Tom Kromer
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Tom Kromer
Thomas Michael Kromer (October 20, 1906 – January 10, 1969) was an American writer, mostly known for his ''Waiting for Nothing'' (1935), a semi-autobiographical novel of vagrant or hobo life during the Great Depression. Biography Kromer was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia, the oldest of five brothers, and he had at least two sisters. His mother was Grace Thornburg, and his father was Michael Albert Kromer, an immigrant from Russia who worked as a coal miner and glass blower. He attended Marshall University for periods in 1925-1929 and did not graduate. He wrote his novel after five years of living as a hobo, riding trains and traveling across the United States. He spent 15 months in CCC camp in California, but was mostly living as a vagabond. Kromer spent time at Camp Skull Creek, Camp Murpheys, Fort MacArther, and Camp Halls Flat. He also published short stories in '' Pacific Weekly,'' founded and edited by Lincoln Steffens, and an unfinished novel about coal ...
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Huntington, West Virginia
Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County, and the largest city in the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Area. A historic and bustling city of commerce and heavy industry, Huntington has benefited from its location on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Guyandotte River. It is home to the Port of Huntington Tri-State, the second-busiest inland port in the United States. As of the 2020 census, its metro area is the largest in West Virginia, spanning seven counties across three states and having a population of 359,862. Huntington is the second-largest city in West Virginia, with a population of 46,842 at the 2020 census. Both the city and metropolitan area declined in population from the 2010 census, a trend that has been ongoing for six decades as Huntington has lost over 40,000 residents in that time frame. Surrounded by extensive natural resources, ...
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Boxcar
A boxcar is the North American ( AAR) term for a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is considered one of the most versatile since it can carry most loads. Boxcars have side sliding doors of varying size and operation, and some include end doors and adjustable bulkheads to load very large items. Similar covered freight cars outside North America are covered goods wagons and, depending on the region, are called ''goods van'' ( UK and Australia), ''covered wagon'' ( UIC and UK) or simply ''van'' (UIC, UK and Australia). Use Boxcars can carry most kinds of freight. Originally they were hand-loaded, but in more recent years mechanical assistance such as forklifts have been used to load and empty them faster. Their generalized design is still slower to load and unload than specialized designs of car, and this partially explains the decline in boxcar numbers since World War II. The ...
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1935 Novels
Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to successfully complete a solo flight from Hawaii to California, a distance of 2,408 miles. * January 13 – A plebiscite in the Saar (League of Nations), Territory of the Saar Basin shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Germany. * January 24 – The first canned beer is sold in Richmond, Virginia, United States, by Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company. February * February 6 – Parker Brothers begins selling the board game Monopoly (game), Monopoly in the United States. * February 13 – Richard Hauptmann is convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in the United States. * February 15 – The discovery and clinical development of ...
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1969 Deaths
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to London's Gatwick Airport, killing 50 of the 62 people on board and two of the home's occupants. * January 14 – An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS ''Enterprise'' near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314. * January 19 – End of the siege of the University of Tokyo, marking the beginning of the end for the 1968–69 Japanese university protests. * January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States. * January 22 – An assassination attempt is carried out on Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev by deserter Viktor Ilyin. One person is killed, several are injured. Brezhnev escaped unharmed. * January 27 ** Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel. ...
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1906 Births
Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, and establish a national assembly, the Majlis. * January 16–April 7 – The Algeciras Conference convenes, to resolve the First Moroccan Crisis between France and Germany. * January 22 – The strikes a reef off Vancouver Island, Canada, killing over 100 (officially 136) in the ensuing disaster. * January 31 – The Ecuador–Colombia earthquake (8.8 on the Moment magnitude scale), and associated tsunami, cause at least 500 deaths. * February 7 – is launched, sparking a naval race between Britain and Germany. * February 11 ** Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical ''Vehementer Nos'', denouncing the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State. ** Two British members of a poll tax collecting ...
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Coal Wars
The Coal Wars were a series of armed labor conflicts in the United States, roughly between 1890 and 1930. Although they occurred mainly in the East, particularly in Appalachia, there was a significant amount of violence in Colorado after the turn of the century. History The Coal Wars were the result of economic exploitation of workers during a period of social transformation in the coalfields. Beginning in 1870–1880, coal operators had established the company town system. Coal operators paid private detectives as well as public law enforcement agents to ensure that union organizers were kept out of the region. In order to accomplish this objective, agents of the coal operators used intimidation, harassment, espionage and even murder. Throughout the early 20th century, coal miners attempted to overthrow this system and engaged in a series of strikes, including the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912, and the Battle of Evarts, which coal operators attempted to stop throug ...
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Haymarket Affair
The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square (Chicago), Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day, eight-hour work day, the day after the events at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, during which one person was killed and many workers injured. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; dozens of others were wounded. In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight Anarchism in the United States, anarchists were convicted of conspiracy. The evidence was that one of the defendants may have built the bo ...
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The Grapes Of Wrath
''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962. Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California along with thousands of other "Okies" seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a future. ''The Grapes of Wrath'' is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was released in 1940. Plot The narrative begi ...
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John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception." He has been called "a giant of American letters." During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels ''Tortilla Flat'' (1935) and ''Cannery Row'' (1945), the multi-generation epic '' East of Eden'' (1952), and the novellas ''The Red Pony'' (1933) and ''Of Mice and Men'' (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning ''The Grapes of Wrath'' (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies. Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in ...
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Pinckney Benedict
Pinckney Benedict (born 1964) is an American short-story writer and novelist whose work often reflects his Appalachian background. Biography Benedict was raised in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, where his family had a dairy farm. He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Princeton University, where he studied primarily with Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ..., in 1986, and from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1988. He has published three collections of short fiction (''Town Smokes'', ''The Wrecking Yard'', and ''Miracle Boy'') and a novel (''Dogs of God''). His stories have appeared in publications including ''Esquire (magazine), Esquire'', ''Zoetrope: All-Story'', ''StoryQuarterly'', ''O ...
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Milton, West Virginia
Milton is a town in Cabell County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,831 at the 2020 census. Milton is a part of the Huntington- Ashland, WV- KY- OH Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). History The town was named after Milton Reece, the original owner of the town site. Historic sites Milton is noted for the historic Mud River Covered Bridge across the nearby Mud River. In 2002, the covered bridge was moved to nearby Pumpkin Park. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The town is also known for Blenko Glass, which is across the street from Pumpkin Park. The former Morris Memorial Hospital for Crippled Children was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. Geography Milton is located along the Mud River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Demographics 2010 census As of the census of 2010, there were 2,423 people, 1,132 households ...
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Breece D'J Pancake
Breece D'J Pancake (b. Breece Dexter Pancake, June 29, 1952 – April 8, 1979) was an American short story writer. He is said to be "one of the greatest authors you've never heard of" according to an article on his work in '' Study Breaks''. Pancake was a native of West Virginia. Several of his short stories were published in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' and other periodicals during his lifetime. Pancake died of suicide on Palm Sunday, 1979, at the age of 26. His motives for suicide are still somewhat unclear but many speculate the death of his father to alcoholism and the death of his close friend from a gruesome car accident could have had an influence on his choices—his writing style could also prove he was living a haunted life. Biography Early life and education (1952–1974) Breece Dexter Pancake was born and raised in Milton, West Virginia, the youngest child of Clarence "Wicker" Pancake and Helen Frazier Pancake and brother of two sisters. His hometown of Milton ...
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