |
Has Richard Dawkins ever debated anyone about creationism?
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Richard Dawkins
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Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
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Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society).
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Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
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[
"The International Conference on Creationism (ICC) is a conference in support of young earth creationism, sponsored by the Creation Science Fellowship (CSF). The first conference occurred in 1986 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Subsequent conferences have been held in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018.\n\nConferences\n\nRobert Schadewald emphasized the influence Kurt Wise has had on shaping a more candid and rigorous approach to creationism, particularly praising a talk entitled \"How Geologists Date Things\" as absolutely straight Geology 101 mixing introductory geology with a debunking of creationist misconceptions. Wise has labored tirelessly by example and persuasion to convince his creationist colleagues to study the facts carefully and find new ways to interpret them. Besides technical and educational tracks, ICC86 featured a \"basic creationism\" track that included Walter Brown's Hydroplate Model (some creationists privately referred to it as the \"wacky track\").\n\n The second ICC, held in 1990, was marginally better, but evolution-bashing and \"wacky track\" nonsense still were abundant. The 1990 conference featured a debate between Gregg Wilkerson, an old-earth creationist geologist and Steven A. Austin, chairman of geology at the Institute for Creation Research. Wilkerson urged the conference attendees to drop the young Earth viewpoint and accept the \"ample scientific evidence\" that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Austin stated that Wilkerson was misinterpreting the data and that a young Earth viewpoint remained feasible.\n\n Following ICC90, the Pittsburgh Creation Science Fellowship (CSF) established a refereeing system. Wise and philosophers Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds convinced CSF that evolution-bashing never has advanced and never will advance a real \"creation model.\" As a result, ICC94 was dramatically better.\n\nAt ICC98, the transformation was virtually complete. Most presentations tried either to advance a model in some way or at least to honestly review the evidence that needs explaining. This requirement was stated in the call for papers and enforced in the refereeing process, Anyone whose only exposure to creationism is a Gish Gallop would not have recognized a single presentation at ICC98. Larry Witham described it as having \"become the preeminent meeting of its kind in the world.\" Its goal is to provide a peer-review forum wherein the Creation model could be rigorously developed. He states that the conferences express similar disdain for both \"slipshod\" populist young earth creationism, and for smuggling in \"antiquity and evolution\". He describes as \"astounding\" their presupposition that God \"used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe.\" They state they cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator.\n\nReception\nMathematics professor Jason Rosenhouse writes expressing sadness that while generally impressed with attendees \"personality and temperament\", that they are \"hopelessly ignorant of science. This ignorance is exacerbated by the annoying fact that so many of them fancy themselves highly knowledgeable indeed.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n International Conference on Creationism\n\nYoung Earth creationism\nChristian conferences\nRecurring events established in 1987\n1987 establishments in Indiana",
"Zachary \"Zack\" Sawyer Kopplin (born July 20, 1993) is an American political activist, journalist, and television personality from Louisiana. Kopplin has campaigned to keep creationism out of public school science classrooms and been involved with other separation of church and state causes. He has opposed school vouchers because they provide public money to schools which may teach creationism. As a high school student, he organized seventy-eight Nobel laureate scientists in a campaign against the Louisiana Science Education Act, a creationism law. He is also involved with science funding policy and curriculum and textbook policy. His new campaign calls for a launching Second Giant Leap for Humankind, calling for Barack Obama to invest $1 trillion in research and education.\n\nKopplin has been interviewed on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, where Bill Maher noted, on the show, that Kopplin was the youngest guest ever to appear on his show. MSN.com called Kopplin the Doogie Howser of political activists. Kopplin has been featured by numerous international media outlets that include Vogue, Mashable, The New York Times, the Washington Post, io9, Slate, the Huffington Post, Moyers and Company, MSNBC, NPR, and Public Radio International.\n\nPersonal life\nKopplin was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His parents are Andrea D. Neighbours and Andy Kopplin, who is the first deputy mayor and chief administrative officer for the City of New Orleans. Andy Kopplin was chief of staff for Governors Murphy J. Foster, Jr. and Kathleen Blanco and founded the Louisiana Recovery Authority under Blanco.\n\nZack Kopplin graduated from Baton Rouge Magnet High School of Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2011 and from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 2015.\n\nOn NPR's Science Friday, Kopplin stated that he was born with anosmia, meaning he does not have a sense of smell.\n\nEducation activism\n\nLouisiana Science Education Act\nAs a senior at Baton Rouge Magnet High School, in Louisiana, he launched a campaign to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act, which has been described by the international science community as a creationism law. Kopplin ran his campaign through his RepealCreationism website.\n\nKopplin joined with Louisiana State Senator Karen Carter Peterson, a Democrat from New Orleans and chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party who sponsored two attempts to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act. Peterson vowed to keep sponsoring bills, “until we defeat this law.”\n\nWith the help of Nobel laureate chemist, Harry Kroto, Kopplin gathered the support of 78 Nobel laureate scientists, who endorsed the repeal effort. The repeal is also supported by many other prominent scientists including Kenneth Miller.\n\nKopplin gathered the support of major science organizations behind the repeal including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest science organization in the world with over 10 million members. He also gathered endorsements from the Clergy Letter Project and the New Orleans City Council.\n\nScience textbooks\nKopplin played a major role in convincing the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to adopt new life science textbooks. After the new textbooks were adopted, the Baton Rouge Advocate wrote an editorial calling the high school senior \"the newest giant-killer in state education policy.\"\n\nKopplin spearheaded a campaign to prevent attempts by Louisiana legislators to reverse the board's decision.\n\nSchool vouchers\nKopplin has also played a role in the discussion over education reform in America. He has identified and exposed a number of the schools in Louisiana's school voucher program using creationist curricula or teaching creationism. Kopplin worked with MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry Show to expose over 300 creationist voucher schools nationwide.\n\nSecond Giant Leap\nIn 2013, Kopplin, along with Louisiana-based investigative journalist Lamar White, launched Second Giant Leap for Humankind, a political action committee which advocates for $1 trillion in new funding to be appropriated to scientific research and development and also an end to denialist legislation. Kopplin wrote an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama asking him to support the Second Giant Leap campaign.\n\nKopplin debated Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore on the return on investment for funding science while on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. After Kopplin pointed out that Moore was not a scientist, when Moore questioned National Science Foundation grants, the clip was picked up by Upworthy and went viral.\n\nMichele Bachmann\n\nAccording to the Huffington Post, Kopplin challenged Michele Bachmann to back up statements she made about Nobel laureate scientists supporting creationism. Kopplin made his challenge on the basis of the Nobel laureate scientists who supported his anti-creationism campaign. The New Orleans Gambit followed up on this question while she was in New Orleans.\n\nAwards and recognition\nKopplin is the National Center for Science Education’s 2012 Friend of Darwin Award Winner with Judy Scotchmoor and also the winner of the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Education. He is the second person to win both the Friend of Darwin Award and the Hefner First Amendment Award. New Orlean's Gambit Weekly named him the 38th largest newsmaker in New Orleans in 2011. The Houston Chronicle named Kopplin as one of the most fascinating people living in Houston. In 2014, Kopplin received the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology's Howard Schachman Public Service Award and the LSU Manship School of Journalism's Courage and Justice Award. Kopplin even helped inspire a Doonesbury cartoon about Louisiana’s law. Kopplin was named a Truthdigger of the Week in December 2012, by Truthdig, a progressive website. Kopplin is also a Melissa Harris-Perry \"Foot Soldier\", as reported on her show.\n\nSee also\n Academic Freedom bills\n Barbara Forrest\n Science education\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Moyers & Company: “Zack Kopplin: Keeping Creationism out of Public Classrooms”\n TEDxLSU Lecture \"The Cost of Teaching Creationism\" May 1, 2013\n\n1993 births\nLiving people\nScience activists\nAmerican activists\nAmerican skeptics\nPeople from Baton Rouge, Louisiana\nRice University people\nRice University alumni\nCritics of creationism"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism",
"What were his criticisms of creationism?",
"He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as \"a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood\";",
"How were his criticisms received?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he have anything else to say about creationism?",
"Dawkins stated that \"evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening.\"",
"Has he ever debated anyone about creationism?",
"Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society)."
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
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Who won the debate?
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Who won the debate that Richard Dawkins and John Maynard Smith participated in against A.E. Wilder-Smith and Edgar Andrews?
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Richard Dawkins
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Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
1941 births
20th-century atheists
20th-century British biologists
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
21st-century atheists
21st-century British biologists
21st-century English male writers
21st-century English writers
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Articles containing video clips
Atheist feminists
English atheist writers
British atheism activists
British critics of Islam
British secularists
British zoologists
Critics of religions
Critics of alternative medicine
Critics of conspiracy theories
Critics of creationism
Critics of neoconservatism
Critics of new religious movements
Critics of postmodernism
Critics of the Catholic Church
Education activists
English biologists
English activists
English atheists
English feminists
English humanists
English memoirists
English republicans
English sceptics
English science writers
English social commentators
Ethologists
Evolutionary biologists
Evolutionary psychologists
Fellows of New College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Former Anglicans
Genetics education
Living people
Male feminists
Modern synthesis (20th century)
New College of the Humanities
People educated at Chafyn Grove School
People educated at Oundle School
People from Nairobi
People stripped of awards
Philosophers of culture
Philosophers of education
Philosophers of science
Psychology writers
Recipients of the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic
Science activists
Secular humanists
Simonyi Professors for the Public Understanding of Science
Social critics
Theorists on Western civilization
University of California, Berkeley faculty
White Kenyan people
Writers about religion and science
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[
"The 2016 South Carolina Democratic presidential primary took place on February 27 in the U.S. state of South Carolina, marking the Democratic Party's fourth nominating contest in their series of presidential primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election.\n\nClinton won the South Carolina Democratic primary by a landslide margin of more than 47%, receiving a larger percentage of the African American vote than Obama, the first black President, did in 2008.\n\nWith the Republican Party having already held its South Carolina primary a week earlier on February 20, the Democratic primary in South Carolina was the only presidential primary on that day.\n\nDebates and forums\n\nNovember 2015 forum in Rock Hill\n\nRachel Maddow was selected to moderate the First in the South Candidates Forum with Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley, which was held at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on November 6, co-sponsored by the Democratic Parties of 13 southern states. The forum was not in debate format; instead, each candidate was interviewed individually and sequentially. Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb were also invited, but their campaigns never responded to the invitations, and both have since withdrawn from the race. A Public Policy Poll of South Carolina Democratic voters conducted from November 7–8, after the forum, discovered that 67% of viewers thought Clinton won the forum, 16% thought Sanders won, and 6% thought O'Malley won, with 11% unsure.\n\nJanuary 2016 debate in Charleston, South Carolina\n\nOn January 17, 2016, the Democratic Party held a fourth debate at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina. Hosted by Lester Holt and Andrea Mitchell, the debate aired on NBC News and was streamed on YouTube. It was also sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. It was notable as being the final debate before the start of precinct caucuses and primary voting. Participants were Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley. It was the final debate appearance of O'Malley, who suspended his campaign on February 1.\n\nBoth before and after the debate, commentators said the debate was focused on Sanders and his voting record on gun control and slights against President Obama, among other issues. During the debate, O'Malley interrupted to take 30 seconds to talk about \"homeland security and preparedness\". Also during the debate, Clinton and Sanders had some back-and-forth exchanges to define themselves on Wall Street, foreign policy, and gun control.\n\nOpinion polling\n\nDelegate count: 53 Pledged, 6 Unpledged\nWinner Hillary Clinton \nPrimary date 27 February 2016\n\nResults\n\nResults by county\nClinton won every county.\n\nDelegates: The South Carolina Democratic Party - State Election Results\n\nAnalysis \nAs South Carolina's majority-black Democratic electorate had dealt a severe death-blow to Clinton's 2008 presidential effort against Barack Obama, it gave her campaign new life in 2016. Clinton won the primary in a 47-point routing thanks to ardent support from African American voters. According to exit polls, Clinton won the black vote 86-14, which comprised 61% of the Democratic electorate in the Palmetto State; she won among black women 89-11 who comprised 37% of the electorate. Clinton's near-unanimous support from black voters was fueled by their interest in a continuation of President Obama's policies, and by black women who wanted to see a woman elected.\n\nClinton won every county statewide. She won in upcountry 66-34, Piedmont 74-25, Central South Carolina, including the region which is majority African American 78-22, Pee dee/Waccamaw 83-17, and lowcountry 70-30. She also swept the major cities of Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, and Rock Hill.\n\nReferences\n\nSouth Carolina\nDemocratic primary\n2016",
"The 2013 Czech presidential election debates were a series of debates held for the 2013 Czech presidential election.\n\nFirst round debates\n\nPrague Pride Debate\nPrage Pride organised a debate about human rights and LGBT rights. Miloš Zeman, Jan Fischer and Jiří Dienstbier Jr. participated.\n\nDuel: Zeman vs Fischer\nTelevision Prima held debate between Miloš Zeman and Jan Fischer on 4 January 2013 as they led the polls. Zeman accused Fischer of being a \"Puppet Prime Minister\" while Fischer attacked Zeman for Opposition Agreement. Candidates also showed their knowledge of English and Russian languages.\n\nReflex magazine called the debate a tie. Marketing expert Tomáš Jindříšek praised performances of both candidates as outstanding but concluded that Zeman narrowly won the debate. Sanep agency held a poll according to which Zeman decisively won the debate. 54.5% of viewers voted for him while only 12.4% voted that Fischer won. 90.7% of people who plan to vote for either of candidates admitted that the debate influenced them in favor of Miloš Zeman.\n\nZlatá koruna debate\nMiloš Zeman, Jana Bobošíková and Jiří Dienstbier met at TOP Hotel as part of Project Zlatá Koruna. They debated about economical crysis in the Czech republic. This debate showed growing tension between Zeman and Dienstbier. Jan Fischer, Přemysl Sobotka and Karel Schwarzenber were originally supposed to participate too.\n\nSecond Duel: Zeman vs Fischer\nSecond duel between Zeman and Fischer was held on 9 January by Television Nova. Candidates attacked each other for their sponsors and co-workers. Zeman also tried to show Fischer as a right wing candidate but Fischer tried to represent himself more as a centrist politician. He \n\nZeman won the debate according to internet survey. 65% people voted for him while 35% voted that Fischer won.\n\nSuperdebate\n\nLast debate before the first round was held on 11 January. All nine candidates participated. Zeman and Dienstbier were squibbingeach other as they rivalled for left wing voters. Dienstbier attacked Zeman for his connections with lobbyinst Miroslav Šlouf and for financing of his campaign. Schwarzenberg had to defenc his participation in Petr Nečas's Cabinet.\n\nViewers considered Zeman's and Franz's performances as the most impressive while Sobotka and Dienstbier were the least impressive. Roithová, Fischerová and Schwarzenberg left the most positive impressions. 70% of impressions of these candidates were positive. Franz and Dienstbier's performances left 60% positive impressions. The least positive impression were left by Fischer who was positively rated by 10% of people. According to index of impression and positive score - Zuzana Roithová and Karel Schwarzenberg had the best result while worst had Jan Fischer, Přemysl Sobotka and Jana Bobošíková.\n\nSecond round debates\n\nCzech radio duel: Zeman vs Schwarzenberg\nThe first debate between Zeman and Schwarzenberg was held on 16 January by Czech Radio. The debate was calm and both candidates targeted undecided voters.\n\nFirst television duel: Zeman vs Schwarzenberg\nThe second debate between Zeman and Schwarzenberg was held on 17 January by Czech Television. Zeman started as more aggressive participant and Schwarzenberg was in defense. Zeman was reminding Schwarzenberg's participation in unpopular Cabinet of Petr Nečas while Schwarzenberg attacked Zeman for Opposition Agreement. The debate itself was considered as calm.\n\nSecond television duel: Zeman vs Schwarzenberg\nAnother debate was held by TV Prima on 18 January. Zeman attacked Schwarzenberg for his words about former Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš who would according to Schwarzenberg be judged in Hague if expulsion of Germans happened today.\n\nSecond Czech radio duel: Zeman vs Schwarzenberg\nCzech radio held a debate on 23 January. Candidates seemed tired of campaign.\n\nLast duel: Zeman vs Schwarzenberg\nThe last debate was held on 24 January. The debate was considered a tie.\n\nReferences \n\nDebates\nCzech presidential debates"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism",
"What were his criticisms of creationism?",
"He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as \"a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood\";",
"How were his criticisms received?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he have anything else to say about creationism?",
"Dawkins stated that \"evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening.\"",
"Has he ever debated anyone about creationism?",
"Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society).",
"Who won the debate?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Are there any other interesting aspects about Richard Dawkins article other than his criticisms of creationism?
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Richard Dawkins
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Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
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He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog"
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Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
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[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism",
"What were his criticisms of creationism?",
"He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as \"a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood\";",
"How were his criticisms received?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he have anything else to say about creationism?",
"Dawkins stated that \"evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening.\"",
"Has he ever debated anyone about creationism?",
"Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society).",
"Who won the debate?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"He has been referred to in the media as \"Darwin's Rottweiler\", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as \"Darwin's Bulldog\""
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
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Why was he referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler?
| 7 |
Why was Richard Dawkins referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler?
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Richard Dawkins
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Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
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for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (
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Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
1941 births
20th-century atheists
20th-century British biologists
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
21st-century atheists
21st-century British biologists
21st-century English male writers
21st-century English writers
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Articles containing video clips
Atheist feminists
English atheist writers
British atheism activists
British critics of Islam
British secularists
British zoologists
Critics of religions
Critics of alternative medicine
Critics of conspiracy theories
Critics of creationism
Critics of neoconservatism
Critics of new religious movements
Critics of postmodernism
Critics of the Catholic Church
Education activists
English biologists
English activists
English atheists
English feminists
English humanists
English memoirists
English republicans
English sceptics
English science writers
English social commentators
Ethologists
Evolutionary biologists
Evolutionary psychologists
Fellows of New College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Former Anglicans
Genetics education
Living people
Male feminists
Modern synthesis (20th century)
New College of the Humanities
People educated at Chafyn Grove School
People educated at Oundle School
People from Nairobi
People stripped of awards
Philosophers of culture
Philosophers of education
Philosophers of science
Psychology writers
Recipients of the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic
Science activists
Secular humanists
Simonyi Professors for the Public Understanding of Science
Social critics
Theorists on Western civilization
University of California, Berkeley faculty
White Kenyan people
Writers about religion and science
| false |
[
"Rottweiler is a 2004 science fiction horror film directed by Brian Yuzna and starring William Miller, Paulina Gálvez, Paul Naschy and Ivana Baquero.\n\nPlot \nIn the near future (2018), a prisoner named Dante (William Miller) escapes from jail after having been arrested for illegally entering Spain. Forced to kill a prison guard, he is hunted down by the prison's dog, a monstrous Rottweiler police dog that sadistic prison warden Kufard (Paul Naschy) had revived and cybernetically enhanced after a fatal injury. Believing his Spanish girlfriend Ula (Irene Montala) was sent to work as a prostitute in Puerto Angel as punishment, Dante looks for her, but is exhausted by the chase and wounded by the Rottweiler. As a result, he starts having hallucinations and being haunted by the repressed memories of his and Ula's arrest.\n\nWhile on the run, Dante comes across a small farm owned by a young woman named Alyah who trains a shotgun on him while being accompanied by a little girl. Holding Dante up at gunpoint she coerces him into her house. There, she asks for his identity to which he says his name is Dante. Alyah then ushers him into her bedroom where she asks if he escaped from the prison to which Dante confirms. When she further asks why is he in Kufard's prison, Dante explains that he was on a boat from Rabat but had no papers that would have allowed him to travel from it legally. He tells her that he is not going to hurt her, that he never hurt anybody and that he just needs help while Alyah pulls a knife out of the drawer after setting the shotgun down. Alyah then cleans a wound on the back of Dante's leg.\n\nNow held at knifepoint, Dante goes on to explain that he has to get to Puerto Angel as he needs to find someone. Alyah tells Dante that when her husband comes home it will be bad for him but that she can help him and that she knows someone who can take care of him. Alyah pushes Dante onto the bed and removes her headscarf and unfastens her dress. She says to him that since he is here without papers he does not have much of a future. Alyan pulls off her dress explaining to Dante that if you're pretty people hide you forever from your work. She then climbs on top of him while telling him that you belong to everyone who can pay and that it changes you as you might even like it. Alyah then kisses Dante and they start to make love. When Dante protests saying that he needs her to help him she says that she does not like men and could kill him no problem. She further explains that in Puerto Angel she \"was a puta\" under the employ of Kufard and that she was stoned most of the time, which is what led her to dislike men. Alyah then says that her daughter, the little girl who was with her, came into her life and she named her Esperanza (after the Spanish word for \"hope\") as she is her hope.\n\nEsperanza, having seen the Rottweiler, runs to tell Alyah but is told to get out. As Alyah continues to make love to Dante she tells him that one of her regular clients, Santiago, was a priest who had a weakness for her. After sleeping together they never touched each other again and so instead they prayed. While this has been going on Esperanza has seen the Rottweiler kill the farm's dogs. She goes to tell Alyah again but her warnings are once again dismissed. Alyah informs Dante that she always stays on the farm for Esperanza so she will have a place to stay and will not be like her. Esperanza locks the door to keep the Rottweiler from entering then calls for Alyah. Alyah runs into the living room and blasts the Rottweiler with shotgun. However this fails to kill it and it manages to destroy the shotgun when Dante tries to shoot it. The Rottweiler chases the trio through the house and despite Dante's efforts to distract the dog it chases down and kills Alyah when she locks Esperanza in a food storage cellar in the yard.\n\nDante takes the terrified girl out of the cellar but then the Rottweiler comes after them. However Dante manages to trap it in the cellar but the dog manages to escape. The two then sneak aboard the semi trailer of a truck but the dog pursues them, eventually landing on top of it. The noise attracts the attention of one of the drivers and she is killed when she goes to inspect it. Realizing the danger Esperanza is in as long as he is with her Dante flees the semi trailer with the Rottweiler in tow and the scared but safe Esperanza is found by the other driver. As he reaches Puerto Angel and cannot find her at the brothel, he finally remembers that Ula got killed when Kufard let his dog loose on her, which led Dante to beat the dog to near death with a pipe, who was then turned into a cyborg. Dante kills Kufard as the Rottweiler catches up with him, and they fight to the death among the burning remains of Kufard's helicopter. The morning after, firemen find the skeletons of Dante, Ula and the Rottweiler on the beach.\n\nCast \n William Miller as Dante\n Irene Montalà as Ula\n Paulina Gálvez as Alyah\n Cornell John as Dongoro\n Lluís Homar as Guard Borg\n Paul Naschy as Warden Kufard\n Ivana Baquero as Esperanza\n\nCritical reception \nAllmovie called the film \"a killer cyborg dog flick that's filled with more sleeping pills than chilling thrills\" and \"an obvious misstep for Yuzna, whose past successes are fastly fading in time. Do yourself a favor and leave this dog bone of a mess alone – you'll be happy that you did.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2004 films\n2004 horror films\nEnglish-language films\nEnglish-language Spanish films\nFilms directed by Brian Yuzna\nFilms shot in Barcelona\nSpanish independent films\nNatural horror films\nFilms about dogs\nRobot films\nSpanish films\n2004 independent films\nSpanish science fiction horror films\n2000s science fiction horror films",
"Frances Crofts Cornford (née Darwin; 30 March 1886 – 19 August 1960) was an English poet; because of the similarity of her first name, her father's and her husband's, she was known to her family before her marriage as \"FCD\" and after her marriage as \"FCC\" and her husband Francis Cornford was known as \"FMC\". Her father Sir Francis Darwin, a son of Charles Darwin, yet another 'Francis', was known to their family as \"Frank\", or as \"Uncle Frank\".\n\nLife\nShe was the daughter of the botanist Francis Darwin and Newnham College fellow Ellen Wordsworth Crofts (1856-1903), and born into the Darwin—Wedgwood family. She was a granddaughter of the British naturalist Charles Darwin. Her older half-brother was the golf writer Bernard Darwin. She was brought up in Cambridge, among a dense social network of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and was educated privately.\n\nIn 1909, Frances Darwin married Francis Cornford, a classicist and poet. They had five children:\n Helena Cornford (1913–1996); married Joseph L. Henderson in 1934\nJohn Cornford (1915–1936), a poet and Communist who was killed in the Spanish Civil War\nChristopher Cornford (1917–1993), an artist and writer\n Hugh Wordsworth Cornford (1921–1997), medical doctor\n Ruth Clare (1924–1992); married Cecil Hall Chapman, the son of Sydney Chapman in 1947. She was the mother of Matthew Chapman\n\nShe is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, where she is in the same grave as her father Sir Francis Darwin. Her mother Ellen Wordsworth Darwin, née Crofts, is buried in St. Andrews Church's churchyard in Girton, Cambridgeshire.\n\nHer husband, Francis, was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium on 6 January 1943.\n\nWorks\nFrances Cornford published several books of verse, including her debut (as \"F.C.D\"), The Holtbury Idyll (1908), Poems (1910), Spring Morning (1915), Autumn Midnight (1923), and Different Days (1928). Mountains and Molehills (1935) was illustrated with woodcuts by her cousin Gwen Raverat.\n\nShe wrote poems including \"The Guitarist Tunes Up\":\n\nWith what attentive courtesy he bent\nOver his instrument;\nNot as a lordly conqueror who could\nCommand both wire and wood,\nBut as a man with a loved woman might\nInquiring with delight\nWhat slight essential things she had to say\nBefore they started, he and she, to play.\n\nOne of Frances Cornford's poems was a favourite of Philip Larkin and his lover Maeve Brennan. \"All Souls' Night\" uses the superstition that a dead lover will appear to a still faithful partner on that November date. Maeve, many years after Larkin's death, would re-read the poem on All Souls:\n\nMy love came back to me\nUnder the November tree\nShelterless and dim.\nHe put his hand upon my shoulder,\nHe did not think me strange or older,\nNor I him.\n\nAlthough the myth enhances the poem - it can be read as the meeting of older, former lovers.\n\nTo a Fat Lady Seen from the Train\nHowever, Cornford is possibly best remembered for her triolet poem \"To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train\" in Poems of 1910.\nO why do you walk through the fields in gloves,\nMissing so much and so much?\nO fat white woman whom nobody loves,\nWhy do you walk through the fields in gloves,\nWhen the grass is soft as the breast of doves\nAnd shivering-sweet to the touch?\nO why do you walk through the fields in gloves,\nMissing so much and so much?\n\nTo which G. K. Chesterton replied in \"The Fat Lady Answers\" in his Collected Poems of 1927:\nWhy do you rush through the field in trains,\nGuessing so much and so much.\nWhy do you flash through the flowery meads,\nFat-head poet that nobody reads;\nAnd why do you know such a frightful lot\nAbout people in gloves as such?\n...\n\nEarlier, in 1910, A. E. Housman had written a parody in a private letter:\nO why do you walk through the fields in boots,\nMissing so much and so much?\nO fat white woman whom nobody shoots,\nWhy do you walk through the fields in boots,\nWhen the grass is soft as the breast of coots ...\n\nThe first lines of this poem were spoken by a character in Agatha Christie's 1939 novel Murder is Easy.\n\nSee also\nConduit Head\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n \n\n \n \nEncyclopædia Britannica\nBibliography\nThe Coast: Norfolk by Frances Cornford\n\n Archival Material at \n\n1886 births\n1960 deaths\nDarwin–Wedgwood family\nEnglish women poets\nBurials in Cambridgeshire\n20th-century English poets\n20th-century English women writers"
] |
[
"Richard Dawkins",
"Criticism of creationism",
"What were his criticisms of creationism?",
"He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as \"a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood\";",
"How were his criticisms received?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he have anything else to say about creationism?",
"Dawkins stated that \"evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening.\"",
"Has he ever debated anyone about creationism?",
"Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society).",
"Who won the debate?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"He has been referred to in the media as \"Darwin's Rottweiler\", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as \"Darwin's Bulldog\"",
"Why was he referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler?",
"for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. ("
] |
C_1cf3f56cfdf247cf92ea0c78b9d8f358_0
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Has he written any books on his criticism of creationism?
| 8 |
Has Richard Dawkins written any books on his criticism of creationism?
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Richard Dawkins
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Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood"; and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things--with their far greater complexity--be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. (The contrasting sobriquet of "God's Rottweiler" was given to Pope Benedict XVI while he was a cardinal working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.) He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. CANNOTANSWER
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his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument.
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Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.
Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.
Background
Early life
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule. Dawkins later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire, which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford, England. He has a younger sister, Sarah.
His parents were interested in natural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." This understanding of atheism combined with his western cultural background, informs Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican".
Education
On his return to England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School, in Wiltshire, and after that from 1954 to 1959 attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire, an English public school with a Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated with second-class honours.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. He was awarded a DSc by Oxford in 1989.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford, and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the Universe. He also has edited several journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford, instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.
Work
Evolutionary biology
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he considered niche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.
This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives). Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene, has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist; she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked if Darwinism informs his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life," implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self.
Fathering the meme
In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the term meme, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by claiming that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors.
Criticism of religion
Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins notes that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils".
On his spectrum of theistic probability, which has seven levels between 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) and 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticized religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine, that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus was resurrected, that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water, that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin, that Muhammad split the moon, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into over 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen".
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history. Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.
While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto, James D. Watson, and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, astrophysicist Martin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, philosopher Roger Scruton, academic and social critic Camille Paglia, atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath, have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world." In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.". In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of a "'highly offensive' video "mocking feminists and Islamists".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, a religious belief that humanity, life, and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology, in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of the Biblical Creation Society). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.
Political views
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations, including Humanists UK and the Brights movement. Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement, he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily. His opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent, the actions of then-US President George W. Bush, and the ethics of designer babies. Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith. In the run up to the 2017 general election, Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue."
Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.
Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important".
Views on postmodernism
In 1998, in a book review published in Nature, Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Jean Bricmont. These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies).
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari:
"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis."
This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career:
"Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content."
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". For John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain, along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major, British, scientific achievements throughout history.
In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".
Awards and recognition
He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".
Other awards include the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992).
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In a poll held by Prospect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus name (members of this genus were formerly members of the genus Puntius).
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist Marian Stamp in the Protestant church in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham divorced. In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". He identifies as an atheist who is a "cultural Anglican," associated with the Church of England, and a "secular Christian".
On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic stroke while at home. Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered.
Media
Selected publications
Book text
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First (1986)
The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
Break the Science Barrier (1996)
The Atheism Tapes (2004)
The Big Question (2005) – Part 3 of the TV series, titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Faith School Menace? (2010)
Beautiful Minds (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Other appearances
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has over 60 credits in the Internet Movie Database where he appeared as himself.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself
Inside Nature's Giants (2009-12) - as guest expert
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" (2013) – appears in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice as a demon version of himself
Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) – by Nightwish: Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish had Dawkins as a guest star on the album. He provides narration on two tracks: "Shudder Before the Beautiful", in which he opens the album with one of his own quotes, and "The Greatest Show on Earth", inspired by and named after his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and in which he quotes On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. He subsequently performed his parts live with Nightwish on 19 December 2015 at the Wembley Arena in London; the concert was later released as a part of a live album/DVD titled Vehicle of Spirit.
Notes
a. W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene. They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a secular memorial service.
b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.
References
Bibliography
External links
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
Richard Dawkins – lasted news at The Independent
Richard Dawkins at The New York Times
Richard Dawkins at Big Think
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Genetics education
Living people
Male feminists
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Philosophers of culture
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Simonyi Professors for the Public Understanding of Science
Social critics
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"Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation is a 2014 book written by Bill Nye. It was co-written and edited by Corey S. Powell and discusses advances in science in support of evolution. The book is Nye's extension of the Bill Nye–Ken Ham debate that took place in 2014.\n\nBackground\n\nUndeniable was written by Bill Nye, best known as the host of Bill Nye the Science Guy, which aired from 1993 to 1998 on PBS Kids. The show focused on Nye teaching natural science to a preteen audience. Nye transitioned into cable television where he spoke on the topic of science, including giving speaking tours at colleges and universities. During his speaking engagements, Nye would often become involved in a debate of creationism versus evolution, including a 2014 debate with creationist Ken Ham. Nye attributes this to being the inspiration for him writing the book.\n\nSummary\n\nNye discusses the creationism versus evolution debate. He lays out evidence about life on earth evolving. He provides an overview of the evolutionary theories such as bottlenecking, punctuated equilibrium, Red Queen hypothesis, and the good enough design theory while at the same time providing counter arguments for creationism theories such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Nye also addresses scientific issues that include genetically modified foods and human cloning.\n\nReception\n\nThe book received considerable press, including The New York Times interviewing Nye about his inspiration and the subject of the book and a feature in National Geographic. In addition to The New York Times, the book was reviewed by major news outlets that included The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, U.S. News & World Report, C-SPAN, HuffPost Live, The Washington Post, and CBS News.\n\nThe Wall Street Journal stated that \"Mr. Nye makes an eloquent case for evolution.\" Regarding the debate and the book, Scientific American stated \"no matter your stance on whether Bill should have engaged in the original debate or not, this book is a very appropriate follow-up and a terrific gift idea for those who might need a primer in how science looks at the world.\"\n\nRevised chapter on GMOs\nNye stated an upcoming revision of his book would contain a rewritten chapter on GMOs, which he now supports.\n\nReferences\n\n2014 non-fiction books\nBooks by Bill Nye\nCriticism of creationism",
"The British Centre for Science Education (BCSE) is a volunteer-run organization in the United Kingdom that has the goal of \"countering creationism within the UK\" and was formed to campaign against the teaching of creationism in schools.\n\nActivities \n\nThe BCSE has been operating since the summer of 2006. Its appearance was noted by the American National Center for Science Education in a news article on November 2, 2006.\n\nThe BCSE protested when the prominent intelligent design group Truth in Science sent information packs to every UK secondary school in September, 2006. BCSE estimated that TiS had, at that point, spent around £116,000, including employment of a full-time administrator. In a letter to the editor, published in the Financial Times, Ian Lowe of BCSE expressed concern that creationism could possibly flourish even in Britain; while Mike Brass, then chairman of BCSE, said in a letter to The Guardian, \"intelligent design (ID) is creationism dressed up in a tux to sneak into our science classrooms.\" They were even mentioned in an \"Early Daily Motion\" in Parliament introduced by MP Graham Stringer.\n\nIn March 2011, responding to a letter from the BCSE expressing concern about the possibility that the government might fund schools based on a Creationist viewpoint, the Department of Education stated that the Secretary of State for Education was \"crystal clear that teaching creationism is at odds with scientific fact\".\n\nThe BCSE features a website on which it tracks leading creationists and creationist organizations, particularly those active in the United Kingdom. Short descriptive articles appear on each. Essays, news and reports of pro-evolution government lobbying are also featured on the website.\n\nCriticism and controversy \n\nThe appearance of the BCSE has been met with hostility by the main promoter of intelligent design, the Discovery Institute. In particular, Discovery Institute fellow William Dembski has written disparagingly of the BCSE on his blog, Uncommon Descent.\n\nReferences\n\nScience education in the United Kingdom\n2006 establishments in the United Kingdom\nOrganizations established in 2006\nEducational organisations based in the United Kingdom\nCriticism of creationism"
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"Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)",
"New York Times report and ouster from Fox News"
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C_98d80b4dfac946fe8b40e03632bfd775_0
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What political party is O'Reilly affiliated with?
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What political party is Bill O'Reilly affiliated with?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
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In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
Radio personalities from Miami
Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
Television anchors from Denver
Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
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"What political party is O'Reilly affiliated with?",
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When did O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?
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When did Bill O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
|
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
Radio personalities from Miami
Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
Television anchors from Denver
Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
| false |
[
"The O'Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Youth is a book written by Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly. It was published in 2004 and covers issues that kids face in their teenage years, such as drugs, sexual intercourse, money, smoking, alcohol and friends.\n\nReception \nThe New York Times said the book \"is best understood not as a useful guide for adolescents\" but \"as an extension of the Bill O'Reilly brand\". Writing in The Village Voice, Alan Scherstuhl called the book \"crap\", noting that it contained the \"barking, pugilistic style of his TV and radio shows\". Rebecca Onion, in PopMatters, said the book's advice \"is innocuous, bordering on helpful\" but that O'Reilly mistakenly believes that \"everything that works for him will work for others\" and that the book features \"cringeworthy\" sections that engage in \"kid talk.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBook information at billoreilly.com\n\nSelf-help books\nBooks by Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)\nHarperCollins books\n2004 non-fiction books",
"William O'Reilly or Bill O'Reilly may refer to:\n\n William O'Reilly (MP) (1792–1844), UK MP for the Irish constituency of Dundalk, 1832–1835\n William O'Reilly (educator) (1864–1937), Irish educator\n William Edmund O'Reilly (1873–1934), British diplomat\n Bill O'Reilly (cricketer) (1905–1992), Australian cricketer\n Bill O'Reilly (political commentator) (born 1949), American commentator, author and former television host\n William F. B. O'Reilly (born 1963), American political consultant\n\nSee also\nWilliam Riley (disambiguation)"
] |
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"New York Times report and ouster from Fox News",
"What political party is O'Reilly affiliated with?",
"I don't know.",
"When did O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?",
"I don't know."
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What stations did Bill O'Reilly work for?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
|
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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Fox News
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
Radio personalities from Miami
Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
Television anchors from Denver
Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
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[
"Robert Fresco (born 1943) is a Canadian cinematographer and documentary filmmaker. He is most noted for his 1981 documentary film Steady as She Goes, for which he won the Bijou Award for Best Cinematography in a Documentary and was nominated for Best Director of a Documentary, and as a Juno Award nominee for Video of the Year at the Juno Awards of 1984 for his video for The Parachute Club's \"Rise Up\".\n\nHis other documentary films have included Mudflats Living, The Salvage Prince, Easter in Iglooik: Peter's Story and Love, Hope and Autism, and as a music video director he also did noteworthy work for Martha and the Muffins, including the videos for \"Black Stations/White Stations\" and \"Cooling the Medium\". As a cinematographer his credits have included the films Winter Kept Us Warm, Firebird 2015 AD, Poetry in Motion, Comic Book Confidential, Nightstick, Wisecracks, The Twist, My Own Private Oshawa and Grass, and episodes of The Twilight Zone, The Campbells and Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science. He won a Gemini Award for Best Photography in an Information Program or Series at the 16th Gemini Awards in 2001 for his work on the Exhibit A episode \"Beauty Shop Bandit\".\n\nHe has also been a partner in Gloo Studios, a firm that produced short comedy videos and special effects work for collegehumor.com.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1943 births\nCanadian cinematographers\nCanadian documentary film directors\nCanadian music video directors\nFilm directors from British Columbia\nLiving people\nCanadian Screen Award winners",
"Alfred Charles True, Ph.D., Sc.D. (June 5, 1853 - April 23, 1929) was a United States educator and agriculturist.\n\nBiography\nA son of Charles Kittredge True, he was born at Middletown, Connecticut. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1873, from which he also received his Sc.D. \nHe was a teacher at Westfield normal school in Westfield, Massachusetts, for several years, did graduate studies at Harvard in 1882-84, and served as an instructor at Wesleyan in 1884-88.\n\nAt Wesleyan, he got to know Wilbur O. Atwater, who in 1888 founded the Office of Experiment Stations at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). True went to work for the USDA in 1889, and from 1893 to 1915, he was director of the Office of Experiment Stations. In 1915, he became director of the States Relations Service, which the Office of Experiment Stations had become part of. He served in this role until 1923.\n\nTrue had charge of investigations in irrigation, drainage and human nutrition, and supervised the federal work and expenditures for agricultural experiment stations in all the states and in Alaska and Hawaii (both territories at that time) and Puerto Rico and Guam. He also supervised federal work and expenditures for co-operative extension work in agriculture and home economics throughout the United States under the Smith-Lever Act of 8 May 1914, together with investigations in home economics and agricultural education.\n\nIn 1902 he was dean of the first graduate school of agriculture in the United States, held at the Ohio State University, and in 1914 he was president of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations.\n\nIn 1875, he married Emma Fortune. They had two children.\n\nSelected publications\n\nTrue particularly studied the organization and management of institutions for agricultural education and research, and published several monographs on this subject, chiefly in the bulletins of the Office of Experiment Stations, including:\n Education and Research in Agriculture in the United States (1894)\n Agricultural Experiment Stations: Their Objects and Work (1895)\n The Agricultural Experiment Stations in the United States (with V. A. Clark, 1900)\n Agricultural Experiment Stations in Foreign Countries (with D. J. Crosby, 1902)\n Progress in Agricultural Education (1902)\n\nBeginning 1923, he devoted himself mostly to the production of three monographs:\n A History of Agricultural Extension Work in the United States, 1785-1923 (1928)/(1937)\n A History of Agricultural Education in the United States, 1785-1925 (1929)\n A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States (1929)\nA History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States, 1607-1925: Including a History of the United States Department of Agriculture (1937)\nFor ten years he was chief editor of the Experiment Station Record and the Experiment Station Work. He contributed articles on agriculture and horticulture to The New International Encyclopædia and Webster's International Dictionary.\n\nFurther reading\n\nReferences\n\n1853 births\n1929 deaths\nAmerican male journalists\nPeople from Middletown, Connecticut\nOhio State University faculty\nHarvard University alumni\nWesleyan University alumni"
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"I don't know.",
"When did O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?",
"I don't know.",
"What stations did he work for?",
"Fox News"
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What year did he work for Fox News?
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What year did Bill O'Reilly work for Fox News?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
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In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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dating back to 2002.
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
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Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
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Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
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[
"Joe Muto, known as the \"Fox Mole\", is a former employee of Fox News known for his leaks of material from the company to Gawker.\n\nMuto, a graduate of University of Notre Dame, started work at Fox as a production assistant in July 2004 and became an associate producer for The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly's show, in January 2007.\n\n\"The Fox News Mole\"\nIn April 2012, Muto started a column on Gawker, \"The Fox News Mole,\" in which he leaked gossip and unreleased footage from Fox News. According to Muto, he wanted to quit Fox News and work for Gawker, but Gawker staff instead proposed that he remain at Fox and leak material to them. To prove he worked at Fox News, Muto sent Gawker two Fox News outtakes: one was a discussion of horses by Sean Hannity and Mitt Romney, and another was Newt Gingrich having his hair done by his wife. Gawker paid him $5,000 for the material. The outtakes were posted publicly.\n\nAccording to Muto, he believed that only certain people in the New York City media industry would be interested in his column, but media attention spread nationally and to major news outlets. Fox News staff looked at the login information and found that Muto was the only person to recently access both videos. The company fired him.\n\nMisdemeanor conviction and aftermath\nOn May 9, Muto pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges: \"attempted unlawful duplication of computer material\" and \"attempted criminal possession of computer material\". He was sentenced to 200 hours of private community service, ten days of community service ordered by the court, and a fine of $1,000; he also gave up the $5,000 Gawker paid him to the court. Gawker paid for Muto's criminal defense.\n\nAs part of his community service Muto cleaned municipal parks, and for his private community service he chose to assist a Brooklyn literacy organization. Muto stated that he had \"did something very stupid and I suppose it's right that I paid for it.\" He stated that he would not have leaked the material if he knew he would be criminally prosecuted for it. Gawker editor-in-chief John Cook criticized the sentence, accusing Cyrus Vance Jr., the district attorney of Manhattan, of trying to please Roger Ailes.\n\nMuto wrote the book An Atheist in the FOXhole chronicling his experiences at Fox.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nLiving people\nFox News people\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Geoff Fox (born July 26, 1950) is an American television broadcast meteorologist with a career spanning nearly 4 decades. For 27 years he was at the television station WTNH in New Haven, Connecticut, where he started in 1984 and was senior meteorologist until 2011, and later with WTIC-TV in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was the weeknight 5:00 and 11:00 p.m. meteorologist, reported science and technology stories for the 4:00 p.m. newscast and was host for a garden segment titled \"Geoff's Garden\". \n \nFox, a New York City native graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. He received a certificate in broadcast meteorology from Mississippi State University and holds a broadcast seal from the American Meteorological Society.\n\nTelevision. \nIn May, 1984 Fox started his meteorology career for the television station WTNH in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was then promoted to \"senior meteorologist\".\n\nIn 1995, in addition to working for WTNH, he began hosting the program Inside Space, a program on Syfy (SciFi Channel at the time).\n\nIn early 2011, after 27 years at WTNH, Fox was told that his contract would not be renewed and he then proceeded to depart from the station. At first he was told by management that he would be able to complete the contract he had with the station before the end of his tenure but that did not happen. His departure received national media attention due to the loyalty of WTNH viewers in addition to his long spanned career with the station.\n\nIn April 2011 he was then hired by Fox affiliate WTIC-TV, where he forecasted for the 5:00 P.M. and 11:00 P.M. weather segments, as well as science reports weeknights at 4:00 P.M. He was dismissed from the station after 19 months, for what the station identified as \"inappropriate conduct\". Fox lost nearly 2000 of his followers on Facebook following the scandal. Later Fox developed an Internet-based company for designing and building websites.\n\nIn mid-2013, Fox relocated to Southern California, and in January 2015, he joined KMIR-TV NBC 36 in Palm Springs, where he served as the weeknight meteorologist from early 2015 until September 2015.\n\nOn August 19, 2015, Fox announced that he would be working as the on-air meteorologist for \"News Channel Nebraska’s first station in Norfolk\", with more stations on the way. He forecasts for News Channel Nebraska from his home studio weather center.\n\nIn the summer of 2017, an agreement was made between the management of WTNH-TV and Fox for him to return briefly to the News8 airwaves for a seven-week fill-in period, to forecast the weeknight newscasts which would be broadcast from his home studio in California. At the end of the temporary employment period, Fox made it very clear to WTNH-TV management that he was very interested in a permanent full-time position. Though, management did extend an offer to Fox for the opportunity to stay on the air with WTNH-TV for a part-time position, he declined. He made a statement saying that the offer \"wasn't a good fit\" but that he was thankful for being given the \"brief\" opportunity to return to the airwaves at WTNH and to show his gratitude for all the support from the viewers throughout the years, as well as the personal level support during his bout with pancreatic cancer.\n\nWTNH News Director Keith Connors said, \"We are grateful for what Geoff did for WTNH during the 2017 summer including filing-in on weeknight newscasts due to temporary schedule shifting, and wish him nothing but the best in the future.\"\n\nFox's has now shifted to being semi-retired and his meteorology career being fully remote serving as Chief Meteorologist forecasting on-air for News Channel Nebraska, as well as other stations in various independent markets and side projects from his home-built studio weather center thanks to the era of modern digital technology. Fox said “With the set-up I'm using in my home studio, I can do the weather for literally any place in the world and deliver it with so little lag that on-air chatting with the news anchors is seamless.\"\n\nhttps://www.newtek.com/blog/2016/03/01/the-work-at-home-weatherman-recipe-from-geoff-fox/\n\nHe also enjoys creating weather maps for various regions worldwide as well as building websites in his spare time.\n\nReferences\n\n1950 births\nPeople from Queens, New York\nTelevision personalities from New York City\nWeather presenters\nLiving people\nBrooklyn Technical High School alumni"
] |
[
"Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)",
"New York Times report and ouster from Fox News",
"What political party is O'Reilly affiliated with?",
"I don't know.",
"When did O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?",
"I don't know.",
"What stations did he work for?",
"Fox News",
"What year did he work for Fox News?",
"dating back to 2002."
] |
C_98d80b4dfac946fe8b40e03632bfd775_0
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Is he still with Fox News?
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Is Bill O'Reilly still with Fox News?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
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In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network.
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
Radio personalities from Miami
Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
Television anchors from Denver
Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
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[
"Kevin Magee is an American television executive who has worked for Yahoo Finance, MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC and ABC. At Yahoo Finance, he helped build out their online video programming. With MSNBC, he as Executive-in-Charge of the morning news show, Morning Joe. He came there from the Fox Business network. He joined the FOX Broadcasting group in 2001. He began his term as Senior Vice President of FOX News Radio in 2005. Chairman of FOX News Programming Council. Prior to Fox, he served as business news executive producer for CNBC from 1997–2001. He also worked for ABC News, as senior programming producer of Good Morning America from 1991–1997.\n\nHe won an Emmy Award in 1991 as part of the production team at Good Morning America which won the Best Talk Service category.\n\nHe was a writer/reporter KYW News Radio in Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Temple University with a B.A. in Communications. He is married with two children.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican television executives\nFox News people\nAmerican television journalists\nAmerican radio reporters and correspondents\nAmerican male journalists\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"\"Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington\" is the fourteenth episode of the fourteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 9, 2003. In this episode, the Simpsons' home becomes uninhabitable because of airplane noise. Krusty is elected to Congress and eventually has a bill passed to change the flight path.\n\nPlot\n\nThe Simpsons discover there is a new flight path to Springfield International Airport which crosses right over their house. A complaint to an airport official has no effect, as he explains that the flight path was changed because it disturbed \"local wildlife and their mating rituals\", when in reality it was actually changed by Mayor Quimby so that he can entertain his girlfriend in peace. The official tells Homer and Marge to go home and learn to live with it. Weeks later, the airplane noise has become insufferable and the house cannot be sold when it becomes apparent about the airplanes. The Simpsons then go to their congressman, Horace Wilcox, who has been Springfield's representative since 1933 and is a survivor of the Titanic sinking. He is so upset by their misfortune that he suffers a heart attack and dies.\n\nBart asks Krusty the Clown to run for Congress and he agrees, thinking he can also eliminate everything with which the Government is harassing him. He is adopted as the Republican candidate. His campaign starts badly because he has offended so many minorities with his politically incorrect jokes, but Lisa helps him turn his campaign around by having him connect with regular families and citizens. With this advice and a pro-Republican Fox News debate, which mocks his Democratic opponent John Armstrong to the point he is shown upside down on the television screen complaining that Krusty hasn't won yet when the newscaster addresses Krusty as congressman, Krusty is elected.\n\nTo Krusty's chagrin, no-one pays attention to a freshman congressman, and he is set to work cleaning the graffiti off the walls and put on committee debates about useless topics. He, and the Simpsons, are about to give up, but Walter Mondale, who is working as a janitor in Congress, explains to them how a bill really becomes a law. With his help, Bart blackmails a key congressman with a videotape that shows him abusing the free mail policy. Homer manages to get another congressman drunk (and himself as well). Finally, during a session in Congress, Mondale and Lisa, with Homer's drunken diversion, fix the Air Traffic Bill with a paperclip to another bill giving orphans American flags. When the bill comes up for a vote, both the blackmailed congressman and the drunk one consent, and it is passed. Krusty praises the processes of democracy. At home, the Simpsons are happy to get the peace and quiet that they heroically fought for. Homer says that the planes are now flying where they belong — over the homes of poor people.\n\nControversy\nAt one point during the episode, the family is watching Krusty and his opponent John Armstrong debate on the Fox News Channel, which showed several headlines in its news ticker that parodied the right-leaning network's political views. Among the headlines in the news ticker were \"Pointless news crawls up 37 percent,\" \"Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com,\" \"Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer,\" \"Dow down 5,000 points,\" \"Study: 92 percent of Democrats are gay,\" \"JFK posthumously joins Republican Party,\" and \"Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple.\" Another news ticker on the end credits had headlines including \"Only dorks watch CNN,\" \"Jimmy Carter: Old, wrinkly, useless,\" and \"Brad Pitt + Albert Einstein = Dick Cheney.\" Several months after the episode originally aired, Matt Groening claimed that Fox News, the corporate sister to the Fox Broadcasting Company that airs the show, threatened to sue Groening, but opted against \"suing itself.\" Groening mentioned that while they got away with the joke, they were no longer allowed to parody news tickers on the show. Despite that, the show would still parody Fox News on several occasions afterward. The Dow Jones & Company, which owned the Dow Jones Industrial Average that was parodied in the news ticker, would be purchased by News Corporation in 2007 and would be a corporate sister to Fox until the 2013 split between the new News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, which was further split with the acquisition of the film and television assets of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company on March 19, 2019, with Fox News Channel now part of the Fox Corporation.\n\nCultural references\nThe episode title is a reference to the movie \"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington script at Springfield! Springfield!\n\nThe Simpsons (season 14) episodes\n2003 American television episodes\nAnimation controversies in television\nFox News criticisms and controversies\nTelevision controversies in the United States\nTelevision episodes about elections\nTelevision shows written by John Swartzwelder"
] |
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"Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)",
"New York Times report and ouster from Fox News",
"What political party is O'Reilly affiliated with?",
"I don't know.",
"When did O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?",
"I don't know.",
"What stations did he work for?",
"Fox News",
"What year did he work for Fox News?",
"dating back to 2002.",
"Is he still with Fox News?",
"On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network."
] |
C_98d80b4dfac946fe8b40e03632bfd775_0
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Did he have a successful career while at Fox News?
| 6 |
Did Bill O'Reilly have a successful career while at Fox News?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
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In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week;
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
Radio personalities from Miami
Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
Television anchors from Denver
Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
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"Chase Carey (born 22 November 1953) is an Irish-born American executive. He is the former chief executive officer and executive chairman of the Formula One Group. He has previously worked for News Corp, DIRECTV, 21st Century Fox and Sky plc.\n\nEducation\nCarey was born in Ireland to American parents of Irish descent, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University and an MBA from Harvard, where he was a member of the Harvard Business School Rugby Club. While attending Colgate he joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity and was a member of the Colgate University Rugby Football Club. Today, Carey is a Trustee Emeritus of Colgate University.\n\nCareer\n\nEarly career with Fox\nCarey first came to work with Fox, a News Corporation holding, in 1988. Over the course of the following decade he served as COO of Fox, Inc., and CEO of Fox Broadcasting Company. During this time he helped launch both Fox Sports and Fox News. He also served as co-COO of News Corporation, along with Peter Chernin. He resigned as co-COO of News Corp on January 24, 2002.\n\nDirecTV\nDuring the time that Carey was working for News Corp, the company purchased a 34% controlling interest in Hughes Electronics, which at the time owned DirecTV, a satellite TV provider. Carey had already served on the DirecTV board of directors, and in 2003 he was appointed CEO.\n\nAt DirecTV, Carey had plans to add 1 million new subscribers a year, and had met that goal when he left the company six years later. Carey's tenure at DirecTV was widely considered successful, and the company returned to profitability.\n\nIn 2006, News Corporation sold its controlling interest in DirecTV to Liberty Media, in exchange for News Corp shares.\n\nReturn to News Corporation\nIn June 2009, it was announced that Carey would be leaving DirecTV and returning to News Corp. He assumed the posts of President and COO that had been held by Chernin, as well as the post of Deputy Chairman.\n\nIn August 2011 Rupert Murdoch tipped Carey to be his successor as CEO of News Corporation. It was previously assumed that Murdoch's son James would succeed him. In 2013, Carey was announced as the COO of 21st Century Fox, the legal successor of News Corporation and the owner of most of its film and television properties, News Corporation's print media and Australian assets being spun off as News Corp. In 2015, Carey was reassigned as executive co-chairman, while James Murdoch became CEO. Carey resigned this position in July 2016 to become a consultant to Fox.\n\nIn 2019, he was on the Fox Corporation board.\n\nFormula One\nOn 23 January 2017, Carey was installed as CEO and Executive chairman of Formula One Group after Liberty Media completed their acquisition of the Formula One Group.\n\nOn September 25th, 2020 Liberty Media announced that Carey would take on the role of non-executive chairman with Stefano Domenicali stepping in as CEO as of January, 2021. Carey’s achievements included the establishment of a cost cap for the first time in Formula 1 and the signing of a more equitable Concorde Agreement with the teams from 2021 to 2025.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nProfile at Bloomberg Businessweek\nProfile and collected coverage at Forbes\nCollected coverage at The Wall Street Journal\n\nCampaign contributions at Newsmeat.com and at FundRace\nForbes Profile\nBusiness Week Interview\n\n1953 births\nLiving people\nAmerican chief executives\nAmerican chief operating officers\nAmerican television executives\nAuto racing executives\nColgate University alumni\nFormula One people\nHarvard Business School alumni\nNews Corporation people\n American people of Irish descent",
"Sarah Jones (born 24 June 1982) is an Australian television presenter and sportscaster on Fox Sports. Jones is currently a host with Fox Footy’s AFL coverage and Fox Cricket‘s BBL coverage after being on Fox Sports News as a reporter and host.\n\nPersonal life and education \nJones grew up in Echuca, Victoria as one of five siblings to parents father Tony and mother Chris but in 1990 Chris was killed in a car crash with Sarah the only child that wasn't in the car at the time with the other siblings in the car but escaping.\n\nJones is a mother of two girls, Mila born in 2015 and Halle born in 2017 with husband Leigh Carlson, a producer at Fox Footy. Jones is Essendon supporter with her grandfather Jack Jones a premiership player at the Bombers and former tour guide at the clubs former headquarters Windy Hill.\n\nCareer \nAt the age of 17, Jones did work experience at Seven Network working a project job during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she did her studies at RMIT in journalism before joining the then Fox Footy Channel in 2002 as a reporter. She became a presenter and reporter at Fox Sports News mainly focusing on AFL and Cricket while she was also involved in Foxtel's Olympics coverage at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and 2012 London Olympics, Jones was a reporter during Fox Sports coverage of the Big Bash.\n\nIn 2016, Jones presented AFL Tonight on Fox Sports News and later becoming boundary rider in Fox Footy’s AFL coverage, in June of that year Jones filled in as studio host of Fox Thursday Night coverage after Eddie McGuire stepped down from the after he made sexist comments on radio earlier that week, she filled the hosting role on Thursdays for the remainder of the season.\n\nHer roles expanded in 2018, when she hosted On The Mark with fellow female broadcasters Kelli Underwood and Neroli Meadows, Jones hosted Fox Footy's match day coverage mainly on Thursdays and Saturdays, and also during the AFLW while she was host during Fox Footy's Grand Final Day preview. Jones also MC’d awards ceremony's including the All-Australian awards, the AFLPA MVP and Australian Football Hall of Fame.\n\nIn 2018, Jones joined Fox Cricket as a host and boundary reporter during its BBL coverage after the network regained cricket rights in Australia.\n\nReferences\n\n1982 births\nLiving people\nFox Sports announcers\nAustralian television presenters\nPeople from Echuca"
] |
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"I don't know.",
"When did O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?",
"I don't know.",
"What stations did he work for?",
"Fox News",
"What year did he work for Fox News?",
"dating back to 2002.",
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"On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network.",
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"After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week;"
] |
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What were the five settlements about?
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What were the five settlements about for O'Reilly Factor?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
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In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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sexual harassment lawsuits
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
Radio personalities from Miami
Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
Television anchors from Denver
Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
| true |
[
"The Albemarle Settlements were the first permanent English settlements in what is now North Carolina, founded in the Albemarle Sound and Roanoke River regions, beginning about the middle of the 17th century. The settlers were mainly Virginians migrating south.\n\nHistory\nIn 1653, the Virginia Assembly granted one Roger Green and 100 residents of Nansemond County 10,000 acres on the Roanoke River west of the Chowan River. In 1662, George Durant purchased lands from the Indians in this region and there is evidence to indicate that others had done the same.\n\nWhen it was learned that the Albemarle settlements were not included in the Carolina proprietary grant of 1663, a new charter was granted in 1665 which included them. A government was instituted in the region of Albemarle Sound in 1664; and within a decade, settlements extended from the Chowan River to Currituck Sound, known as Albemarle County.\n\nDuring Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, Albemarle Settlements offered assistance and refuge to the rebels. The rebellion's strongholds were mostly south of the James River, a region linked to the Albemarle Settlements by roads and rivers. A road linked \"southside Virginia\" to Edenton, Carolina, skirting the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp. The Blackwater River of southside Virginia flowed south to the Chowan River, providing another link.\n\nThe boundary between Virginia and North Carolina was uncertain until a 1728 survey was done under William Byrd II, described in his book The History of the Dividing Line. Until then, many settlers did not know whether their lands were in Virginia or North Carolina.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\n\nHistoric Albemarle Tour\nInner Banks\n\nHistory of the Thirteen Colonies\nPopulated places in colonial Virginia\nPopulated places established in the 17th century\nPre-statehood history of North Carolina\nColonial settlements in North America\nEnglish colonization of the Americas\n1662 establishments in North Carolina",
"Katif () was an Israeli settlement in the Gush Katif bloc in the Gaza Strip, about 1 km north of the Palestinian refugee camp of Deir al-Balah Camp.\n\nHistory\nKatif was founded as a moshav in 1977 by Orthodox Jews. The name is derived from the archeological site nearby, Tel Katifa.\n\nKatif was founded as a paramilitary Nahal settlement in 1973, and handed over to civilians in 1977. Some 70 families, or 330 people, including 220 children, lived in the moshav. A religious elementary school and a high school located there served many of the other settlements in the region. The economy was based on a plastics factory, a fabric factory, and agriculture, including a nursery and a dairy farm.\n\nUnilateral disengagement\nLike all the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, Katif was evacuated as part of the unilateral disengagement plan, decided on by the Israeli government in 2004.\n\nAfter their eviction, most of the families (forty-five) chose to move to a temporary refugee camp adjacent to Amatzia, a previously non-religious moshav of thirty-five families, and start planning their permanent settlement in the area.\n\nFormer Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip\nFormer moshavim\nReligious Israeli settlements\nNahal settlements\nVillages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict\n1973 establishments in the Israeli Military Governorate\n2005 disestablishments in the Palestinian territories"
] |
[
"Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)",
"New York Times report and ouster from Fox News",
"What political party is O'Reilly affiliated with?",
"I don't know.",
"When did O'Reilly start his career as a political commentator?",
"I don't know.",
"What stations did he work for?",
"Fox News",
"What year did he work for Fox News?",
"dating back to 2002.",
"Is he still with Fox News?",
"On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network.",
"Did he have a successful career while at Fox News?",
"After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week;",
"What were the five settlements about?",
"sexual harassment lawsuits"
] |
C_98d80b4dfac946fe8b40e03632bfd775_0
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How much did O'Reilly settle for?
| 8 |
How much did Bill O'Reilly settle for?
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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
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In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The New York Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor. Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor for a few months after the hotel incident, and at one point asked producers for more airtime on the show. After Walsh's complaint, 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into that allegation; the firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, which led to his ouster from Fox. After the five settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21. O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time. CANNOTANSWER
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The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
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William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American journalist, author, and television host.
O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted The O'Reilly Factor until 2017. The O'Reilly Factor had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted The Radio Factor (2002–2009). O'Reilly is a conservative commentator.
In early 2017, The New York Times reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently began hosting a podcast, No Spin News.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan to parents William James Sr. and Winifred Angela (Drake) O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. He is of Irish descent with a small degree of English (Colonial American) ancestry. Some of his father's ancestors lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and on his mother's side he has ancestry from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school, in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, he met future pop-singer Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum". O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel "was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."
After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including the Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. In 1995, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received a master of public administration degree in 1996.
Marist College had bestowed an honorary degree upon O'Reilly, which would later be revoked once the sexual abuse allegations came to light.
Broadcasting career
1973–1980: Early career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut from 1979 to 1980. In 1980, O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, which was for an investigation of corrupt city marshals.
1982-1986: CBS News and return to local television
In 1982, he became a CBS News correspondent, covering the wars in El Salvador on location and in the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. O'Reilly left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of footage of a riot in response to the military junta's surrender shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires shortly after the conclusion of the war.
After departing CBS News in 1982, O'Reilly joined WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in Boston, as a weekday reporter, weekend anchor and later as host of the station's local news magazine New England Afternoon. In 1984, O'Reilly went to KATU in Portland, Oregon, where he remained for nine months, then he returned to Boston and joined WCVB-TV as reporter and columnist-at-large for NewsCenter 5.
1986–1989: ABC News
In 1986, O'Reilly moved to ABC News, where, during his three-year tenure, he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting. He had delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the 1985–86 Hormel strike. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing the eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
1989–1995: Inside Edition
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run after the involvement of original anchor David Frost had ended. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In 1995, former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville replaced O'Reilly on Inside Edition; O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994.
Viral video
On May 12, 2008, an outtake of O'Reilly ranting during his time at Inside Edition surfaced on YouTube. The early 1990s video depicts O'Reilly yelling and cursing at his co-workers while having issues pre-recording the closing lines on his teleprompter, eventually yelling the phrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" before continuing the closing segment to his show. The original video, titled "Bill O'Reilly Flips Out," was removed, but another user reuploaded it the day after and retitled it "Bill O'Reilly Goes Nuts". Immediately after the video surfaced, O'Reilly acknowledged the video's existence, claiming that he was amusing his co-workers and said "I have plenty of much newer stuff... If you want to buy the tapes that I have, I'm happy to sell them to you." The rant was later parodied by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report as well as Family Guy and by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, and was named one of Times "Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns". In October 2008, Wednesday 13 named his first live album after a line in the rant. In 2009, a "dance remix" of O'Reilly's rant was nominated for a Webby Award for "Best Viral Video" but lost to "The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude".
1996–2016: The O'Reilly Factor
In October 1996, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor after his friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories he told. The program was routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show was taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and aired every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and was rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
Progressive media monitoring organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized his reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics. In 2008, citing numerous inaccuracies in his reporting, MediaMatters for America awarded him its first annual "Misinformer of the Year" award.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. He reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing him of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
On August 27, 2002, O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, saying that lyrics of Ludacris (then appearing in ads for Pepsi) glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women". The next day, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Ludacris. Two years later, Ludacris referenced O'Reilly in the song "Number One Spot" with the lyrics "Respected highly, hi, Mr. O'Reilly/Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey," in reference to his sexual-harassment suit with Andrea Mackris while married. In an interview with RadarOnline.com in 2010, Ludacris said he and O'Reilly had made amends after a conversation at a charity event.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, he promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, he responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to his trust in the government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
Beginning in 2005, he periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer". Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. Critics such as Salons Gabriel Winant have asserted that his anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here ... every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed his "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that he used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero". He responded, asserting that "the terms 'conservative', 'liberal', 'left', 'right', 'progressive', 'traditional' and 'centrist' were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors said that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that he propagandized.
On April 19, 2017, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not return to their primetime lineup amid public reporting on the tens of millions of dollars he paid to settle the sexual harassment claims of six women. The show continued, rebranded as The Factor, now hosted by Dana Perino. On the same day, Fox announced that Tucker Carlson's show would be airing an hour earlier to take over O'Reilly's position and that The Five will replace Carlson's usual time at 9 p.m. with a new co-host, Jesse Watters. After O'Reilly was fired, the financial markets responded positively to the decision by Fox News, and its parent company 21st Century Fox rose over two percent in the stock market the next day.
Departure from Fox News
In April 2017, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly had settled five lawsuits involving women who accused O'Reilly of misconduct. After the settlements were reported, the O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week; almost 60 companies withdrew their television advertising from the show amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly. On April 11, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and would return to the program on April 24; he normally took a vacation around Easter. On April 19, Fox News announced that O'Reilly would not be returning to the network. The program was subsequently renamed The Factor on April 19 and aired its last episode on April 21.
O'Reilly later stated his regret that he did not "fight back" against his accusers the way Sean Hannity did when facing the loss of advertisers around the same time.
Post-Fox News career
O'Reilly launched a podcast called No Spin News on April 24, 2017, after his departure from Fox News. In August 2017, O'Reilly began digitally streaming a video version of No Spin News. In May 2017, O'Reilly began to appear as a recurring guest on Friday editions of the Glenn Beck Radio Program. In June 2017, O'Reilly and Dennis Miller co-headlined the public speaking tour, "The Spin Stops Here".
O'Reilly made his first appearance on Fox News since his ouster on September 26, 2017, being interviewed by Sean Hannity.
By 2020, simulcasts of O'Reilly's No Spin News show began to air on Newsmax TV. No Spin News began airing on The First TV in June 2020.
O'Reilly participated in a speaking tour with former president Donald Trump in December 2021, which he said "[provided] a never before heard inside view of his administration".
Other appearances
Newspaper column
O'Reilly wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column through Creators Syndicate that appeared in numerous newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. He discontinued the column at the end of 2013.
Radio ventures
From 2002 to 2009, he hosted a radio program called The Radio Factor that had more than 3.26 million listeners and was carried by more than 400 radio stations. According to the talk radio industry publication Talkers Magazine, he was No. 11 on the "Heavy Hundred," a list of the 100 most important talk show hosts in America.
In 2019, O'Reilly returned to radio with a daily 15-minute series The O'Reilly Update. The program airs during or near lunch hour on most stations in a time slot previously used by Paul Harvey. In September 2020, O'Reilly began hosting a daily radio show on 77WABC titled Common Sense with Bill O’Reilly.
The Daily Show
From 2001 to 2015, O'Reilly appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fifteen times. Stewart also appeared as a guest various times on The O'Reilly Factor. In 2011, Stewart described O'Reilly as "the voice of reason on Fox News", comparing him to "the thinnest kid at fat camp".
In 2012, Stewart joined O'Reilly in a debate for charity entitled, The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium at George Washington University. The New York Times remarked that O'Reilly and Stewart "have been guests on each other’s programs since 2001" but "rarely agree on anything except their mutual respect for each other". In 2014, Stewart debated him on the belief of white privilege. During the debate O'Reilly exclaimed, "You think I'm sitting here because I'm white? What are you, a moron? I'm sitting here because I'm obnoxious, not because I'm white!".
In 2015, O'Reilly briefly appeared on Stewart's final show as host of The Daily Show. O'Reilly joked, "Have fun feeding your rabbits, quitter!" O'Reilly also wrote a lengthy appreciation for Stewart in Deadline Hollywood writing, "[Stewart] will leave a void in the world of political satire. Undeniably, Jon Stewart was great at what he did. Whatever that was."
Film and television appearances
O'Reilly made cameo appearances in the films An American Carol (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Man Down (2015).
In 2010, he famously appeared on The View, where they asked O'Reilly his opinion on whether to remove the mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. O'Reilly responded saying, that he believed they should and during the heated discussion stated, "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to which Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar walked off the set. Barbara Walters chided the other hosts, and stated, "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened." He also made appearances on various talk and late night shows including, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
In 2013, he appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony where he gave tribute to jazz musician Herbie Hancock. O'Reilly's unexpected presence was not lost on the audience, as his appearance elicited audible gasps from the crowd to which O'Reilly responded, "I know I'm surprised too." During his tribute to Hancock, O'Reilly stated, "Herbie is a true gentleman. His fame and his skill reflect the values of that have made this country great...It's that embracing of what is good in mankind that that infuses Hancock's music and makes him a national icon".
Television projects
O'Reilly was an executive producer on many television projects including on made for television films based upon his books. This includes films, Killing Lincoln (2013), Killing Kennedy (2013), Killing Jesus (2015), and Killing Reagan (2016) which aired on National Geographic. O'Reilly received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie for Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus.
From 2015 to 2018, O'Reilly also served as an executive producer on the documentary series, Legends & Lies.
Political views and media coverage
On The O'Reilly Factor and on his former talk-radio program, O'Reilly focused on news and commentary related to politics and culture. O'Reilly has long said that he does not identify with any political ideology, writing in his book The O'Reilly Factor that the reader "might be wondering whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what ... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." On December 6, 2000, the Daily News in New York reported, however, that he had been registered with the Republican Party in the state of New York since 1994. When questioned about this, he said that he was not aware of it and says he registered as an independent after the interview. During a broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly said that there was no option to register as an independent voter; however, there was in fact a box marked "I do not wish to enroll in party." But many view him as a conservative figure. A February 2009 Pew Research poll found that 66% of his television viewers identify themselves as conservative, 24% moderate, and 3% liberal. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that O'Reilly was the second most trusted news personality, after Rush Limbaugh.
In a 2003 interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio, O'Reilly said:
On a September 2007 edition of The Radio Factor, while having a discussion about race with fellow Fox News commentator and author Juan Williams about a meal he shared with Al Sharpton, O'Reilly said "You know when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like... big commotion and everything. But everybody was very nice. And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." He commented that no one in Sylvia's was "screaming 'M'Fer, I want more iced tea.'" He further added, "I think that black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves, getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'" The statement drew criticism from a number of places. Roland S. Martin of CNN said that the notion that black people are just now starting to value education is "ridiculous" and that the notion that black people let Sharpton or Jackson think for them is "nuts". Media Matters for America covered the story on a number of occasions. O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference—black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true" and also called out Media Matters, claiming that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism." Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was "rank dishonesty" and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN." Williams went on to say it was "frustrating" that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.
O'Reilly has long said that his inspiration for speaking up for average Americans is his working-class roots. He has pointed to his boyhood home in Levittown, New York, as a credential. In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Reilly's mother said that her family lived in Westbury, which is a few miles from Levittown. Citing this interview, then liberal talk-show pundit Al Franken accused O'Reilly of distorting his background to create a more working-class image. O'Reilly countered that The Washington Post misquoted his mother and that his mother still lives in his childhood home which was built by William Levitt. O'Reilly placed a copy of the house's mortgage on his website; the mortgage shows a Levittown postal address. O'Reilly has also said, "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale" and that his father, a currency accountant for an oil company, "never earned more than $35,000 a year in his life". O'Reilly responded that his father's $35,000 income only came at the end of his long career.
He was the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which featured Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The Factor. On the show, Colbert referred to him as "Papa Bear". He and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
On May 10, 2008, he was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Disputed claims
George de Mohrenschildt claim
In his bestselling 2013 book Killing Kennedy and on Fox and Friends, O'Reilly claimed he was knocking at the front door of George de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home at the moment Mohrenschildt committed suicide and that he heard the shotgun blast:
In March of 1977, a young television reporter at WFAA in Dallas began looking into the Kennedy assassination. As part of his reporting, he sought an interview with the shadowy Russian professor who had befriended the Oswalds upon their arrival in Dallas in 1962. The reporter traced George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Florida and traveled there to confront him. At the time de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963. As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast [Emphasis added] that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly.
This claim has been disproven by former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley, who cites audio recordings made by Gaeton Fonzi indicating O'Reilly was not present in Florida on the day of Mohrenschildt's suicide.
War coverage claims
On February 19, 2015, David Corn from Mother Jones broke a story reporting a collection of inconsistencies of O'Reilly when recalling his experience covering the 1982 Falklands War. On April 17, 2013, O'Reilly said on his show: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, (...)". In his book, The No Spin Zone, he wrote: "You know that I am not easily shocked. I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands." On a 2004 column on his website he wrote: "Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash." Corn claimed O'Reilly was not in the Falklands, but in Buenos Aires, and that no American journalist was in the Islands during the conflict. He also pointed out that according to O'Reilly's own book, The No Spin Zone, he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the war ended. On February 20, 2015, O'Reilly said on his show, "David Corn, a liar, says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War" and that he never said he was on the Falkland Islands. O'Reilly went on to describe his experience in a riot in Buenos Aires the day Argentina surrendered. David Corn replied that they didn't claim O'Reilly "exaggerated" but rather that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record and that the 2013 clip from his show proves O'Reilly did in fact say he was on the Falklands. Corn told The New York Times: "The question is whether Bill O'Reilly was stating the truth when he repeatedly said that Argentine soldiers used real bullets and fired into the crowd of civilians and many were killed."
In September 2009, during an interview he said he covered the riots in Buenos Aires on the day Argentina surrendered.
During an interview with TheBlaze television network, O'Reilly said: "And if that moron [Corn] doesn't think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he's even dumber than I think he is." This characterization by O'Reilly was disputed by former CBS colleague Eric Engberg who was in Buenos Aires at the time and challenged his (O'Reilly's) description of the riot as a "combat situation". Engberg went on to say it was a moderate riot and he heard no "shots fired" and saw no "ambulances or tanks" in the streets. The following week O'Reilly contradicted Engberg's claims, presenting archived CBS video of the riot that ensued after Argentine's surrender. The video appears to show riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets toward the crowd; additionally, former NBC bureau chief Don Browne referred to the riot as an "intense situation" with many people hurt and tanks in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The fallout from the coverage generated by the questioning of O'Reilly's reporting during the Falklands War led to questions of claims made by O'Reilly while in El Salvador and Northern Ireland. In his 2013 book, Keep it Pithy, O'Reilly wrote: "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs." In a 2005 radio program O'Reilly said he had "seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador" and in 2012, on The O’Reilly Factor, said "I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head." O'Reilly and Fox News clarified that he had not been an eyewitness to any of those events but had just seen photographs of the murdered nuns and Irish bombings.
Sexual harassment lawsuits
On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued Andrea Mackris, a former producer for The O'Reilly Factor, alleging extortion. O'Reilly claimed that Mackris had threatened a lawsuit unless he paid her more than $60 million. Later the same day, Mackris sued O'Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. Her complaint alleged that O'Reilly called her engaging in a crude phone conversation. On October 28, 2004, O'Reilly and Mackris reached an out-of-court settlement in which Mackris dropped her sexual-assault suit against O'Reilly and O'Reilly dropped his extortion claim against Mackris. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but in 2017 The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had agreed to pay Mackris about $9 million and that they would issue a public statement that there had been "no wrongdoing whatsoever".
After Fox News executive Roger Ailes was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox News coworker Gretchen Carlson, O'Reilly said in July 2016, that Ailes was a "target" as a "famous, powerful or wealthy person" and called him the "best boss I ever had". After Ailes was fired and the network settled the lawsuit with Carlson, O'Reilly declined to comment further, saying that "for once in my life, I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."
Shortly after Ailes was fired, Fox News settled a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly with former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that O'Reilly pursued a romantic relationship with her, and made lewd remarks. Legal fees in this case were settled and paid for by Fox News. The settlement was worth $1.6 million. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News, claiming that O'Reilly made sexually suggestive comments to her. Judge George B. Daniels dismissed the lawsuit in May 2018 and wrote that Tantaros' allegations were "primarily based on speculation and conjecture".
The New York Times reported in April 2017 that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against O'Reilly dating back to 2002. Previously, only the settlements to Mackris and Huddy were publicly reported; The Times reported that Fox hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million.
In October 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly was also sued by former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her. O'Reilly paid Wiehl $32 million to confidentially settle the lawsuit, and when the details of this settlement were leaked, O'Reilly was dropped by the United Talent Agency. His literary agent, WME, also announced that they would no longer represent him for future deals after the October report.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. The couple met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury, New York, on November 2, 1996. O'Reilly and McPhilmy have a daughter Madeline (born 1998) and a son Spencer (born 2003).
The couple separated on April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
In May 2015, court transcripts from O'Reilly's custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed an allegation of domestic violence. Following this allegation, O'Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as "100% false" and declined to comment further in order "to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect [his] children". In February 2016, O'Reilly lost a bid for sole custody of both of his children.
Books by O'Reilly
O'Reilly has authored or co-authored a number of books:
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.)
(Best-selling nonfiction children's book of 2005)
(Reached No. 1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list; Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months)
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2017). Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2018). Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill (2019). The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America. Thorndike Press.
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2020). Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America. Henry Holt and Co. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2021). Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. St. Martin's Press. .
O'Reilly, Bill; Martin Dugard (2022). Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250279255.
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
References
Further reading
External links
BillOReilly.com/No Spin News archive
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
American broadcast news analysts
American columnists
American infotainers
American male journalists
American online publication editors
American people of Irish descent
American men podcasters
American podcasters
American political journalists
American political commentators
American political writers
American print editors
American social commentators
American talk radio hosts
American war correspondents
Boston University College of Communication alumni
CBS News people
Chaminade High School alumni
Fox News people
Independence Party of New York politicians
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Journalists from New Jersey
Journalists from New York City
Journalists from Pennsylvania
Marist College alumni
New York (state) Republicans
American opinion journalists
People from Fort Lee, New Jersey
People from Levittown, New York
People from Manhasset, New York
People from Westbury, New York
People stripped of honorary degrees
Radio personalities from Connecticut
Radio personalities from Miami
Radio personalities from New York City
Radio personalities from Pennsylvania
Semi-professional baseball players
Television anchors from Boston
Television anchors from Denver
Television anchors from New York City
Writers from Miami
Writers from New Jersey
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Male critics of feminism
Newsmax TV people
| true |
[
"Jon Udell is a freelance journalist. From 2007 to 2014 he was \"Evangelist\" at Microsoft. Previously he was lead analyst for the InfoWorld Test Center.\n\nUdell is author of Practical Internet Groupware, published in 1999 by O'Reilly Media, and is an advisor to O'Reilly's Safari Tech Books Online. He wrote the column \"Tangled in the Threads\" for Byte.com from 1999–2002, and continues to be an active blogger. In this context he published a screencast illustrating how Wikipedia articles evolve, using Heavy metal umlaut as an example. A major focus of much of his writing is the question of how to enable non-experts to find data (often on the internet) and utilize in new ways.\n\nHe created the LibraryLookup bookmarklet project, which makes it easier for people to discover if their local library has a copy of a given book. Jon is a graduate of both the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nMicrosoft employees\nUniversity of Michigan alumni\nO'Reilly writers",
"See also The Life of Riley (disambiguation).\n \nThe Life of Reilly is a 2006 American film adaptation of actor Charles Nelson Reilly's one-man play Save It For the Stage: The Life of Reilly. Written by Reilly and Paul Linke, and directed by Frank L. Anderson and Barry Poltermann, the film is an edited version of Reilly's stage show, filmed live before audiences at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, California in October 2004. The final film is compiled from Reilly's final two performances, interspersed with clips, images and music.\n\nThe Life of Reilly premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2006 to positive reviews and proceeded to play for over a year on the festival circuit, including the Seattle International Film Festival and Newfest. A limited theatrical release began in November 2007.\n\nOriginal stage performance\nThe Life of Reilly was originally a theatre piece called Save It For the Stage: The Life of Reilly, which was first performed in Los Angeles in July 2000. The play was based upon lectures that Reilly, a Tony Award-winning Broadway actor, had been giving to college theater students. The stage play was written by Reilly and Paul Linke, and directed by Linke.\n\nReilly took the play around the country, including the New Conservatory Theatre Center, San Francisco and the Irish Repertory Theatre, New York City, both in 2001.\n\nThe New York Times hailed the play as \"a homey, entertaining evening, what one imagines it might be like to meet Mr. Reilly through mutual friends, have a couple of drinks and listen to a series of his anecdotes...\" San Francisco's SF Weekly called Reilly's performance \"nebbishy, cranky, excitable, grouchy, Bronx-accented, eccentric, and fey: He's like a loudmouthed, American Quentin Crisp.\" The running time of the performance often ranged over three hours, a point cited in some critics' reviews. For example, Variety said, \"If there's something exasperating about the show's expansiveness, there's something endearing, too, about Reilly's insistence on his two full acts of stage time. His celebrity has been peculiar and peripheral -- he's far better known to most for his high-camp guffaw on Match Game than for directing Julie Harris in The Belle of Amherst or appearing on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie and How to Succeed in Business. So why not let him run a little amok? At 70, he's earned it. And with his sharp wit and scruffily friendly, eccentric stage presence, he's wonderful company.\"\n\nFor his work in Save it For the Stage: The Life of Reilly, Reilly was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2001 and an Outer Critics Circle Award in 2002, both for Outstanding Solo Performance.\n\nPlot\nThe film begins with Reilly recounting his childhood and his parents in New York City and Connecticut. We meet his family—an institutionalized father, a racist, baseball bat-wielding mother, and a lobotomized aunt, amongst others. \"Eugene O'Neill would never get near this family,\" Reilly declares.\n \nPrior to being put into an institution, Reilly's father, a Paramount Pictures poster artist and illustrator, was offered the chance to go into business with another illustrator with the intention of making their first animated film in color together. The catch was simply that the senior Mr. Reilly would have to move himself and his family to California. Perhaps a defining moment in young Reilly's life, his father asked his mother her thoughts and she unceremoniously rejected the possibility. The other illustrator went west without the senior Mr. Reilly as a partner. That other illustrator was named Walt Disney.\n \nAfter this missed opportunity, Reilly's father began drinking heavily and eventually had a nervous breakdown. Upon being institutionalized, the family was forced to move out of the Bronx up to Connecticut to live with Mrs. Reilly's family.\n\nWhile in Connecticut, he and a childhood friend narrowly escape the Hartford circus fire.\n \nWhen Reilly turned eighteen, he moved to New York City. \"If you wanted to be an actor in those days,\" he explains, \"You did something that’s really unheard of today… you studied.\" Young and hungry (literally), Reilly managed to find an acting class at New School. Its rather liberal open door policy allowed aspiring actors admission even if they did not have the money to pay.\n \nReilly's class was taught by a young, award-winning, soon-to-be-legendary actress, Uta Hagen. In the class were such future stars and notables as Steve McQueen, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, Geraldine Page and Gene Hackman. It was a group of future Academy Award, Tony Award and Emmy Award winners, and, as Charles explains, \"We wanted to go on the stage, none of us had any money, and this entire list… couldn’t act for shit.\"\n \nIt was about this time when a friend of Reilly's arranged a meeting with a powerful NBC executive. Reilly went in and was told, \"They don’t let queers on television.\" In retrospect, Reilly describes it as, \"A short meeting.\" Despite the apparent prejudice against him, his talent and tenacity landed him on Broadway, winning his first Tony Award for his role in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, as well as leading roles in the original Broadway casts of Bye Bye Birdie and Hello, Dolly!\n\nReilly went on to become a fixture in television appearing in numerous episodes of Car 54, Where Are You?, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, and starring in Lidsville. He also made hundreds of guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, second in number of appearances only to Bob Hope, and had a more recent memorable guest spot on The X-Files. Over the years, he developed a habit of looking through the week's TV Guide to see how many times he would be on TV that week. Coming in at over a hundred separate appearances, he reflected on the NBC executive who told him he would not be allowed on television—but now Reilly wondered, \"Who do I have to fuck to get off?!\"\n \nSuccess came to Reilly's professional life, and he has used all the knowledge and expertise he has gained through a lifetime spent acting to teach. His longtime friend Burt Reynolds gave him a theater in which to teach the craft of acting, and it has fulfilled Reilly ever since. As we leave him in what he calls \"The twilight of an extraordinary life\", we see a portrait of an artist, a victim of prejudice who rose above it, a trailblazing comedic personality, an entertainer, a son, a teacher, and a man laid bare for all to see.\n\nProduction\nThe Life of Reilly was filmed on HD video live in front of an audience. Reilly was ill at the time with chronic asthma and was forced to cancel one of the three performances. The bulk of the final film was shot on the final night's performance, which would turn out to be the last time Reilly performed in front of an audience. Additional material was filmed during rehearsals, and the final film is an edited version of his full three-hour-plus live performance, interspersed with short film clips, animation and re-enactments.\n\nTheatrical release\nThe Life of Reilly received a regional theatrical release primarily in Landmark Theatres in the United States and Canada in late 2007 and throughout 2008 to very positive reviews but limited box office and did not receive an immediate DVD release.\n\nHome media release\n\nIn early 2009 the filmmakers announced that the film had been slated for release by New Yorker Films but was indefinitely delayed due to the bankruptcy of the distributor. In October 2010 the filmmakers made a 2-disc DVD and 2-disc Blu-ray available on Amazon.\n\nThe sets include the theatrical release, a 3-hour length staged version of the play, a \"making of\" featurette, and a feature-length commentary with Burt Reynolds, Anne Meara, Jerry Stiller, and Dom DeLuise.\n\nCritical reception\nAfter its release, The Life of Reilly garnered a \"100% Fresh\" rating from critics at Rotten Tomatoes and was listed as the best reviewed film of 2007.\n\nJohn Simon (critic) reviewed The Life of Reilly saying that \"(Reilly's) life provided the blueprint, but Reilly's literary artistry had to construct it into a fabulous narrative full of sharply observed detail, irresistible humor, unmilked melancholy and humanely observed humanity. Much of it is worthy of Balzac, Dickens or Mark Twain.\"\n\nThe Village Voice wrote that \"Rambling, blithe, nostalgic, and out for revenge, Reilly presents a witty anecdotal timeline of his life, and the bittersweet milestones play like a Spalding Gray monologue loosened up with a few shots of tequila.\"\n\nThe film appeared on several critics' and reader top ten lists of the best films of 2007 including: The Village Voice/LA Weekly Film Poll of Best Films of 2007, which featured The Life of Reilly in its top ten \"Best Documentary\" list; Nerve.com's 2007 Reader's Poll, which listed The Life of Reilly as the 3rd Funniest Film of 2007; and Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine, who picked The Life of Reilly as the year's 10th best film overall.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The Life of Reilly official site\n The Life of Reilly theatrical trailer\n The Life of Reilly on Twitter\n\nAmerican biographical films\n2006 comedy films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\n2006 films\nAmerican comedy films\nAmerican films based on plays\n2007 comedy films\n2007 films"
] |
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