The James Logan Courier

From wikipedia:
Mary Morris Vaux Walcott (July 31, 1860 – August 22, 1940) was an American artist and naturalist known for her watercolor paintings of wildflowers.

She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a wealthy Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) family. After graduating from the Friends Select School in Philadelphia in 1879, she worked at home and on the family farm. During this time she took an interest in watercolor painting, and began painting illustrations of wildflowers that she saw on family trips to the Rocky Mountains of Canada. She also became interested in glaciers at that time.

See dozens of Mary Vaux Walcott's botanical illustrations, free from the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine.

From wikipedia:

Newton Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869–May 19, 1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.

Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis, the son of John S. Tarkington and Elizabeth Booth Tarkington. He was named after his maternal uncle Newton Booth, then the governor of California. He first attended Purdue University but graduated from Princeton University in 1893. While at Princeton he was editor of the Nassau Literary Magazine and formed the Princeton Triangle Club. He was also voted the most popular man in his class. When Tarkington's class graduated in 1893 he lacked sufficient credits for a degree at Princeton, where he attended classes for two years. His later achievements, however, won him an honorary A.M. in 1899 and an honorary Litt.D. in 1918.

He was one of the most popular American novelists of his time, with The Two Vanrevels and Mary's Neck appearing on the annual best-seller lists nine times.

Read Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington, one of 21 of his works available free from Project Gutenberg.

From wikipedia:
Dr. José Celso Barbosa (July 27, 1857 – September 21, 1921) was a medical Physician, sociologist, and political leader of Puerto Rico. Known as "The father of the Statehood for Puerto Rico movement", Barbosa was also the first Puerto Rican with an American (United States) medical degree.

He was born in the city of Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Barbosa received both his primary and secondary education in Puerto Rico. He was also the first person who had both black ancestry and white ancestry to attend Puerto Rico's prestigious Jesuit Seminary. After graduating from the Seminary, Barbosa tutored private students to save money to attend college. In 1875, he moved to New York to attend prep school where he learned English in a year.

Learn more about Dr. José Celso Barbosa; read a free pdf pamphlet from the Office of Legislative Services for the House of Representatives and Senate of Puerto Rico.

From wikipedia:
Antonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado (July 26, 1875 – February 22, 1939) was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98.

Machado was born in Seville one year after his brother Manuel. The family moved to Madrid in 1883 and both brothers enrolled in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. During these years, and with the encouragement of his teachers, Antonio discovered his passion for literature.


Read poems by Antonio Machado, free from poemhunter.com.

From wikipedia:
Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode (July 25, 1914, Los Angeles, California – December 31, 1994) was a decathlete and football star before finding even greater fame as a pioneering African-American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960. He served in the US Army during World War II.

Learn more about Woody Strode, free from the Internet Movie Database.

From wikipedia:
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 23 July 1856 –1 August 1920 (aged 64), was an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer and independence fighter who was the first popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities derogatorily called him the "Father of the Indian unrest". He was also conferred upon the honorary title of "Lokmanya", which literally means "Accepted by the people (as their leader)".

Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of "Swaraj" (self rule) in Indian consciousness. His famous quote, "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it !" is well-remembered in India even today.

Learn more about Bal Gangadhar Tilak, free from freeindia.org.

From wikipedia:
Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet born in New York City.

She is best known for "The New Colossus", a sonnet written in 1883; its final lines were engraved on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1912. The sonnet was solicited by William Maxwell Evarts as a donation to an auction, conducted by the "Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty" to raise funds to build the pedestal.

Learn more about Emma Lazarus and her poetry, free from NPR.org.

From wikipedia:
Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Finding both inspiration and provocation in the poetry of T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote poetry that was traditional in form, difficult and often archaic in language, and which sought to express something more than the ironic despair that Crane found in Eliot's poetry. Though frequently condemned as being difficult beyond comprehension, Crane has proved in the long run to be one of the most influential poets in English language of his generation.

Read poems by Hart Crane, and learn more about him, free from Poets.org.

From wikipedia:
Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known to history as Alexander the Great, was an Ancient Greeki[›] king (basileus) of Macedon. Born in 356 BC, Alexander succeeded his father Philip II of Macedon to the throne in 336 BC, and died in Bablyon in 323 BC at the age of 32.

Alexander was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and it is presumed that he was undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, adding it to Macedon's European territories; according to some modern writers, this was much of the world then known to the ancient Greeks (the 'Ecumene'). His father, Philip, had unified most of the city-states of mainland Greece under Macedonian hegemony in the League of Corinth. As well as inheriting hegemony over the Greeks, Alexander also inherited the Greeks' long-running feud with the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. After reconfirming Macedonian rule by quashing a rebellion of southern Greek city-states, Alexander launched a short but successful campaign against Macedon's northern neighbours. He was then able to turn his attention towards the east and the Persians. In a series of campaigns lasting 10 years, Alexander's armies repeatedly defeated the Persians in battle, in the process conquering the entirety of the Empire. He then, following his desire to reach the 'ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea', invaded India, but was eventually forced to turn back by the near-mutiny of his troops.

Visit The Ten-Horned Beast: The Alexander the Great.

Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-Jewish philosopher, political theorist and sociologist, and a member of the Frankfurt School. His best known works are Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man and The Aesthetic Dimension.

Herbert Marcuse was born in Berlin to Carl Marcuse and Gertrud Kreslawsky and raised in a Jewish family and served in the German Army, caring for horses in Berlin during the First World War. He then became a member of a Soldiers' Council that participated in the aborted socialist Spartacist uprising. After completing his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1922 on the German Künstlerroman, he moved back to Berlin, where he worked in publishing. He returned to Freiburg in 1929 to write a Habilitation with Martin Heidegger, which was published in 1932 as Hegel's Ontology and Theory of Historicity in spite of Heidegger's rejection. With his academic career blocked by the rise of the Third Reich, in 1933 Marcuse joined the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, emigrating from Germany that same year, going first to Switzerland, then the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1940.

Visit the Herbert Marcuse Official Homepage.

From wikipedia:
Mary Jessamyn West (July 18, 1902 – February 23, 1984) was an American Quaker who wrote numerous stories and novels, notably The Friendly Persuasion (1945).

West went to Whittier College in the 1920s. There she helped found the Palmer Society, in 1921.

Much of her work concerns Indiana Quakers. Although she was born in Vernon, Indiana she left the state at the age of six when her family moved to California. Asked about this in an interview, she said, "I write about [Indiana] because knowing little about it, I can create it."

Listen to two short excerpts from radio programs featuring Jessamyn West's work, free from the California Legacy Project.

From wikipedia:
Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 Malden, Massachusetts – March 11, 1970 Temecula, California) was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray and Robert Parr.

Gardner graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1909, and received his only formal legal education at Valparaiso University School of Law Indiana. He attended law school for approximately 1 month, was suspended from school when his interest in boxing became a distraction, then settled in California where he became a self-taught attorney and passed the state bar exam in 1911. He opened his own law office in Merced, California, then worked for five years for a sales agency. In 1921, he returned to the practice of law, creating the firm of Sheridan, Orr, Drapeau and Gardner in Ventura, California .

Visit the Erle Stanley Gardner Virtual Museum.

Thomas Bulfinch (July 15, 1796 - May 27, 1867[1]) was an American writer, born in Newton, Massachusetts. Bulfinch belonged to a well educated Bostonian merchant family of modest means. His father was Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Massachusetts State House in Boston and parts of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Bulfinch supported himself through his position at the Merchants' Bank of Boston.

Although Thomas Bulfinch reorganized Psalms to illustrate the history of the Hebrews, he is best known as the author of Bulfinch's Mythology, an 1881 compilation of his previous works:

1. The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855)
2. The Age of Chivalry, or Legends of King Arthur (1858)
3. Legends of Charlemagne, or Romance of the Middle Ages (1863)

The compilation assembled posthumously by Edward Everett Hale, known simply as Bulfinch's Mythology includes various stories belonging to the mythological traditions known as the Matter of Rome, the Matter of Britain and the Matter of France, respectively.

Read The Age of Fable, by Thomas Bulfinch, one of four of his works available free from Project Gutenberg.

From wikipedia:
Stewart Culin (July 13, 1858 - 1929) was an ethnographer and author interested in games, art and dress. He believed that similarity in gaming demonstrated similarity and contact among cultures across the world.

Born Robert Stewart Culin, a son of Mina Barrett Daniel Culin and John Culin, in Philadelphia, Culin was schooled at Nazareth Hall, a well-regarded boy's school in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. While he had no formal education in anthropology, Culin played a role in the development of the field. His interest began with the Asian-American population of Philadelphia, then composed chiefly of Chinese-American laborers. His first published work was an 1887 article entitled The Practice of Medicine by the Chinese in America. In 1889 Culin published a report about Chinese games, an 1890 article about Italian marionettes was inspired by a visit to a marionette theater in New York.

Read "The Value of Games in Ethnology," by Stewart Culin, free from the University of Waterloo.

From wikipedia:
Beah Richards (July 12, 1920 – September 14, 2000) was an American actress with a long career on stage, screen and television. She was also a poet, playwright and author.

Born Beulah Richardson in Vicksburg, Mississippi, her mother was a seamstress and PTA advocate and her father was a Baptist minister. In 1948, she graduated from Dillard University in New Orleans and two years later moved to New York City. Her career started to take off in 1955 when she portrayed an eighty-four-year-old-grandmother in the off-Broadway show Take a Giant Step. She often played the role of a mother or grandmother, and continued acting her entire life. She appeared in the original Broadway productions of Purlie Victorious, The Miracle Worker, and A Raisin in the Sun.

Read Beah Richards' obituary, free from The Guardian.

From wikipedia:
Ann Ward Radcliffe (9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English author, a pioneer of the gothic novel. It was her technique of the explained supernatural, in which every seemingly supernatural intrusion is eventually traced back to natural causes, and the impeccable conduct of her heroines that finally met with the approval of the reviewers, transforming the gothic novel into something socially acceptable.

Read The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe, one of two of her works available free from Project Gutenberg.

Jester Hairston (July 9, 1901 - January 18, 2000) was an American composer, songwriter, arranger, choral conductor, and actor.

Hairston was born in Belews Creek, a rural community on the border of Stokes and Forsyth counties in North Carolina. At an early age he and his family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His grandparents had been slaves.

He graduated cum laude from Tufts University and studied music at the Juilliard School as well. He worked as a choir conductor in the early stages of his career. His work with choirs on Broadway eventually led to his singing and acting in plays, films, radio programs, and television shows.

Read an interview with Jester Hairston, free from the African American Music Collection of the University of Michigan.

From wikipedia:
Louis Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the later years of the swing era. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #59 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Learn more about Louis Jordan, and hear him perform, free from LouisJordan.com.

From wikipedia:
Ezzard Mack Charles (July 7, 1921 – May 28, 1975) was an African-American professional boxer and former world heavyweight champion.

He was born in Lawrenceville, Georgia, but is commonly thought of as a Cincinnatian. Charles graduated from Woodward High School in Cincinnati where he was already becoming a well-known fighter. Known as "The Cincinnati Cobra," Charles is best remembered for his wins as a heavyweight, but most experts feel he was in his prime as a light heavyweight. Although he never won the championship at that weight, Ring magazine has rated him as the greatest light heavyweight of all time.

Read a 1950 article about Ezzard Charles and Joe Louis, free from Google.

From wikipedia:
Dr. Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander (July 6, 1915–November 30, 1998) was an African-American poet and author born in Birmingham, Alabama. She wrote as Margaret Walker. One of her best-known poems is "For My People".

Her father Sigismund C. Walker was a Methodist minister and her mother was Marion Dozier Walker. They helped get her started in literature by teaching a lot of philosophy and poetry to her as a child.

Learn more about Dr. Margaret Walker Alexander, free from The Nation magazine.

From wikipedia:
Mary Walcott (July 5, 1675 – after 1719) was one of the witnesses at the Salem Witch Trials of Salem, Massachusetts in the years 1692 and 1693.

She was the daughter of Captain Jonathan Walcott (1639-1699), and his wife Mary Sibley (1644-1683), both of Salem, and was about seventeen years old when the allegations started in 1692. Her aunt, Mary Woodrow, the wife of Samuel Sibley (1657-1708), was the person who first showed Tituba and her husband John Indian how to bake a witch cake to feed to a dog in order that she and her friends might ascertain exactly who it was that was afflicting them. Joseph B. Felt quotes in the The Annals of Salem (1849 edition) vol. 2, p. 476 [from the town records]:

March 11, 1692 – "Mary, the wife of Samuel Sibley, having been suspended from communion with the church there, for the advices she gave John [husband of Tituba] to make the above experiment, is restored on confession that her purpose was innocent."


Read Mary Walcott's Salem Witch Trial testimony against George Burroughs, free from the University of Virginia Library.

From wikipedia:
Henrietta Swan Leavitt (July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921) was an American astronomer and the deaf daughter of a Congregational minister. A graduate of Radcliffe College, Leavitt went to work in 1893 at the Harvard College Observatory in a menial capacity as a "computer", assigned to count images on photographic plates. Study of the plates led Leavitt to propound a groundbreaking theory, worked out while she labored as a $10.50-a-week assistant, that was the basis for the pivotal work of astronomer Edwin Hubble and radically changed the theory of modern astronomy, an accomplishment for which Leavitt received almost no credit during her lifetime.

Read Henrietta Swan Leavitt: a Star of the Brightest Magnitude, free from the American Chemical Society.

From wikipedia:
Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher (July 3, 1908 – June 22, 1992) was a prolific and well-respected writer, writing more than 20 books during her lifetime and also publishing two volumes of journals and correspondence shortly before her death in 1992. Her first book, Serve it Forth, was published in 1937. Her books deal primarily with food, considering it from many aspects: preparation, natural history, culture, and philosophy. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored the art of living as a secondary theme in her writing. Her style and pacing are noted elements of her short stories and essays.

Fisher was born Mary Frances Kennedy in Albion, Michigan on July 3, 1908. In 1911, her father, Rex Kennedy, moved the family to Whittier, California to pursue a career in journalism. Although Whittier was primarily a Quaker community at that time, Mary Frances was brought up within the Episcopal Church.

Learn more about M.F.K. Fisher at the M.F.K. Fisher Foundation webpage.

Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education. He was nominated to the court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, the great-grandson of a slave. His original name was Thoroughgood, but he shortened it to Thurgood in second grade because he disliked spelling it. His father, William Marshall, who was a railroad porter, instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law. Additionally, as a child in Baltimore, he was punished for his school misbehavior by being forced to write copies of the Constitution, which he later said piqued his interest in the document.

From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

William Strunk, Jr. (July 1, 1869, Cincinnati, Ohio—September 26, 1946, Ithaca, New York) was Professor of English at Cornell University and is best known as the author of the first editions of The Elements of Style, a guide to English usage, which he had printed privately in 1918 for the use of his students. It became a classic on the local campus, known as "the little book".

In the original edition, Strunk describes the purpose of the book as follows:

"It aims to lighten the task of instructor and student by concentrating attention ... on a few essentials, the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated."

Read William Strunk's classic "Elements of Style," free from Bartleby.com.