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Chubby Parker
Frederick R. "Chubby" Parker (1876–1940) was an American Old-time music, old-time and Folk music, folk musician and early radio entertainer. Background Parker was born in Lafayette, Indiana in 1876. His grandparents were from Kentucky, and his father was the deputy treasurer of Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Parker graduated from Purdue University in 1898 with a degree in electrical engineering. He worked for a circus, and then moved to Chicago where he worked as a patent attorney, inventor, and electrician. Music career In 1925 Parker began appearing frequently on the National Barn Dance program of Chicago radio station WLS (AM), WLS. Parker played the banjo and sang old-time and minstrel show, minstrel songs in his high-pitched, clear voice. The far reach of WLS made Parker a household name throughout the Midwest. During a single week in February 1927, he received 2,852 pieces of fan mail, which was believed to be a world record. As his radio popularity grew, Parker began recor ...
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Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette ( , ) is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, located northwest of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, which contributes significantly to both communities. Together, Lafayette and West Lafayette form the core of the Lafayette metropolitan area, which had a population of 224,709 in th2021 US Census Bureau estimates According to the 2020 United States Census, the population of Lafayette was 70,783, a 25% increase from 56,397 in 2000. Meanwhile, the 2020 Census listed the neighboring city of West Lafayette at 44,595 and the Tippecanoe County population at 186,291. Lafayette was founded in 1825 on the southeast bank of the Wabash River near where the river becomes impassable for riverboats upstream, though a French fort and trading post had existed since 1717 on the opposite bank and three miles downstream. It was named for the French general ...
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Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the latter half of the 19th century after commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electrical power generation, distribution, and use. Electrical engineering is now divided into a wide range of different fields, including computer engineering, systems engineering, power engineering, telecommunications, radio-frequency engineering, signal processing, instrumentation, photovoltaic cells, electronics, and optics and photonics. Many of these disciplines overlap with other engineering branches, spanning a huge number of specializations including hardware engineering, power electronics, electromagnetics and waves, microwave engineering, nanotechnology, electrochemistry, renewable energies, mechatronics/control, and electrical m ...
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Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith (May 29, 1923 – November 27, 1991) was an American polymath, who was credited variously as an artist, experimental filmmaker, bohemian, mystic, record collector, hoarder, student of anthropology and a Neo-Gnostic bishop. Smith was an important figure in the Beat Generation scene in New York City, and his activities, such as his use of mind-altering substances and interest in esoteric spirituality, anticipated aspects of the Hippie movement. Besides his films, such as his full length cutout animated film ''Heaven and Earth Magic'' (1962), Smith is also remembered for his influential '' Anthology of American Folk Music'', drawn from his extensive collection of out-of-print commercial 78 rpm recordings. Throughout his life Smith was an inveterate collector. Other than records, he collected included string figures, paper airplanes, Seminole textiles, and Ukrainian Easter eggs. Biography Harry Smith was born in Portland, Oregon, and spent his earl ...
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Henry Clay Work
Henry Clay Work (October 1, 1832 – June 8, 1884) was an American composer and songwriter known for the songs Kingdom Coming, Marching Through Georgia, The Ship That Never Returned and My Grandfather's Clock. Early life and education Work was born in Middletown, Connecticut, to Alanson and Aurelia (née Forbes) Work. His father opposed slavery, and Work was himself an active abolitionist and Union supporter. His family's home became a stop on the Underground Railroad, assisting runaway slaves to freedom in Canada, for which his father was once imprisoned. Work was self-taught in music. By the time he was 23, he worked as a printer in Chicago, specializing in setting musical type. He allegedly composed in his head as he worked, without a piano, using the noise of the machinery as an inspiration. His first published song was "We Are Coming, Sister Mary", which eventually became a staple in Christy's Minstrels shows. Career Work produced much of his best material during the Civ ...
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Nelly Gray (song)
"Darling Nelly Gray" is a 19th century anti-slavery ballad written and composed by Benjamin Hanby Benjamin Russell Hanby (July 22, 1833 – March 16, 1867), also given as Benjamin Russel Hanby, was an American composer, educator, pastor, and abolitionist who wrote approximately 80 songs. The most famous are "Darling Nelly Gray" and the ... in 1856. It is written as from the point of view of an African-American male slave in Kentucky whose sweetheart has been taken away by slave-owners. The man mourns his beloved, who has been sold South to Georgia (where the slave’s life was conventionally regarded as harsher). He eventually dies and joins her in heaven. The song became very popular in the years preceding the Civil War and helped promote support for the abolitionist cause. History Hanby composed the song while attending Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio in 1856 and was inspired by the Hanby family’s encounter with Joseph Selby, a runaway slave from Kentucky ...
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Little Brown Jug (song)
"Little Brown Jug" is a song written in 1869 by Joseph Eastburn Winner, originally published in Philadelphia with the author listed as Winner's middle name "Eastburn". Background It was originally a drinking song. It remained well known as a folk song into the early 20th century. Like many songs which make reference to alcohol, it enjoyed new popularity during the Prohibition era. 1939 Glenn Miller recording In 1939, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra released a hit version of the song on RCA Bluebird, as an A side 78 single, B-10286-A, in a new arrangement by Bill Finegan backed with "Pavanne". The recording was an early chart hit for Glenn Miller. The song was performed in Glenn Miller's Carnegie Hall concert that year and became a staple of the Glenn Miller Orchestra repertoire, and a classic of the Big Band era. The personnel on the Glenn Miller recording: Saxes: Hal McIntyre, Tex Beneke, Wilbur Schwartz, Stanley Aronson, Al Klink; Trumpets: Bob Price, R. D. McMickle, Legh ...
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Oh! Susanna
"Oh! Susanna" is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), first published in 1848. It is among the most popular American songs ever written. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Background In 1846, Stephen Foster moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and became a bookkeeper with his brother's steamship company. While in Cincinnati, Foster wrote "Oh! Susanna", possibly for his men's social club. The song was first performed by a local quintet at a concert in Andrews' Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 1847. It was first published by W. C. Peters & Co. in Cincinnati in 1848. Blackface minstrel troupes performed the work, and, as was common at the time, many registered the song for copyright under their own names. As a result, it was copyrighted and published at least twenty-one times from February 25, 1848, through February 14, 1851. Foster earned just $100 ($ in 2016 dollars) for the so ...
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Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores. Sears was based in the Sears Tower in Chicago from 1973 until 1995, and is currently headquartered in Hof ...
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Fan Mail
Fan mail is mail sent to a public figure, especially a celebrity, by their admirers or "fans". In return for a fan's support and admiration, public figures may send an autographed poster, photo, reply letter or note thanking their fans for their encouragement, gifts, and support. Fan mail sent to public figures can be through postal mail, email, social media, and other platforms that allow fans and users to communicate with their favorite public figures. Overview Fan mail may be in the form of letters, cards, artworks, gifts, comments on social media accounts, and so on. People send fan mail to various public entertainers and public figures such as politicians, athletes, actors, artists, writers, singers, bands, coaches of sport teams, bloggers, and social media stars seem to be the main target. Responses can take a great deal of time to come or never come at all. Since a major celebrity or public figure may receive thousands of pieces of fan mail every day, it is usually im ...
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Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south. The Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The region generally lies on the broad Interior Plain between the states occupying the Appalachian Mountains, Appalachian Mountain range and the states occupying the Rocky Mountains, Rocky Mountain range. Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mis ...
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Minstrel Show
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people wearing blackface make-up for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows caricatured black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky.The Coon Character
, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
John Kenrick

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WLS (AM)
WLS (890 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Chicago, Illinois. Owned by Cumulus Media, through licensee Radio License Holdings LLC, the station airs a talk radio format. WLS has its radio studios in the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood. Its non-directional broadcast tower is located on the southwestern edge of Tinley Park, Illinois in Will County. WLS is a Class A station broadcasting on the clear-channel frequency of 890 kHz with 50,000 watts using a Nautel NX-50 transmitter. A Harris DX-50 serves as a backup transmitter. Both transmitters run in MDCL (Modulation Dependent Carrier Level) mode to improve efficiency. The station's daytime groundwave service contour covers portions of five states. At night, its signal routinely reaches 38 states via skywave. WLS participates in the Emergency Alert System's primary entry point network, serving that function for northern Illinois and western Indiana. The station's programm ...
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