Free at Last

Wednesday marked the 85th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights activist who made history with the delivery of his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In addition to being the leader of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, King was also a pastor, and preached the use of nonviolent civil disobedience to further the causes of civil rights.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has been an officially recognized federal holiday since 1986, held on the third Monday of every January. Scroll down to find out more about this American hero:


Links:

- Martin Luther King, Jr. Biography -- from Biography.com.

- Celebrate the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. This Weekend -- Have a three-day weekend?  Head to the D.C. area to take part in one of these special events. (From the Washington Post.)

- His Dream, Our Stories -- the legacy of the March on Washington. Hear personal stories from those who were present at the March.

- Martin Luther King, Jr. Iconic Speeches -- The "I Have a Dream" speech has taken its rightful place in history. But King was an inspirational speaker who delivered other powerful speeches. Check out this collection of videos, audio, photos, and transcripts, from his Noble Prize acceptance speech to his eloquent opposition to the Vietnam War.

- Martin Luther King, Jr. (from Comcast) -- a collection of photos from the life and legacy of Dr. King.

- Noble Prize Biography -- NoblePrize.org's official biography on Dr. King.

- The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

From the Collection:

- The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech That Inspired a Nation -- by Drew D. Hansen.

- April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Death and How it Changed America -- by Michael Eric Dyson.

- King Remembered -- by Flip Schulke and Penelope Ortner McPhee.

- Desert Rose: The Life and Legacy of Coretta Scott King -- by Edythe Scott Bagley with Joe Hilley.

- The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. -- by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

* All Books on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Historical Perspective [DVD].

- Citizen King, 1963-1968 [DVD] -- Part of the PBS documentary program The American Experience.

- In Remembrance of Martin [DVD] -- Personal recollections from the family, friends, and acquaintances of Dr. King.

- Martin Luther King: "I Have a Dream" [DVD] -- The iconic speech.

* All DVDs on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.



-- Post by Ms. B

World Wide Web

A lot has changed in 22 years.

On August 6, 1991, the first-ever website was born. It was the creation of Tim Berners-Lee, a British physicist in charge of the massive project of creating the World Wide Web. That first website was simple by our modern standards: it showed an outline of his project, and some tips to readers on how to make their own web pages. (The website address? http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html -- still in use today.)

To clarify: the world wide web and the Internet are two separate entities. The Internet's been around since the 1960s, and simply refers to computers and networks interconnected with each other. The World Wide Web, on the other hand, is merely one service that the Internet offers -- but it's the tool that most of us use in order to access the Internet's text, pictures, sounds, and video. (If you're interested, you can read more about the technical differences between the two here.)

So unless you're a tech whiz, you use the World Wide Web pretty much exclusively when you access the internet. And we 21-century sorts use the internet a lot. 

Here's some usage facts to try to wrap your mind around:

-- In 2012, there were 2.4 billion Internet users around the world.

-- 244 million of those users are in America. (That's 78% of America's total population.)

-- Over one billion people have a Facebook account.

-- More than 500 million personal photos are uploaded to the Internet every day (using such websites as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Flickr).

-- 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

-- 15% of all internet traffic is coming from mobile devices, such as cell phones.

Computers and the Internet have helped usher in the modern age, but the World Wide Web has changed our everyday life. (Probably, it's arguable, for better and for worse.)

It's changed how we watch TV, view movies, and listen to music. (How we read books is probably next on the list.) It's changed how we learn, how we shop, and how we socialize. It's changed how we get our news and how we spend our time.

Most of all, it's put a world of information directly at our fingertips. Going to www.google.com and typing in a topic or a question has become such a standard method of finding answers that it's become a verb: "Just Google it!" However, whether or not such answers are coming from trustworthy sources can be another matter entirely. (Always remember, however, that we librarians are here to help sort out such matters!)

Computers have been used as tools for decades. But the last 22 years have seen them entirely alter our daily way of life. It remains to be seen what the lasting effect of the World Wide Web will be on our society -- but whatever happens, it's all but guaranteed that the world will never be the same.

All About the World Wide Web:

-- History of the Web: from Tim Berners-Lee's organization, the World Wide Web Foundation.

-- Internet Timeline: includes the introduction of the World Wide Web!

-- The Single Most Valuable Document: The World Wide Web was almost ... patented. Check out this article from NPR for more!

-- What 14 Popular Websites Used to Look Like: Websites looked a lot different in the 90s.



Website Lists:

-- Recommended Websites: MPL's own list of trustworthy research and reference websites.

-- 50 Websites: Time's list of the websites that make the World Wide Web great.

-- 2013's Most Addictive Websites: A highly subjective -- but still plenty fun -- list.

-- Great Websites for Kids: Recommended by the American Librarian Association.

-- 20 Really Cool Websites to Help Cure Boredom: Time-wasting in its most fun sense!

-- The Useless Web: Having trouble finding a thoroughly useless website?  Here you go!



-- Post by Ms. B 

Local History Comes Alive

Over a two-day period in August 1763, the fate of the future of Pittsburgh, and of the United States, was determined. The Battle of Bushy Run took place ten miles east of present-day Monroeville, near what is now Harrison City. The battle was a pivotal moment in the French and Indian War (1754-1763), which was actually fought between the French and the British for control of North America. (In Europe and Canada, it is called The Seven Years' war.)

The North American conflict began in 1754 with the battle for Fort Duquesne, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio River. The French, along with their Native American allies, controlled this important waterway, but the British felt they had the right to these lands and rivers. The first attempts by British troops to take control failed, but by 1758, the French would abandon the fort with the approach of General John Forbes's army. A new fort was soon built and named Fort Pitt, in honor of William Pitt, Britain's Minister of War.

In August 1763, Colonel Henry Bouquet was on his way to bring relief to Fort Pitt, which had been held under siege for two months by Indians. Bouquet and his troops set off from Fort Ligonier on August 4th. They camped along the trail that night and headed towards Bushy Run Station the following day.  After traveling seventeen miles, and only being about a mile away from Bushy Run, they were attacked by Indians.

Bushy Run Mounument

By nightfall, 60 of Bouquet's soldiers would be dead. The Colonel was unsure whether they would survive another day. He felt the only way they could defeat the Indians was by making them believe that the British were retreating. The idea was to get the enemy into the open where Bouquet's men could fight them. The next morning, August 6th, Bouquet met with his officers to inform them of his plan.

The plan worked. The Indians sustained a high number of casualties, but that didn't stop them from making one more attempt at attacking the British. However, the Indians were not successful. Despite suffering great losses, the British troops marched on towards Fort Pitt, where they were able to provide supplies and relief to the civilians and troops trapped in the fort.

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of this historical battle, the Bushy Run Battlefield Historical Site is hosting a three-day event (August 2-4), filled with activities, lectures, and a reenactment. Don't miss out on this educational and fun event.

To learn more about the Battle of Bushy Run, and other events during the French and Indian War, check out some of the books, DVDs, and websites below:


-- "Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: North America's Forgotten Conflict at Bushy Run Battlefield" (Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine)

-- "Events mark Bushy Run battle's 250th" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)


-- Bushy Run Battlefield by David Dixon

-- The Battle of Bushy Run by Niles Anderson

-- War For Empire in Western Pennsylvania Edited by J. Martin West

-- War That Made America (DVD)


-- Post by Tracy

Wanted Dead or Alive

You've read the story of Jesse James

Of how he lived and died

If you're still in need of something to read

Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

 (written by Bonnie Parker)

I'm a big fan of the Golden Age of Piracy, that time from the late 1600s through the early 1700s when pirates like Blackbeard, Calico Jack, and Anne Bonny and Mary Read roamed the seven seas (or at least the Caribbean), pillaging and plundering and engaging in all those romantic piratical adventures. Authors like Robert Louis Stevenson and "Captain Charles Johnson," artwork by such painters as N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle, and actors from Errol Flynn to Johnny Depp have all captured the imagination of book-lovers, movie-goers, and people of all ages for centuries. The fact that the reality of historical pirates was often brutal, bloody, and filled with a decidedly unglamorous violence doesn't deter the popular imagination from picturing pirates as lovable figures of swashbuckling derring-do.

So, while I'm hardly an expect on them, I do understand the appeal of Bonnie and Clyde. A staple in our popular culture since their two-year criminal careers during the Great Depression, they are remembered as figures somewhere between Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and Romeo and Juliet. But to get at the real story, we need to take a closer look.

Clyde Barrow

Clyde Barrow was the fifth of eight children, born to a poor Texas tenant farmer and his wife. The family long struggled to support themselves; Clyde dropped out of public school when he was 16 to get a job at a Proctor and Gamble plant. Clyde's older brother, Marvin, first drew Clyde into a life of crime (their first attempted robbery involved trying to smuggle turkeys). It wasn't long before Clyde had quit his job and followed Marvin into a gang of vandals who robbed various small businesses. And it wasn't long before Clyde, intelligent and charismatic, was in charge.

Bonnie Parker

(Parker later said she was not the tough, cigar-smoking, gun-wielding type this photo made her out to be; the pictures were taken in fun.)

Bonnie Parker was the second of three children, born to a brick mason and his wife. Her father died when she was five, and the family relocated to a Dallas suburb. Bonnie grew up in a happy home, was a good student, and had a knack for writing and reciting poetry. She married a schoolmate at the age of 16, though the marriage was a rough one, with her husband disappearing on and off for long periods of time.

At age 19, Bonnie was still technically married when she started doing household chores for an injured neighbor. The neighbor was Clyde's girlfriend, and when Clyde showed up to visit her, he ended up paying more attention to Bonnie. The feeling was mutual, and Bonnie and Clyde were sweethearts when Clyde abruptly found himself arrested for burglary. Nothing daunted, Bonnie wrote letters to Clyde while he was in prison, cajoling him to give up his criminal lifestyle -- until, on a visit to the prison, she discovered that Clyde and his cellmate were coming up with an escape plan. At their request, Bonnie smuggled a gun into the prison for them.

Eventually, Clyde made it out of prison (his initial escape attempt worked, but he was caught quickly and thrown back in for another two years). When he was paroled in 1932, Bonnie was waiting for him.

The next two years saw Bonnie and Clyde join up with various outlaws to form small gangs of four or five. (The gang members rotated as they were caught by law enforcement, but Bonnie and Clyde themselves always managed to evade capture.) The gangs held up gas stations, grocery stores, and the occasional bank. It was Bonnie's job to keep watch, and the gang would escape the scenes of their crimes in stolen cars. Both Bonnie and Clyde enjoyed kidnapping bystanders -- and the occasional police officer -- and taking them on wild joyrides before releasing them unharmed. (Clyde was particularly fond of dropping off police officers hundreds of miles away from where they'd been taken, relishing in the opportunity to embarrass them.)

In late April of 1932, fellow gang member Raymond Hamilton shot and killed the owner of a gas station; later that year, Clyde murdered a grocer who was refusing to cooperate with the gang. While most accounts suggest that Clyde never took any pleasure in killing the grocer (or several police officers he fired upon), the line between robber and murderer had still been crossed.

Bonnie and Clyde both seemed to understand that their life of crime would have one inevitable outcome. In May of 1934, they were in Louisiana with their current gang when one member -- Henry Methvin -- was accidentally left behind. (Methvin had ducked into a cafe to grab lunch for the group; a passing police car alarmed Clyde, waiting with the rest of the gang outside, and the group sped off without Methvin). Methvin promptly made his way to his father's, where he let slip the location the gang was most likely heading towards. Methvin's father passed the information on to the authorities.

Police officers from Louisiana and Texas gathered along a country road outside Sailers, Louisiana. The gang drove in the morning of May 23, 1934, and were instantly surrounded by the waiting officers. Clyde went for his gun, and the police opened fire. Over 150 bullets shot through the Ford sedan, and Bonnie and Clyde both died almost instantly.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker

Nearly 80 years later, the names Bonnie and Clyde still conjure up images of flashy heists, daring exploits, and the romantic adventures of two glamorous lovers. The public had been fascinated by the couple during their two-year crime spree, but interest hardly seems to have waned as the decades have rolled by. (In 1998, the pants that Clyde Barrow had been wearing at the time of his death were sold by a Texas rarities dealer at $199 per square inch.) From movies and novels to historical reads and documentaries, Bonnie and Clyde have been forever cemented in the public imagination as star-crossed lovers on a romantic run from the law.

Were they simple criminals or the Robin Hoods of the Great Depression?  It's for you to decide.

Read:

-- The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde by E.R. Milner.

Relies on primary sources (articles, interviews, diaries, and letters) to paint a picture of the couple.

-- Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn.

An in-depth biography about Bonnie and Clyde.

-- Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend by Paul Schneider.

A well-researched but somewhat glamorized account of their lives.

-- Bonnie and Clyde: A Love Story by Bill Brooks.

The story told in fictionalized, novel form.



Watch:

-- Bonnie and Clyde [1967]

The famous movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

-- Crime Wave: 18 Months of Mayhem

This documentary looks at other outlaws of the era (such as John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson), along with Bonnie and Clyde. Includes the bonus feature Bonnie and Clyde: The Story of Love & Death.




-- Post by Ms. B

The Unsinkable Dream

April 14, 2012 saw the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Famously thought to be "virtually" unsinkable, the passenger liner R.M.S. Titanic hit an iceberg during her maiden voyage. It took less than three hours for the ship to sink into the Northern Atlantic.

In the century that's followed, the tragedy of the Titanic has captured the fascination and imagination of people around the world. Books, documentaries, and films abound, making the Titanic the subject of about as much fascination now as she was a century ago.

And the Titanic was, indeed, a source of much fascination even before she first set sail. When the hull of the Titanic was launched in 1911 at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Ireland, a crowd of 100,000 spectators came to see. The ship had been conceived by J. Bruce Ismay (president of the White Star Line company) and Lord Pirrie (chairman of Harland and Wolff shipbuilders) as one of three gigantic ocean liners. Titanic -- and her sister ships Olympic and Britannic -- were meant to be the ultimate in travel experiences, ships unrivaled in size, speed, and elegance.

Whether or not the White Star Line ever billed their ship as truly "unsinkable" is a source of debate to this day. But if aspects of the Titanic disaster has been romanticized in our popular fiction, perhaps it's understandable. The hopes -- and the hubris -- that launched with the ship on her maiden voyage only made her ultimate fate that much more tragic -- and that much more unforgettable.

Some Titanic Facts & Stats:

- The ship was 268 meters long (or 882 feet and 8 inches), and 28 meters (92.5 feet) wide at her widest point. The ship's full length exceeded the height of all the skyscraper buildings of her day.

- From the waterline to the boat deck, the Titanic was 60.5 feet high. The full height, from the keel to the top of the funnels, was 175 feet.

- She needed 825 tons of coal per day.

- Her three anchors weighed a total of thirty-one tons, roughly the same weight as twenty cars.

- The ship cost $7,500,000 to build. (That's $400 million in today's money.)

- A first-class ticket cost £870 -- that's $4,350. Translated to today's money? $50,000. (An original ticket for the maiden voyage launch was recently sold at auction, fetching $56,250.)

- The Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 P.M., "sideswiping" the starboard side of the ship. Had the Titanic hit the iceberg directly -- instead of attempting to avoid it, resulting in the sideswipe -- it's theorized that the ship likely would have survived.

- The ship sank two hours and forty minutes later, at 2:20 A.M.

- 710 people survived the sinking. 1,517 did not.

Some Little-Known Facts:

- Only three of the four famous smokestacks were working. (The fourth one was just for looks!)

- Isidor Straus, who was the owner of Macy's, died in the shipwreck. Andrew Carnegie spoke at Straus's funeral.

- The sinking of the Titanic was "predicted" fourteen years earlier, by American author Morgan Robertson. He wrote a book entitled Futility, or the wreck of the Titan, about a ship called the Titan that was described as unsinkable, only to hit an iceberg and sink in mid-April. Fourteen years later, it really happened -- to the Titanic.

- There were 20 lifeboats on the Titanic. The lifeboats could carry 1,179 people; Titanic was carrying 2,228 passengers. However, Titanic was actually carrying more than the number of lifeboats required by regulation standards. The maritime safety regulations were based on the tonnage of the ship, not the number of passengers. (The sinking of Titanic would go on to prompt changes to the outdated rules.)

- One of the survivors of the Titanic disaster was Dorothy Gibson, a silent film actress. She would go on to star in the first motion picture about the tragedy, a short picture entitled Saved from the Titanic. It opened less than a month after the ship was lost; the film itself has since been lost.

- Believe it or not, Titanic Captain Edward J. Smith had put in thirty-eight years of service with the White Star Line ... and was planning on retiring after this final voyage.



For more on the Titanic:


- Titanic's Dead Mourned 100 Years Later in Poignant Ceremony at Sinking: Reuters

- TITANIC: 'The Titanic Was Unsinkable' - Myth or Not?

- Titanic Universe: Extensive information and resources for Titanic enthusiasts.



-- Post by Ms. B