Portal:Philadelphia/Selected biography archive/2007
2007[edit]
- December
E. Urner Goodman was an influential leader in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) movement for much of the twentieth century. He was the national program director from 1931 until 1951, during the organization's formative years of significant growth when the Cub Scouting and Exploring programs were established. He developed the BSA's national training center in the early 1930s and was responsible for publication of the widely-read Boy Scout Handbook and other Scouting books, writing the Leaders Handbook used by Scout leaders in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. He is best remembered today for having created the Order of the Arrow or "OA", a popular and highly successful program of the Boy Scouts of America which continues to honor Scouts for their cheerful service. Since its founding in 1915, the Order of the Arrow has grown to become a nationwide program having thousands of members, which recognizes those Scouts who best exemplify the virtues of cheerful service, camping, and leadership by membership in Scouting's honor society.
- November
Clifford Scott Green was a judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Green was the eighteenth African American Article III judge appointed in the United States, and the second African American judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. During his 36 years on the federal bench Judge Green presided over a number of notable cases, including Bolden v. Pennsylvania State Police, and was regarded as one of the most popular judges in the district. Green was the first recipient of the NAACP's William H. Hastie award in 1985 and was awarded the Spirit of Excellence award by the American Bar Association in 2002.
- October
George B. McClellan was a major general during the American Civil War. He organized the Army of the Potomac and served briefly as general-in-chief of the Union Army. Early in the war, McClellan played an important role in raising a well-trained and organized army for the Union. However, although McClellan was meticulous in his planning and preparations, these attributes may have hampered his ability to challenge aggressive opponents in a fast-moving battlefield environment. He chronically overestimated the strength of enemy units and was reluctant to apply principles of mass, frequently leaving large portions of his army unengaged at decisive points. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign in 1862 ended in failure, retreating from attacks by General Robert E. Lee's smaller army. His performance at the Battle of Antietam blunted Lee's invasion of Maryland, but allowed Lee to eke out a precarious tactical draw and avoid destruction. As a result, McClellan's leadership skills during battles were questioned by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who eventually removed him from command. Despite this, he was the most popular of that army's commanders among its soldiers, who felt that their morale and well-being were his paramount concerns. Although the majority of modern historians assess McClellan poorly as a battlefield general, a small but vocal faction of historians maintain that he was indeed a highly capable commander, and that his reputation suffered unfairly at the hands of pro-Lincoln partisans who needed a scapegoat for the Union's setbacks.
- September
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party activist, cab driver and local journalist from Philadelphia convicted for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Mumia Abu-Jamal is serving a presently undefined sentence of imprisonment at State Correctional Institution - Greene near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania for the murder. His original sentence of death was quashed, and resentencing was ordered in December 2001 by a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Both Abu-Jamal and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have appealed the ruling alternately as to the appropriateness of affirming the conviction and the disaffirming of the validity of the original sentence. Abu-Jamal's celebrated case has received international attention. Supporters and some human-rights activists variously assert that he is innocent, that the incident in question was a setup, that he did not receive a fair trial, and/or express their opposition to the administration of the death penalty. Skeptics and opponents, including a very vocal block of Philadelphians who still remember the Faulkner murder, assert that he is guilty, that he received the benefit of due process and was legitimately convicted. Execution proponents among these assert that, under Pennsylvania law, his eventual judicial execution is warranted and mandated by the nature of his crime. The attention received has spawned controversies surrounding references to him in music and naming of public places, as well as his status as a celebrated author, honoree of municipal, educational and civil society organizations, and his engagement as a radio host, writer and commencement speaker in the United States.
- August
Wilt Chamberlain was an American professional National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball player for the Philadelphia / San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers; and also played for the Harlem Globetrotters. The 7-ft 1-in Chamberlain, who weighed 250 lb as a rookie before bulking up to 275 lb and eventually over 300 lb with the Lakers, played the center position and is credited as being one of the most successful and dominant players in the history of the NBA. Chamberlain holds numerous NBA all-time records, setting yardsticks in many scoring, rebounding and durability categories; he is the only player in NBA history to average over 50 points in a season or score 100 points in a single game. He won seven scoring, nine field goal percentage, and eleven rebounding titles, and once even led the league in assists. Although never receiving full recognition for his feats, Chamberlain had a successful career, making the NBA Finals six times, winning two NBA titles, earning four regular-season Most Valuable Player awards, one NBA Finals MVP award, and being elected into 13 All-Star games and into ten All-NBA First and Second teams. Chamberlain was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, elected into the NBA's 35th Anniversary Team of 1980, and chosen as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History of 1996. Aside from all these accolades, Wilt is remembered as one of the worst free throw shooters in the history of the league, with a career average about 50%.
- July
John Barton "Bart" King was an American cricketer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. King was one of the Philadelphian cricketers that played from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I. King was an amateur from a middle-class family, who was able to devote time to cricket thanks to a job set up by his teammates. King was a skilled batsman, but proved his worth as a bowler. During his career, he set numerous records in North America and led the first-class bowling averages in England in 1908. He successfully competed against the best cricketers from England and Australia. King was the dominant bowler on his team when it toured England in 1897, 1903, and 1908. He dismissed batsmen with his unique delivery, which he called the "angler," and helped develop the art of swing bowling in the sport. Many of the great bowlers of today still use the strategies and techniques that he developed. Sir Pelham Warner described Bart King as one of the finest bowlers of all time, and Donald Bradman called him "America's greatest cricketing son."
- June
Katharine Marie Drexel is a Roman Catholic Saint. The daughter of Philadelphia banker Francis Anthony Drexel and Hannah Jane Langstroth, his first wife. On 12 February 1891, Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. From the age of 33 until her death in 1955, she dedicated her life and personal fortune of US$ 20 million to this work, opening numerous schools in the Western United States. Katharine was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 20, 1988. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000 to become only the second American-born saint.
- May
Thomas Eakins was a painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He was one of the greatest American painters of his time, an innovating teacher, and an uncompromising realist. He was also the most neglected major painter of his era in the United States. For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some forty years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of Philadelphia. He painted several hundred portraits, usually of friends, family members, or prominent people in the arts, sciences, medicine, and clergy. As well, Eakins produced a number of large paintings which brought the portrait out of the drawing room and into the offices, streets, parks, rivers, arenas, and surgical amphitheaters of his city. These active outdoor venues allowed him to paint the subject which most inspired him: the nude or lightly clad figure in motion. No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a teacher. As an instructor he was a highly influential presence in American art. The difficulties which beset him as an artist seeking to paint the portrait and figure realistically were paralleled and even amplified in his career as an educator, where behavioral and sexual scandals truncated his success and damaged his reputation.
- April
Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis, and other agents.
- March
John Ashby Lester was an American cricketer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lester was one of the Philadelphian cricketers who played from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I. His obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, described him as "one of the great figures in American cricket." During his career, he played in 53 matches for the Philadelphians, 47 of which are considered first class. From 1897 until his retirement in 1908, Lester led the batting averages in Philadelphia and captained all the international home matches.
- February
Joseph Wharton was a prominent Philadelphia merchant, industrialist, and philanthropist, who was
involved in mining, manufacturing, and education. Born in Philadelphia, Wharton founded the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, co-founded the Bethlehem Steel company, and was one of the founders of Swarthmore College. Wharton died in Philadelphia in 1909.
- January
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, now part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1840 her family moved to a cottage on two acres along the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts. Louisa May Alcott's overwhelming success dated from the appearance of the first part of Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, in 1868. The novel is a semiautobiographical account of her childhood years along with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts.