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Fairfax Henry Wheelan
Fairfax Henry Wheelan (September 27, 1856 – March 26, 1915) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and political reformer. As the chief complaining witness of voter fraud in 1904, he played a primary role in the eventual downfall of San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz and his attorney and political boss Abe Ruef. Early life and education Wheelan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Peter Wheelan and Catherine Frances Baker. Wheelan¹s father built and operated one of the first flour mills in California and was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and was member of California State Assembly 11th District, 1883-85. His grandfather, John Henry Baker, was the owner of Golden Gate Ranch, later to be known as Baker Beach in San Francisco. He was educated McClure Military Academy in Oakland and the Christian Brothers School in Dublin. He entered Harvard College in 1875 and graduated in the Class of 1880, which included classmates of future president Theo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene Schmitz
Eugene Edward Schmitz (August 22, 1864 – November 20, 1928), often referenced as "Handsome Gene" Schmitz, was an American musician and politician, the 26th mayor of San Francisco (1902-7), who was in office during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Early life Born in San Francisco, Schmitz was the son of an Irish mother and a German father. Career He played the violin and conducted the orchestra at the Columbia Theatre on Powell Street in San Francisco. He was president of the Musicians' Union, when city boss Abe Ruef chose him to run for mayor of his hometown on the ticket of the Union Labor Party. Schmitz was elected on November 7, 1901, thereafter giving protection to criminals, including houses of prostitution for protection money, while remaining popular with the working class. Despite opposition from a reform candidate backed by a fusion party, he was reelected in 1903 and 1905, each time by wide majorities. In 1905, Schmitz won by a very large vote, receiving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Belasco
David Belasco (July 25, 1853 – May 14, 1931) was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director, and playwright. He was the first writer to adapt the short story ''Madame Butterfly'' for the stage. He launched the theatrical career of many actors, including James O'Neill, Mary Pickford, Lenore Ulric, and Barbara Stanwyck. Belasco pioneered many innovative new forms of stage lighting and special effects in order to create realism and naturalism.Osnes, Beth, and Gill, Sam. ''Acting: An International Encyclopedia'', ABC-CLIO (2001) p. 34Marker, Lise-Lone, ''David Belasco: Naturalism in the American Theater'', Princeton Univ. Press (1975) Early years David Belasco was born in 1853 in San Francisco, California, the son of Abraham H. Belasco (1830–1911) and Reyna Belasco (née Nunes, 1830–1899), Sephardic Jews who had immigrated to the United States from London's Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community during the California Gold Rush. He began working as a youth in a San ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard College Alumni
The list of Harvard University people includes notable graduates, professors, and administrators affiliated with Harvard University. For a list of notable non-graduates of Harvard, see notable non-graduate alumni of Harvard. For a list of Harvard's presidents, see President of Harvard University. Eight Presidents of the United States have graduated from Harvard University: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Bush graduated from Harvard Business School, Hayes and Obama from Harvard Law School, and the others from Harvard College. Over 150 Nobel Prize winners have been associated with the university as alumni, researchers or faculty. Nobel laureates Pulitzer Prize winners ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1915 Deaths
Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January *January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction". *January 1 ** WWI: British Royal Navy battleship HMS ''Formidable'' is sunk off Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat, with the loss of 547 crew. ** Battle of Broken Hill: A train ambush near Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, is carried out by two men (claiming to be in support of the Ottoman Empire) who are killed, together with 4 civilians. * January 5 – Joseph E. Carberry sets an altitude record of , carrying Capt. Benjamin Delahauf Foulois as a passenger, in a fixed-wing aircraft. * January 12 ** The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote. ** '' A Fool There Was'' premières in the United States, starring Theda Bara as a ''femme fatale''; she quickly becomes one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1856 Births
Events January–March * January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch in California. * January 23 – American paddle steamer SS ''Pacific'' leaves Liverpool (England) for a transatlantic voyage on which she will be lost with all 186 on board. * January 24 – U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in "Bleeding Kansas" to be in rebellion. * January 26 – First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the suppress an indigenous uprising, in response to Governor Stevens' declaration of a "war of extermination" on Native communities. * January 29 ** The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte. ** Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross as a British military decoration. * February ** The Tintic War breaks out in Utah. ** The National Dress Reform Association is founded in the United States to promote "rat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoebe Hearst
Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst (December 3, 1842 – April 13, 1919) was an American philanthropist, feminist and suffragist. Hearst was the founder of the University of California Museum of Anthropology, now called the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and the co-founder of the National Parent-Teacher Association. Early life She was born Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson in St. Clair, Missouri, in Franklin County, the daughter of Drucilla (Whitmire) and Randolph Walker Apperson. In her early years, Phoebe studied to be a teacher. Her childhood consisted of helping her father with finances at his store, learning French, and playing the piano. In 1860, businessman George Hearst met Phoebe when he returned to St. Clair to care for his dying mother. When they married on June 15, 1862, George Hearst was 41 years old, and Phoebe was 19. Family life Soon after their marriage, the couple left Missouri and moved to San Francisco, California, where Phoebe gave birth to their o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Committee Of Fifty (1906)
This Committee of Fifty, sometimes referred to as Committee of Safety, Citizens' Committee of Fifty or Relief and Restoration Committee of Law and Order, was called into existence by Mayor Eugene Schmitz during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The Mayor invited civic leaders, entrepreneurs, newspaper men and politicians—but none of the members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors—to participate in this committee in whose hands the civil administration of San Francisco would rest. Schmitz thought it necessary to form this body to manage the crisis during the disaster, although there was no legal basis for it. It first assembled in the basement of the ruined Hall of Justice on the afternoon of the earthquake, Wednesday, April 18, at 3 p.m. By 5 p.m. the location became dangerous and the Committee crossed Portsmouth Square to meet at the Plaza Hotel, which in turn had to be abandoned two hours later. At 8 p.m. the Committee assembled at the Fairmont Hotel's ballroom, sitti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1906 San Francisco Earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in San Francisco and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died, and over 80% of the city was destroyed. The events are remembered as one of the worst and deadliest earthquakes in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the lists of American disasters. Tectonic setting The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The strike-slip fault is characterize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco Evening Bulletin
The ''San Francisco Evening Bulletin'' was a newspaper in San Francisco, founded as the ''Daily Evening Bulletin'' in 1855 by James King of William. King used the newspaper to crusade against political corruption, and built it into having the highest circulation in the city. He died a year after its founding, assassinated by rival newspaperman and local politician James P. Casey, whom King had exposed as an ex-felon. William Chauncey Bartlett and Samuel Williams were among its editors, with Williams "responsible for dramatic criticism and book reviews". Fremont Older became editor-in-chief in 1895, at a time when the newspaper had diminished in influence, and he built it up by again attacking corruption. He was forced to step down in 1918, and in 1929 the newspaper was bought by William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Ide Wheeler
Benjamin Ide Wheeler (July 15, 1854– May 2, 1927) was a professor of Greek and comparative philology at Cornell University, writer, and President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919. Life and career Early years Benjamin Ide Wheeler was born in Randolph, Massachusetts,''The Genealogical and Encyclopedic History of the Wheeler Family in America'' (1914) American College of Genealogy (Digitized by Google) on July 15, 1854, the son of the Rev. Benjamin and Mary Eliza (Ide) Wheeler. His father was successively a church pastor in Plaistow, New Hampshire; Pawtucket, Rhode Island; Randolph, Massachusetts; Haverhill, Massachusetts; Saco, Maine; Franklin, New Hampshire. His mother, Mary Eliza Ide, was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, daughter of Ebenezer Ide of the Ide family which had its origin in South Attleborough, then Rehoboth. Their only son, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, had his education first in the public schools of Haverhill and Saco, Maine. It was at Saco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albertine Randall
Albertine Randall Wheelan (May 27, 1863 - January 9, 1954) was an American illustrator, cartoonist, and costume designer. Early life Albertine Randall was born May 27, 1863, in San Francisco, California. A 1921 article in the '' American Magazine of Art'' lists San Francisco's Chinatown as a particular influence on her artistic development. In 1887, she married businessman Fairfax Henry Wheelan, with whom she had two children, Edgar Stow Wheelan and Fairfax Randall Wheelan. After her husband's death in 1915, she moved to New York City. Career Wheelan signed her work with her married name, Albertine Randall Wheelan. For two decades prior to her move to New York, she was primary costume designer for David Belasco. She designed costumes for Belasco's opera ''A Grand Army Man'' in 1904, and for his 1907 production ''The Rose of the Rancho'', as well as for the 1914 operetta ''Sari'' by C.S. Cushing, E.P. Heath, and Emmerich Kalman. Wheelan also illustrated children's books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abe Ruef
Abraham Ruef (September 2, 1864 – February 29, 1936) was an American lawyer and politician. He gained notoriety as the corrupt political boss behind the administration of Mayor Eugene Schmitz of San Francisco during the period before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Education and influences Ruef was born Abraham Rueff of parents from a French–Jewish background. He was a bright student and, when barely fourteen, began studying at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in classical studies. While attending the university, he developed an interest in fighting the rampant corruption that was endemic to local and national politics at the time. With some fellow students, he formed the "Municipal Reform League". He corresponded with like-minded individuals across the nation, including a young New Yorker named Theodore Roosevelt. At 18, Ruef graduated with the highest honors, then proceeded to enroll at the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. He graduat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
