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Mose Humphrey
Mose Humphrey was a member of Fire Company 40 in New York City in the 19th century, and the inspiration for the folk hero character "Mose the Fireboy". The character of Mose first appeared on Broadway in Benjamin A. Baker's ''A Glance at New York'', in 1848. Mose was featured in several stage shows and penny novels in the mid-19th century. The character was most identified with actor Frank Chanfrau. The Fireboy character was said to have a height of and hands as big as Virginia hams, able to lift trolley cars over his head and rescue babies inside a stovepipe hat, as his own beaver hat was two foot across the brim. Certain stories recall Mose performing extraordinary deeds, such as swimming the Hudson River with two strokes, or tearing up mulberry and cherry trees to use as a bludgeon against the Plug Uglies The Plug Uglies were an American Know Nothing, Nativist criminal street gang, sometimes referred to loosely as a political club, that operated in the west side of Balt ...
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New York City Fire Department
The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection services, technical rescue/special operations services, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive/hazardous materials response services and New York City Fire Department Bureau of EMS, emergency medical response services within the five borough (New York City), boroughs of New York City. The New York City Fire Department is the largest municipal fire department in the United States, and the second largest in the world after the Tokyo Fire Department. The FDNY employs approximately 10,951 uniformed firefighting employees, 4,274 uniformed EMS employees, and 2,096 civilian employees. Its regulations are compiled in title 3 of the ''New York City Rules''. The FDNY's motto is "''New York's Bravest"'' for fire, and "''New York's Best"'' for EMS. The FDNY serves more than 8. ...
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Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New York City and Jersey City, eventually draining into the Atlantic Ocean at Lower New York Bay. The river serves as a political boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Farther north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet which formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy, the flow of the river changes direction with the tides. The Hudson River runs through the Munsee, Lenape, Mohican, Mohawk, and Haudenosaunee homelands. Prior to European ...
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Tall Tales
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely fictional tales set in a familiar setting, such as the European countryside, the American frontier, the Canadian Northwest, the Australian frontier, or the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Events are often told in a way that makes the narrator seem to have been a part of the story; the tone is generally good-natured. Legends are differentiated from tall tales primarily by age; many legends exaggerate the exploits of their heroes, but in tall tales the exaggeration looms large, to the extent of dominating the story. United States The tall tale is a fundamental element of American folk literature. The tall tale's origins are seen in the bragging contests that ...
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American Folklore
American folklore encompasses the folklores that have evolved in the present-day United States since Europeans arrived in the 16th century. While it contains much in the way of Native American tradition, it is not wholly identical to the tribal beliefs of any community of native people. Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. Native American folklore Native American cultures are rich in myths and legends that explain natural phenomena and the relationship between humans and the spirit world. According to Barre Toelken, feathers, beadwork, dance steps and music, the events in a story, the shape of a dwelling, or items of traditional food can be viewed as icons of cultural meaning.Toelken, Barrebr>''The Anguish of Snails'', Utah State University Press ...
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History Of Firefighting
The history of organized firefighting began in ancient Rome while under the rule of Augustus. Prior to that, Ctesibius, a Greek citizen of Alexandria, developed the first fire pump in the third century BC, which was later improved upon in a design by Hero of Alexandria in the first century BC. Ancient Rome The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Marcus Licinius Crassus. He took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 slaves strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire, if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground.Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Life of Crassus 2.3–4 Wallechinsky, David & Irving Wallace.Richest Peop ...
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History Of New York City
The written history of New York City began with the first European explorer, the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608. The "Sons of Liberty" campaigned against British authority in New York City, and the Stamp Act Congress of representatives from throughout the Thirteen Colonies met in the city in 1765 to organize resistance to Crown policies. The city's strategic location and status as a major seaport made it the prime target for British seizure in 1776. General George Washington lost a series of battles from which he narrowly escaped (with the notable exception of the Battle of Harlem Heights, his first victory of the war), and the British Army occupied New York and made it their base on the continent until late 1783, attracting Loyalist refugees. The city served as the national capital under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1789, and briefly served as the new nation's capital in 1789–90 under the United States ...
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New York City Firefighters
The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection services, technical rescue/special operations services, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive/hazardous materials response services and New York City Fire Department Bureau of EMS, emergency medical response services within the five borough (New York City), boroughs of New York City. The New York City Fire Department is the largest municipal fire department in the United States, and the second largest in the world after the Tokyo Fire Department. The FDNY employs approximately 10,951 uniformed firefighting employees, 4,274 uniformed EMS employees, and 2,096 civilian employees. Its regulations are compiled in title 3 of the ''New York City Rules''. The FDNY's motto is "''New York's Bravest"'' for fire, and "''New York's Best"'' for EMS. The FDNY serves more than 8. ...
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Plug Uglies
The Plug Uglies were an American Nativist criminal street gang, sometimes referred to loosely as a political club, that operated in the west side of Baltimore, Maryland, from 1854 to 1865. The Plug Uglies gang name came from the enormous oversized plug hats they stuffed with wool and leather, pulling them down over their ears for head protection as primitive helmets when going into gang battles. Also, the term ''plug ugly'' was used to identify an extremely tough ferocious fighter who could give a sound beating to an opponent. The name Plug Uglies was used to refer to a number of criminal gangs in New York City as well as Philadelphia. The Plug Uglies took part in the 1856 Baltimore Know-Nothing Riot. They allied themselves with the New York City Irish Dead Rabbits gang in looting New York City during the American Civil War in the Draft Riots of 1863. However, this latter alleged association is disputed, as the Plug Uglies, a Nativist gang, were anti-Irish. History The Plug ...
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Morus (plant)
''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identified species, three of which are well-known and are ostensibly named for the fruit color of the best-known cultivar: white, red, and black mulberry (''Morus alba'', '' M. rubra'', and '' M. nigra'', respectively), with numerous cultivars. ''M. alba'' is native to South Asia, but is widely distributed across Europe, Southern Africa, South America, and North America. ''M. alba'' is also the species most preferred by the silkworm, and is regarded as an invasive species in Brazil and the United States. The closely related genus ''Broussonetia'' is also commonly known as mulberry, notably the paper mulberry (''Broussonetia papyrifera''). Description Mulberries are fast-growing when young, and can grow to tall. The leaves ar ...
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Beaver Hat
A beaver hat is a hat made from felted beaver fur. They were fashionable across much of Europe during the period 1550–1850 because the soft yet resilient material could be easily combed to make a variety of hat shapes (including the familiar top hat). Smaller hats made of beaver were sometimes called beaverkins, as in Thomas Carlyle's description of his wife as a child. Used winter coats worn by Native Americans were actually a prized commodity for hat making because their wear helped prepare the skins, separating out the coarser hairs from the pelts. To make felt, the underhairs were shaved from the beaver pelt and mixed with a vibrating hatter's bow. The matted fabric was pummeled and boiled repeatedly, resulting in a shrunken and thickened felt. Filled over a hat-form block, the felt was pressed and steamed into shape. The hat maker then brushed the outside surface to a sheen. Evidence of felted beaver hats in western Europe can be found in Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales' ...
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ...
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Top Hat
A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or sometimes grey, the top hat emerged in Western fashion by the end of the 18th century. Although it declined by the time of the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains a formal fashion accessory. A collapsible variant of a top hat, developed in the 19th century, is known as an opera hat. Perhaps inspired by the Early Modern era capotain, higher crowned dark felt hats with wide brims emerged as a country leisurewear fashion along with the Age of Revolution around the 1770s. Around the 1780s, the justaucorps was replaced by the previously casual frocks and dress coats. At the same time, the tricorne and bicorne hats were replaced by what became known as the top hat. By the 1790s, the directoire style dress coat with top ...
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