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Williams Furniture Company
In the mid-20th century, Williams Furniture Company was the largest employer in Sumter, South Carolina and the largest single-facility furniture company in the United States, housing all of its departments under one roof. Williams-Brice Stadium at the University of South Carolina is named for the Williams-Brice family for whom the furniture company was named. History At the beginning of the 20th century, Sumter, South Carolina's economy was largely based on agriculture and cotton. In the 1920s, the boll weevil threatened South Carolina's cotton crops. As a result, Sumter's Board of Trade worked with consultants to determine how to best move forward in industry.“Plan to Establish Furniture Factory Under Consideration. Board of Trade Takes Offer of Van Ness and Co. Under Advisement,” ''Sumter Daily Item'', 7 August 1924, 1. Because Sumter's location provided easy access to railroad lines, timber, and sawmills, the consultants recommended that a furniture manufacturing business b ...
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Sumter, South Carolina
Sumter ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Sumter County, South Carolina, United States. The city makes up the Sumter, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Sumter County, along with Clarendon and Lee counties, form the core of Sumter–Lee–Clarendon tri-county (or East Midlands) area of South Carolina that includes three counties straddling the border of the Sandhills (or Midlands), Pee Dee, and Lowcountry regions. The population was 43,463 at the 2020 census, making it the 9th-most populous city in the state. History Incorporated as Sumterville in 1845, the city's name was shortened to Sumter in 1855. It has grown and prospered from its early beginnings as a plantation settlement. The city and county of Sumter bear the name of General Thomas Sumter, the "Fighting Gamecock" of the American Revolutionary War. During the Civil War, the town was an important supply and railroad repair center for the Confederacy. After the war, Sumter grew and prospered, using its l ...
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United Brotherhood Of Carpenters And Joiners Of America
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, often simply the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC), was formed in 1881 by Peter J. McGuire and Gustav Luebkert. It has become one of the largest trade unions in the United States, and through chapters, and locals, there is international cooperation that poises the brotherhood for a global role. For example, the North American Chapter has over 520,000 members throughout the continent.  Early years The union was created on August 12, 1881, by Peter J. McGuire and Gustav Luebkert. The two men organized groups for collective bargaining, and started a newspaper called ''The Carpenter'' to facilitate their idea of a national union. The Brotherhood held its first convention in Chicago in August 1881. The cornerstone of local and regional affiliations in support of common goals was laid out to show ways to maximize the unions bargaining potential. The immediate common goals were wage and hour demands, and death ...
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The Price Is Right
''The Price Is Right'' is an American television game show where contestants compete by guessing the prices of merchandise to win cash and prizes. A 1972 revival by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman of their The Price Is Right (1956 American game show), 1956–1965 show of the same name, the new version added many distinctive gameplay elements. Contestants are selected from the studio audience. When the announcer calls their name, they use the show's famous catchphrase, "Come on down!" The program premiered September 4, 1972, on CBS. Bob Barker was the series's longest-running host from its debut until his retirement in June 2007, when Drew Carey took over. Barker was accompanied by a series of announcers, beginning with Johnny Olson, followed by Rod Roddy and Rich Fields. In December 2010, George Gray (television personality), George Gray became the announcer. The show has used several models, most notably Anitra Ford, Janice Pennington, Dian Parkinson, Holly Hallstrom, Kathleen B ...
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Statesville, North Carolina
Statesville is a city in Iredell County, North Carolina, United States, and its county seat. The population was 28,419 at the time of the 2020 census. Statesville was established in 1789 by an act of the North Carolina Legislature. It is part of the Charlotte metropolitan area. History In 1753, Scots-Irish Presbyterians and German Lutherans, who had originally settled in Pennsylvania, began arriving in what would become Statesville in 1789Keever, Homer M.; ''Iredell Piedmont County'', with illustrations by Louise Gilbert and maps by Mild red Jenkins Miller, published for the Iredell County Bicentennial Commission by Brady Printing Company from type set by the Statesville Record and Landmark, copyright, November 1976 to plant crops in the fertile soil where game and water were also plentiful. The settlement, known as Fourth Creek Congregation, was named for the freshwater stream running to the north of the present-day city center, the fourth creek west of the neighboring s ...
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Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities in Michigan, second-most populous city in Michigan. The Grand Rapids metropolitan area has a population of 1.16 million and a combined statistical area population of 1.5 million. Grand Rapids is situated along the Grand River (Michigan), Grand River approximately east of Lake Michigan and is the economic and cultural hub of West Michigan. A historic furniture manufacturing center, Grand Rapids is home to five of the world's leading office furniture companies and is nicknamed "Furniture City". As a result of the numerous micro and craft breweries, many with notable reputations nationally such as Founders and New Holland which are known globally, Grand Rapids is also known as "Beer City USA". Due to the prominence of the Grand River, many l ...
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Colonial Revival Movement
The Colonial Revival movement was a national expression of early North American culture, primarily the built and artistic environments of the east coast colonies. The Colonial Revival is generally associated with the eighteenth-century provincial fashion for the Georgian and Neoclassical styles. The movement inspired a variety of expressions to fulfill symbolic and functional needs during times of great change. The Colonial Revival was motivated by a range of historical events, particularly a rapidly growing industrial way of life and increasing immigration. Beyond its association with the development of a national historic consciousness that began in the 1870s, the Colonial Revival style in architecture, decorative arts, landscape and garden design, and American art has served to promote notions of democracy, patriotism, good taste, and moral superiority. Although its popularity continues to exist, particularly in architecture and decorative arts, the movement reached its peak ...
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Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States, the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. Among the countries with the most unemployed were the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Weimar Republic, Germany. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the "Roaring Twenties". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation, such as on the stock market, contributing to growing Wealth inequality in the United States, wealth inequality. Banks were subject to laissez-faire, minimal regulation, resulting in loose lending and wides ...
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North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement (, TLCAN; , ALÉNA), referred to colloquially in the Anglosphere as NAFTA, ( ) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that created a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994, and superseded the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada. The NAFTA trade bloc formed one of the largest trade blocs in the world by gross domestic product. The impetus for a North American free trade zone began with U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who made the idea part of his Ronald Reagan presidential campaign, 1980, 1980 presidential campaign. After the signing of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988, the administrations of U.S. president George H. W. Bush, Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney agreed to negotiate what became NAFTA. Each submitted the agreement for ratificatio ...
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Bassett Furniture
Bassett Furniture Industries, Inc. is a furniture manufacturer and retailer, headquartered in Bassett, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1902 by John D. Bassett, Charles C. Bassett, Samuel H. Bassett, and Reed L. Stone. Bassett Furniture is one of the oldest Virginia furniture, furniture manufacturers in Virginia. The company began when the founders, operating a family sawmill in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, decided to use surplus lumber to produce bedroom furniture. According to oral history, the idea to pivot from raw lumber to finished furniture was proposed by the founders’ wives, Roxanne A. Hundley and Pocahontas Hundley, and it led to the birth of what would become a nationally recognized brand. Bassett rapidly grew through the early 20th century, becoming a major force in the American furniture industry. By the 1920s, it was shipping products throughout the eastern United States. During World War II, the company contributed to the war effort by man ...
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Modjeska Monteith Simkins
Modjeska Monteith Simkins (December 5, 1899 – April 5, 1992) was an important leader of African-American public health reform, social reform and the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina. Early life Modjeska Monteith was born on December 5, 1899, in Columbia, South Carolina. Her father, Henry Clarence Montieth, worked as a brick mason, and her mother was Rachel Evelyn Hall. Modjeska lived on a farm near Columbia and attended elementary school, high school and Benedict College, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1921. The same year, she began teaching at Booker T. Washington High School. Because public schools in Columbia did not allow married women to teach, she was asked to resign when she married Andrew Whitfield Simkins in December 1929. In 1931, Simkins entered the field of public health as the Director of Negro Work for the South Carolina Tuberculosis Association, and became the state's only full-time, statewide African-American public health worker. For decade ...
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Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination in the United States, discrimination. A Black church leader, King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, Desegregation in the United States, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize nonviol ...
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Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his assassination in 1968. As an advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader for the civil rights movement in the 1960s. King was also a singer who often incorporated music into her civil rights work. King met her husband while attending graduate school in Boston. They both became increasingly active in the American civil rights movement. King played a prominent role in the years after her husband's assassination in 1968, when she took on the leadership of the struggle for racial equality herself and became active in the Women's Movement. King founded the King Center, and sought to make his birthday a national holiday. She finally succeeded when Ronald Reagan signed legislation which established Martin Luther King Jr., Day on November 2, 1983. She later broadened her scope to includ ...
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