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Windwagon Smith
Windwagon Smith is an American tall tale about a sea captain who traveled in a Conestoga wagon, fitted with a sail, across the Kansas prairie. The tale was the subject of a 1961 animated Walt Disney Pictures film, ''The Saga of Windwagon Smith''. The legend The tale is based on a story, with some plausible elements, of an incident in Westport, Missouri, in 1853, during America's westward migration. In some versions Windwagon Smith comes sweeping into town with his wind-powered Conestoga wagon complete and working. Other tellings have him inventing the wagon in town, building the craft, and gathering eager passengers, only to have his craft crash or his passengers abandon ship from sea sickness. By 1850 Westport and nearby Kansas City had displaced Independence, Missouri, as the main outfitting and starting point for traders, trappers, and emigrants heading west on the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. Historical accounts Contemporary news accounts have at least three re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tall Tale
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the current states of Idaho and Oregon. The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840 and was only passable on foot or on horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared increasingly farther west and eventually reached all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, at which point what came to be called the Oregon Trail was complete, even as almost annual improvements were made in the form of bridges, cutoffs, ferries, and roads, which made the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River. Wichita began as a trading post on the Chisholm Trail in the 1860s and was incorporated as a city in 1870. It became a destination for Cattle drives in the United States, cattle drives traveling north from Texas to Kansas railroads, earning it the nickname "Cowtown".Miner, Prof. Craig (Wichita State Univ. Dept. of History), ''Wichita: The Magic City'', Wichita Historical Museum Association, Wichita, KS, 1988Howell, Angela and Peg Vines, ''The Insider's Guide to Wichita'', Wichita Eagle & Beacon Publishing, Wichita, KS, 1995 Wyatt Earp served as a police officer in Wichita for around one year before going to Dodge City, Kansas, Dodge City. In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy O. Disney as the Disney Brothers Studio; it also operated under the names the Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing its name to the Walt Disney Company in 1986. Early on, the company established itself as a leader in the animation industry, with the creation of the widely popular character Mickey Mouse, who is the company's mascot, and the start of animated films. After becoming a major success by the early 1940s, the company started to diversify into live-action films, television, and theme parks in the 1950s. Following Walt's death in 1966, the company's profits began to decline, especially in the animation division. Once Disney's shareholders voted in Michael Eisner as the he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Allen
Rex Elvie Allen (December 31, 1920 – December 17, 1999), known as "the Arizona Cowboy", was an American film and television actor, singer and songwriter; he was also the narrator of many Disney nature and Western productions. For his contributions to the film industry, Allen received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1975, located at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard. Early life Allen was born to Horace E. Allen and Luella Faye Clark on a ranch in Mud Springs Canyon, forty miles from Willcox in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona, United States. As a boy he played guitar and sang at local functions with his fiddle-playing father, until high-school graduation when he toured the Southwest as a rodeo rider. He got his start in show business on the East Coast. Early career Allen began his singing career on radio station KOY in Phoenix, Arizona, after which he became better known as a performer on the ''National Barn Dance'' on WLS in Chicago. When singing cow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles August Nichols
Charles August "Nick" Nichols (September 15, 1910 – August 23, 1992) was an American animator and film director, who worked in animation for over 50 years at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Hanna-Barbera. At Disney, he worked on various short subjects and films from the 1940s into the 1950s, including the Academy Award-winning short ''Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom'' (1953). Nichols co-directed ''Charlotte's Web (1973 film), Charlotte's Web'' (1973) while at Hanna-Barbera. Biography Nichols was born in Milford, Utah. As an animator for Disney, his first credit was on the film ''Pinocchio (1940 film), Pinocchio'', where he was the lead animator for the villainous The Coachman, Coachman. During World War II, Nichols animated several short subjects, including ''First Aiders'' (1944) and numerous cartoons involving the character Pluto (Disney), Pluto. The authors of ''The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons'' opined Nichols' animation style made Pluto an "even more likable charact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilbur Schramm
Wilbur Lang Schramm (August 5, 1907 – December 27, 1987) was a scholar and "authority on mass communications". He founded the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1935 and served as its first director until 1941. Schramm was hugely influential in establishing communications as a field of study in the United States, and the establishing of departments of communication studies across U.S. universities. Wilbur Schramm is considered the founder of the field of Communication Studies. He was the first individual to identify himself as a communication scholar; he created the first academic degree-granting programs with communication in their name; and he trained the first generation of communication scholars. Schramm's mass communication program in the Iowa School of Journalism was a pilot project for the doctoral program and for the Institute of Communications Research, which he founded in 1947 at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, now housed in the UIUC College of Media. At Illinoi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Kearny
Fort Kearny was a historic outpost of the United States Army founded in 1848 in the western U.S. during the middle and late 19th century. The fort was named after Col. and later General Stephen Watts Kearny. The outpost was located along the Oregon Trail near Kearney, Nebraska. The town of Kearney took its name from the fort. The "e" was added to Kearny by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name. A portion of the original site is preserved as Fort Kearny State Historical Park by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. The fort became the eastern anchor of the Great Platte River Road and thus an important military and civilian way station for 20 years. Wagon trains moving west, were able to resupply after completing about a sixth (16%) of the journey. The fort offered a safe resting area for the eastern immigrants in this new and hostile land. Livestock could be traded for fresh stock and letters sent back to the States. The fort continued to expand over the years, u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oskaloosa, Kansas
Oskaloosa is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 1110. History Oskaloosa was founded in 1856. It was named after the city of Oskaloosa, Iowa. The first post office in Oskaloosa was established in November 1856. In 1888, Oskaloosa citizens elected Mary D. Lowman mayor with a city council composed entirely of women, making the city the first in the state to elect an all-women city administration."The Latest Kansas Innovation: A Municipal Government Composed of Women". ''Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper'', vols. 65–67, pp. 149–151 (April 21, 1888).Willard, Frances Elizabeth. ''A woman of the century: Fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading American women in all walks of life''. New York: Moulton, 1893, p. 476. Geography Oskaloosa is located at (39.215849, -95.313800). It is at the intersection of U.S. Route 59 and K-92, approximately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
''Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper'', later renamed ''Leslie's Weekly'', was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1855 and published until 1922. It was one of several magazines started by publisher and illustrator Frank Leslie. Throughout its existence, the weekly provided illustrations and reports—first with wood engravings and daguerreotypes, later with more advanced forms of photography—of wars from John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry and the Civil War until the Spanish–American War and the First World War. Surviving issues today are highly prized as collectors' items for vividly depicting American life during the seven decades of its existence. Many distinguished writers were featured in its pages. History Background Frank Leslie was the pen name of Henry Carter (1821–1880), the son of a well-to-do English glovemaker.Joshua Brown, "The Great Uprising and Pictorial Order in Gilded Age America," in David O. Stowell (ed.), ''The Great St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth () is a United States Army installation located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, in the city of Leavenworth, Kansas, Leavenworth. Built in 1827, it is the second oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C., and the oldest permanent settlement in Kansas. Fort Leavenworth has been historically known as the "Intellectual Center of the Army." During the country's Western United States, westward Manifest Destiny, expansion, Fort Leavenworth was a forward destination for thousands of soldiers, surveyors, immigrants, Native Americans in the United States, American Indians, preachers and settlers who passed through. Today, the garrison supports the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) by managing and maintaining the home of the United States Army Combined Arms Center, US Army Combined Arms Center (CAC). CAC's mission involves leader development, collective training, and Army doctrine and batt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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