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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
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Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Frederick Freeman Proctor | |
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 Proctor circa 1909 | |
| Born | March 17, 1851 Dexter, Maine, US |
| Died | September 4, 1929 (aged 78) |
| Known for | Vaudeville |
| Relatives | John William Merrow, nephew |
Frederick Freeman Proctor (March 17, 1851 – September 4, 1929), aka F. F. Proctor, was a variety theatre impresario known as "The Dean of Vaudeville," pioneered "continuous vaudeville" at his 23rd Street Theater in New York City as well as the introduction of motion pictures into vaudeville theaters.[1]
Frederick Freeman Proctor was born to Alpheus Proctor and Lucy Ann Tufts in the mill town of Dexter, Maine, where his father was a doctor.[2][3][4] As a boy at home and later in Boston, where he worked in a dry goods store, young Proctor practiced tumbling, trapeze and juggling barrels and boxes with his feet. He joined the Tremont Gymnasium, a training facility for professional and would-be professional acrobats, where he was recruited to join another performer who had purchased the established name "The Levantine Brothers" from a retiring team of acrobats.
Variety show producer M.B. Leavitt visited the gym c. 1866 and was impressed by Proctor, but not his partner, so young Fred was paired by the Tremont gym's "professor" with George Mansfield, another acrobat and future theatrical producer. Proctor and Mansfield traveled as "The Levantine Brothers" with the L.B. Lent Circus for more than five years. Mansfield left to tour in Europe, and Proctor did the same in 1872. He continued to perform with various partners and as a solo "equilibrist" in Europe and North America before launching his career in theatrical management.[5][6][7][8]
In 1881, Proctor took over the Novelty Theatre, on Green Street in Albany, NY., running it as "Levantine's Novelty Theatre." In 1883, he made his last appearance as a performer and, in partnership with circus owner William Coup, opened a museum and theatre in Rochester, New York, where the Grau company presented comic operas.[9][10]
In 1884, Proctor launched a partnership with dime museum operator Henry R. Jacobs, and together with him turned the Martin Opera House in Albany into "Jacobs & Proctor's Museum" (later upgraded to "Jacobs & Proctor's Theatre"). The partnership's empire of bargain-priced (10¢,20¢,30¢) museum/theaters expanded to include a host of venues in Schenectady, Rochester, Utica, Buffalo, Syracuse, Brooklyn, Troy, New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, Lancaster, Lynn, Wilmington, Worcester and other cities.[11][12] After breaking up with Jacobs, Proctor in 1889 opened his most famous theater, Proctor's Twenty-third Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Manhattan, initially for "legitimate" productions and later, emulating B.F. Keith in Boston, for "continuous vaudeville."[13][14] He teamed up with Keith in 1906 but the partnership broke up five years later.[15][16][17] At his height, Proctor had a chain of fifty theaters. In 1929, he sold his remaining eleven to RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum).[18]
In 1872, Proctor married the "serio-comic" singer Mary Ann "Polly" Daly (1853-1901), who performed with him until 1880. The couple had a son, F.F. Freeman, Jr., and three daughters, Ellenor, Henrietta and Emma. In 1904, Proctor married Georgena Eliza Miles (1861-1965). He died on September 4, 1929 of lung cancer.[19]
Proctor opened his first theater in Schenectady, New York in 1912, near the Erie Canal. On April 14, 1925, ground was broken for the "new" Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady, New York at its present site. Designed by famed theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, the theater cost $1.5 million to build and had a seating capacity of 2,700. On December 27, 1926, Proctor's Theatre opened with a showing of Stranded in Paris, a silent film starring Bebe Daniels.[20]
Inside was a $50,000 Wurlitzer organ. Over 7,100 paid admissions were collected. In 1928, sound equipment was installed for the "talkies". On May 22, 1930, Proctor's was the site of an early demonstration of wide-screen television. An orchestra led by the image of a conductor that was sent from the General Electric laboratories over a mile away, and projected onto a seven-foot screen. The experiment was by Ernst Alexanderson.[21][22]
In 1929, the chain was sold to the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation (RKO).[citation needed]
Frederick F. Proctor died in 1929 at his home in Larchmont, New York, aged 78 years; death was due to congestion of his lungs.[1]
Frederick Francis Proctor, prominent for more than half a century in New York theatricals and dean of vaudeville managers, died at his home in Larchmont, New York, yesterday, at the age of 78 years, after an illness of several months. Death was due to congestion of the lungs.
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Frederick Freeman Proctor (March 17, 1851 – September 4, 1929), aka F. F. Proctor, was a variety theatre impresario known as "The Dean of Vaudeville," pioneered "continuous vaudeville" at his 23rd Street Theater in New York City as well as the introduction of motion pictures into vaudeville theaters.
Anthony Hussey (also written Huse, Hussie, etc.; c. 1496 – 1560) was an English merchant and lawyer who was President Judge of the High Court of Admiralty under King Henry VIII, before becoming Principal Registrar to the Archbishops of Canterbury from early in the term of Thomas Cranmer, through the restored Catholic primacy of Reginald Pole, and into the first months of Matthew Parker's incumbency, taking a formal part in the latter's consecration. The official registers of these leading figures of the English Reformation period were compiled by him. While sustaining this role, with that of Proctor of the Court of the Arches and other related ecclesiastical offices as a Notary public, he acted abroad as agent and factor for Nicholas Wotton (Dean of Canterbury and royal ambassador to the Emperor). During the reign of Queen Mary I he sat twice in her parliaments, in 1553 and 1558. Having promoted the first expedition of the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands (the "Muscovy Company") during the time of Edward VI, in Mary's Charter of 1554/55 he was named one of the original four Consuls of the company, and in 1556 succeeded Sebastian Cabot as the company's governor. He was also simultaneously Crown Agent and Governor of the English Merchants Adventurers in Antwerp from 1556 to 1558. His long witness of the Reformation came to completion in his official role in the electing and consecration of Matthew Parker as the first Reformist Archbishop of the Elizabethan religious settlement.
White South Africans are South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original colonists, known as Afrikaners, and the Anglophone descendants of predominantly British colonists of South Africa. White South Africans are by far the largest population of White Africans. White was a legally defined racial classification under apartheid. White settlement in South Africa began with Dutch colonisation in 1652, followed by British colonisation in the 19th century, which led to tensions and further expansion inland by Boer settlers. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, waves of immigrants from Europe contributed to the growth of the white population, which peaked in the mid-1990s. Under apartheid, strict racial classifications enforced a legal and economic order that privileged the white minority. Post-apartheid reforms such as Black Economic Empowerment had the goal of redistributing business opportunities and market access to previously disadvantaged groups, prompting reports of newfound economic vulnerability among some white South Africans as material advantages and disadvantages were beginning to be brought to light. Since the early 1990s, a large number of white South Africans have emigrated, due to concerns over crime and employment prospects, with a number returning in subsequent years. The white population in South Africa peaked between 1989 and 1995 at around 5.2 to 5.6 million due to high birth rates and immigration, then declined until the mid-2000s before experiencing a modest increase from 2006 to 2013. It has been declining since. As of the 2022 census, white South Africans make up 7.3% of the population, predominantly speak Afrikaans (61%) or English (36%), mostly identify as Christian (87%), and are unevenly distributed with the highest concentrations in Western Cape and Gauteng provinces. Former South African leaders have made controversial statements about Afrikaners’ identity and race relations, while apartheid enforced white minority rule and granted “honorary white” status to certain Asian immigrants and some African Americans. In South Africa, the legacy of apartheid continues to shape racial and economic dynamics. The majority of Afrikaans-speaking (Afrikaners) and English-speaking White South Africans trace their ancestry to the 17th and 18th-century Dutch colonists or the 1820 British colonists. Other colonists included Huguenots who emigrated from France, and Walloons who emigrated from present-day Belgium. The remainder of the White South African population consists of later immigrants from Lebanon, and Europe such as Greeks and Norwegians. Portuguese immigrants arrived after the collapse of the Portuguese colonial administrations in Angola and Mozambique, although many also originate from Madeira.
Apollo is one of the Olympian deities in ancient Greek religion and mythology. His numerous functions include light, healing, prophecy, music, poetry, and archery. He is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. He is considered to be the most beautiful god and is represented as the ideal of the kouros or ephebe, a beardless, athletic youth. As the patron deity of Delphi (Apollo Pythios), Apollo is an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle and the deity of ritual purification. His oracles were often consulted for guidance in various matters. He was in general seen as the god who affords help and wards off evil, and is referred to as Alexicacus, the "averter of evil". Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo delivered people from epidemics, yet he is also a god who could bring ill health and deadly plague with his arrows. The invention of archery itself is credited to Apollo and his sister Artemis. Apollo is usually described as carrying a silver or golden bow and a quiver of arrows. As the god of mousike, Apollo presides over all music, songs, dance, and poetry. He is the inventor of string-music and the frequent companion of the Muses, functioning as their chorus leader in celebrations. The lyre is a common attribute of Apollo. Protection of the young is one of the best attested facets of his Panhellenic cult persona. As a kourotrophos, Apollo is concerned with the health and education of children, and he presided over their passage into adulthood. Long hair, which was the prerogative of boys, was cut at the coming of age (ephebeia) and dedicated to Apollo. The god himself is depicted with long, uncut hair to symbolise his eternal youth. Apollo is an important pastoral deity, and he was the patron of herdsmen and shepherds. Protection of herds, flocks and crops from diseases, pests and predators were his primary rustic duties. On the other hand, Apollo also encouraged the founding of new towns and the establishment of civil constitutions, is associated with dominion over colonists, and was the giver of laws. His oracles were often consulted before setting laws in a city. Apollo Agyieus was the protector of the streets, public places and home entrances. In the 5th century BC, his worship was imported to Rome. From the 5th century BC, Apollo was often identified with Helios, the personification of the Sun. Although Latin theological works from at least the 1st century BC identified Apollo with Sol, there was no conflation between the two among the classical Latin poets until the 1st century AD. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
