George Washington Carver was an American botanist and inventor. He is known for his agricultural advances and for the promotion of alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes, that would help sustain poor farmers. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. He also developed and promoted about 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline and nitroglycerin. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a “Black Leonardo.” Carver was born into slavery in Missouri in the early 1860s. He died on January 5, 1943 and was buried next to longtime colleague Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University.
Magda Gerber was an early childhood educator born in Hungary who immigrated with her family to the United States in 1957. She co-founded Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) in 1978, incorporating many theories of pediatrician Emmi Pikler into her philosophy. RIE is an international, non-profit organization dedicated to raising the standards of infant care and education through parent and caregiver education. The RIE philosophy is based on respecting infants and toddlers as fully functioning humans by learning their individual ways of communicating, allowing them to try to solve problems without adult interference and not treating them like objects. Gerber died on April 27, 2007.
P.S. “Many awful things have been done in the name of love, but nothing awful can be done in the name of respect.” – Magda Gerber
Alexander Graham Bell was a scientist, inventor and engineer credited with inventing the first practical telephone. Both his mother and wife were deaf, which led him to research hearing and speech. His experiments with hearing devices culminated with the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876. Many other inventions marked Bell’s later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils and aeronautics. In 1888, Bell became a founding member of the National Geographic Society. He was born on March 3, 1847.
In retrospect, Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. Over 100 years later, I agree with his assessment. I do not like talking on the phone, or hearing it ring/vibrate/sing pop songs. Bell and I have the same birthday, so perhaps we would agree on many things.
Bill Nye is an American science educator, comedian, television host and mechanical engineer. He is best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children’s science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993-98) and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator. His professional entertainment career began with a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle. He was born on this day in 1955.
Note: Nye studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where one of his professors was Carl Sagan. “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” – Bill Nye
Elizabeth Warren is an American bankruptcy law expert, Harvard Law School professor, and the U.S. Senator-elect for the state of Massachusetts, having defeated incumbent Senator Scott Brown in the 2012 election last week. Her work as a national policy advocate led to the conception and establishment of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011. She is a frequent subject of media interviews regarding the American economy and middle-class personal finance.
I suspect Warren may be a leading Democratic presidential candidate in the 2016 election (though she may wait until the 2020 election because Hillary Clinton will surely be running in 2016). This feisty, good-hearted advocate for middle-class consumers won her Senate seat by defiantly campaigning against the big banks and lobbyists “who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs.”
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect and interior designer who believed in designing harmonious structures of organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by his design for Fallingwater (1935) in Pennsylvania, which has been called “the best all-time work of American architecture.” Wright was born on this day in 1867.
Of Wright’s over 400 works, only one structure is located in Oregon. It’s the Gordon House at the Oregon Garden in Silverton. I plan to visit the Fallingwater property when I’m back in Pennsylvania later this month.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist and science communicator. He currently directs the Hayden Planetarium and is a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 2006 he has hosted the educational science television show NOVA scienceNOW on PBS. In 2013, Tyson will host a sequel to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980) television series.
Tyson has become one of my personal heroes, and is doing an honorable job of filling Carl Sagan’s shoes. Have we stopped dreaming?
Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Sagan is known for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. His books include Cosmos, Billions and Billions and the novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.
Carl Sagan and Kurt Vonnegut were my greatest living heroes during my adolescent years in the 1990s.
Booker T. Washington was an African-American educator, reformer and adviser to Republican presidents. He was the dominant figure in the black community in the U.S. from 1890 until his death in 1915. Representing the last generation of black American leaders born in slavery, he spoke on behalf of those who had lost their ability to vote through disfranchisement by southern legislatures. He was born on this day in 1856.
Helen Keller is an American author and political activist. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller’s teacher broke through the isolation and helped her learn to communicate is the basis for the play and film The Miracle Worker. A prolific author, Keller was outspoken in her opposition to war and campaigned for women’s suffrage, workers’ rights and socialism.
Helen Keller is one of a trio of American women activists (along with Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman) that recently appeared to my girlfriend in a dream.
Clara Barton was a pioneer American teacher, patent clerk, nurse and humanitarian. During the American Civil War and many subsequent international wars, Barton tended to wounded soldiers. In 1881, she founded and became the first president of the American Red Cross, a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization.
Clara Barton is one of a trio of American women activists (along with Harriet Tubman and Helen Keller) that recently appeared to my girlfriend in a dream.
Mister Rogers was an American educator, Presbyterian minister, songwriter, author and television host. Rogers created and hosted Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968-2001), which featured his gentle, soft-spoken personality and directness to his audiences. As a kid in the 1980s, I watched countless episodes of his show on PBS. He died on this day in 2003.
P.S. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.” – Fred Rogers
Alexander Graham Bell – No. 582
Alexander Graham Bell was a scientist, inventor and engineer credited with inventing the first practical telephone. Both his mother and wife were deaf, which led him to research hearing and speech. His experiments with hearing devices culminated with the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876. Many other inventions marked Bell’s later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils and aeronautics. In 1888, Bell became a founding member of the National Geographic Society. He was born on March 3, 1847.
In retrospect, Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. Over 100 years later, I agree with his assessment. I do not like talking on the phone, or hearing it ring/vibrate/sing pop songs. Bell and I have the same birthday, so perhaps we would agree on many things.