Adamski, George (17 April 1891–23 April 1965), lecturer and writer on occult subjects and on UFOs during the 1950s' flying saucer enthusiasm, lecturer and writer on occult subjects and on UFOs during the 1950s’ flying saucer enthusiasm, was born in Poland. His parents (names unknown) brought him to the United States when he was one or two. The family settled in Dunkirk, New York; their life was hard, and Adamski received little formal education. He joined the Thirteenth U.S. Cavalry Regiment in 1913 as an enlisted man, serving on the Mexican border, and was honorably discharged in 1916. On 25 December 1917 he married Mary A. Shimbersky (d. 1954). After leaving the army, Adamski worked as a painter in Yellowstone National Park, in a flour mill in Portland, Oregon, and by 1921 was working in a cement factory in California. He continued to live in California, reportedly supporting himself and his wife through a variety of jobs, including by the 1930s teaching and lecturing on occult subjects....
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Adamski, George (17 April 1891–23 April 1965), lecturer and writer on occult subjects and on UFOs during the 1950s' flying saucer enthusiasm
Robert S. Ellwood
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Bangs, John Kendrick (1862-1922), humorist, editor, and lecturer
Richard Bleiler
Bangs, John Kendrick (27 May 1862–21 January 1922), humorist, editor, and lecturer, was born in Yonkers, New York, the son of Francis Nehemiah Bangs, a lawyer, and Frances Amelia Bull, and the grandson of Nathan Bangs, a Methodist clergyman. His ancestors were domineering and ferocious personalities whose achievements overshadowed Bangs’s career, and his perennial reluctance to take either religion or law seriously can be seen as a mild rebellion....
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Beard, Frank (06 February 1842–28 September 1905), originator of "Chalk Talks" popular lectures illustrated with rapid chalk drawings
Thelma S. Rohrer
Beard, Frank (06 February 1842–28 September 1905), originator of "Chalk Talks" popular lectures illustrated with rapid chalk drawings, originator of “Chalk Talks,” popular lectures illustrated with rapid chalk drawings, was born Thomas Francis Beard in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of James Henry Beard...
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Bell, Daniel (10 May 1919–25 January 2011), sociologist and public intellectual
Howard Brick
Bell, Daniel (10 May 1919–25 January 2011), sociologist and public intellectual, was born Daniel Bolotsky in New York City, son of Benjamin Bolotsky and Anna Kaplan, immigrant Jewish garment workers living on the Lower East Side. His father died when Daniel was an infant; around ...
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Bell, James Madison (1826-1902), abolitionist, poet, and lecturer
Mamie E. Locke
Bell, James Madison (03 April 1826–1902), abolitionist, poet, and lecturer, was born in Gallipolis, Ohio. His parents’ identities are unknown. At age sixteen, in 1842, he moved to Cincinnati. While there, in 1848, he married Louisiana Sanderlin (or Sanderline), with whom he had several children, and also learned the plastering trade from his brother-in-law George Knight. Bell worked as a plasterer during the day and attended Cincinnati High School for Colored People at night. Founded in 1844 by Reverend Hiram S. Gilmore, the school had a connection to Oberlin College and was said to have given impetus to the sentiment found in ...
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Bibb, Henry Walton (1815-1854), author, editor, and antislavery lecturer
Gregory S. Jackson
Bibb, Henry Walton (10 May 1815–1854), author, editor, and antislavery lecturer, was born into slavery on the plantation of David White of Shelby County, Kentucky, the son of James Bibb, a slaveholding planter and state senator, and Mildred Jackson. White began hiring Bibb out as a laborer on several neighboring plantations before the age of ten. The constant change in living situations throughout his childhood, combined with the inhumane treatment he often received at the hands of strangers, set a pattern for life that he would later refer to in his autobiography as “my manner of living on the road.” Bibb was sold more than six times between 1832 and 1840 and was forced to relocate to at least seven states throughout the South; later, as a free man, his campaign for abolition took him throughout eastern Canada and the northern United States. But such early instability also made the young Bibb both self-sufficient and resourceful, two characteristics that were useful against the day-to-day assault of slavery: “The only weapon of self defense that I could use successfully,” he wrote, “was that of deception.”...
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Bibb, Henry Walton (1815-1854)
In
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Blashfield, Edwin Howland (1848-1936), artist, writer, and lecturer
Eric Van Schaack
Blashfield, Edwin Howland (15 December 1848–12 October 1936), artist, writer, and lecturer, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of William Henry Blashfield, who was in the wholesale dry goods business, and Eliza Dodd, an amateur watercolorist. After some schooling in Hartford, Connecticut, he attended the Boston Latin School, and in 1863 he went to Hanover, Germany, where he intended to study engineering. However, three months later he was forced to return to the United States, where he enrolled in the Boston Institute of Technology (later Massachusetts Institute of Technology)....
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Bormann, Ernest Gordon (28 July 1925–27 Dec. 2008), professor of speech communication
Julian Thomas Costa
Bormann, Ernest Gordon (28 July 1925–27 Dec. 2008), professor of speech communication, was born in Mitchell, South Dakota, one of three children of Ernest Gottlieb Bormann, a banker, and Annette (Doering) Bormann. After graduating from Stickney High School in 1943, Bormann enrolled at the University of South Dakota, although he quickly put his studies on hold to serve in the United States Army. For the last two years of World War II, Bormann served in the European Theater of Operations as a combat engineer. After the war, he returned to South Dakota and became an active member of the University of South Dakota’s forensics program, as well as the Alpha Tao Omega leadership fraternity. He earned a BA degree, majoring in speech, in ...
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Brown, Hallie Quinn (10 March 1849–16 September 1949), educator, elocutionist, and entertainer
Claire Strom
Brown, Hallie Quinn (10 March 1849–16 September 1949), educator, elocutionist, and entertainer, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Thomas Arthur Brown, a steward and express agent on riverboats, and Frances Jane Scroggins. Both her parents were formerly enslaved. When Hallie was fourteen years old, she moved with her parents and five siblings to Chatham, Ontario, where her father earned his living farming, and the children attended the local school. There Brown’s talents as a speaker became evident. Returning to the United States around 1870, the family settled in Wilberforce, Ohio, so that Hallie and her younger brother could attend Wilberforce College, a primarily Black African Methodist Episcopal (AME) institution....
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Brown, Hallie Quinn (10 March 1849–16 September 1949)
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Brown, John (1810?–1876), field hand and author
F. N. Boney
Brown, John (1810?–1876), field hand and author, was born in Southampton County, Virginia, the son of slaves Joe and Nancy. For most of his life as a slave he was called Fed or Benford. At around age ten he and his mother were moved to nearby Northampton County, North Carolina; eighteen months later he was sold alone and sent to Georgia, never again to see any of his kinfolk....
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Brown, John Mason, Jr. (1900-1969), critic, author, and lecturer
Daniel S. Krempel
Brown, John Mason, Jr. (03 July 1900–16 March 1969), critic, author, and lecturer, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of John Mason Brown, a lawyer, and Caroline Carroll Ferguson; they divorced when Brown was two. John and his older sister were brought up by their mother and maternal grandmother. Brown became stagestruck at the age of eight, when he saw the aging ...
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Brown, William Wells (1814?–06 November 1884), author and reformer
R. J. M. Blackett
Brown, William Wells (1814?–06 November 1884), author and reformer, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, the son of George Higgins, a relative of his master, and Elizabeth, a slave. Dr. John Young, Brown’s master, migrated with his family from Kentucky to the Missouri Territory in 1816. Eleven years later the Youngs moved to St. Louis. Although Brown never experienced the hardship of plantation slavery, he was hired out regularly and separated from his family. He worked for a while in the printing office of abolitionist ...
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Burleigh, Charles Calistus (1810-1878), antislavery lecturer and reformer
William Cohen
Burleigh, Charles Calistus (03 November 1810–13 June 1878), antislavery lecturer and reformer, was born in Plainfield, Connecticut, the son of Rinaldo Burleigh, a farmer and educator, and Lydia Bradford. Burleigh came from a family that was passionately committed to antislavery and other moral reforms. His father was the first president of the Windham County Antislavery Society, his sister taught at ...
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Burnett, Alfred (1824-1884), entertainer and journalist
Kent Neely and Steve West
Burnett, Alfred (02 November 1824–04 April 1884), entertainer and journalist, was born in Bungay, Suffolk, England. The names of his parents and other facts about his early life are unknown. In 1828 he was sent to live with an aunt in New York City. After four years of schooling in Utica, New York, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1836. He later became proprietor of a confectionery business and by 1860 owned three such establishments....
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Campbell, David Scott (23 Sept. 1941–3 Sept. 2015)
Gary Braman
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David Scott Campbell, 2000, by Gary Braman
Photo by Gary Braman
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Campbell, David Scott (23 Sept. 1941–3 Sept. 2015), professor of media, communication, and technology
Julian Thomas Costa
Campbell, David Scott (23 Sept. 1941–3 Sept. 2015), professor of media, communication, and technology, was born in Galion, Ohio, the first of two sons of Robert Tinlin and MaryJane Avery Campbell. His father worked as an engineer at the Northern Ohio Telephone Company. David was educated in the Galion School District, where he participated in musical and theatrical performances. All the while, he was interested in technology and enjoyed helping his father with household repair projects. He graduated from Galion High School in ...
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Carleton, Will (1845-1912), poet, lecturer, and editor
Dennis Wepman
Carleton, Will (21 October 1845–18 December 1912), poet, lecturer, and editor, was born William McKendree Carleton in Hudson, Michigan, the son of John Hancock Carleton, a pioneer farmer, and Celestia Elvira Smith. An earnest, sensitive lad with an early passion for reading, he began writing poetry in his diary in his early teens....
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Chew, Ng Poon (1866-1931), clergyman and lecturer
Samuel Willard Crompton
Chew, Ng Poon (28 April 1866–13 March 1931), clergyman and lecturer, was born in Guangdong Province, China, the son of Ng Yip and Wong Shee. His Chinese name was Wu P’ang-tsao. He was raised by his grandmother in a poor Chinese village. Hoping that he would become a Taoist priest, his grandmother sent him to a Taoist shrine, but the most significant event in the development of his personal dreams came about in 1879, when one of his uncles returned to China after spending eight years in California. The stories his uncle told, plus the inspiration provided by the sight of 800 Mexican dollars that his uncle had brought home, motivated Chew, like so many members of his generation in China, to go to the United States....
