1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [62]
Hurston, Zora Neale (1891–1960) When she was 16, Hurston left her native Florida with a traveling theatrical company and lived for a time in New York’s Harlem during the early part of the Harlem Renaissance, a great blossoming of African-American literary and artistic creativity. Hurston was educated at Howard University in Washington D.C. (1921–1924) and, on scholarship, studied anthropology at Barnard College in 1925–1928 under the renowned Franz Boas. She pursued graduate studies in anthropology at Columbia University and conducted groundbreaking fieldwork in folklore among African Americans in the South. Her folklore study produced major works of nonfiction and fiction based on African-American folk culture.
Hutchinson, Anne (1591–1643) In 1634, Hutchinson voyaged from England with her husband and settled in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. Here, Hutchinson conducted weekly religious meetings of Boston women. Hutchinson began giving voice to her own theological views, which included the principle that individual religious inspiration and insight trumped sermons or biblical knowledge. The Puritan establishment found this heterodoxy unacceptable, and banished her in 1637. With some followers, she settled part of Aquidneck Island in Roger Williams’s Rhode Island in 1638. She moved in 1642, to Long Island, near present Pelham Bay, New York, where, in 1643 she, together with all but one of her children, was killed by Indians. Some in Puritan Massachusetts claimed this as a divine judgment against her. Modern Americans view Hutchinson as an early champion of religious liberty and even a precursor of feminism.
Ickes, Harold (1874–1952) Ickes was born on a Pennsylvania farm, received a University of Chicago education, and became a lawyer and social reformer. President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped him to serve as secretary of the interior, and Ickes set about transforming the department with the spirit and letter of New Deal reform. He strengthened the National Parks system, he brought strict and impartial enforcement to the stewardship of America’s forests and public lands—keeping real estate speculators, loggers, miners, and power interests from the unregulated exploitation of the nation’s land heritage—and he ended racial segregation throughout the department, including throughout the National Parks.
Ingersoll, Robert (1833–1899) This Illinois politician commanded lordly sums for lectures on humanism, the higher criticism of the Bible, and scientific rationalism. His audiences delighted in—or were provoked by—his skewering of what he called “orthodox superstitions.” Ingersoll was a representative figure of the scientific skepticism that characterized much of the late 19th century in America.
Insull, Samuel (1859–1938) A Londoner by birth, Insull worked as one of Thomas Edison’s British representatives, then came to the United States in 1881 as Edison’s private secretary. By 1891, he was president of the Chicago Edison Company, which furnished electrical power to the city. Insull expanded his utilities empire until, by the 1920s, his company was supplying not only all of Chicago, but most of the Midwest. The expansion was achieved through vigorous promotion of the stocks of his complex of holding companies—a practice that put him in a precarious position and caused his financial collapse during the Great Depression. Tried and acquitted on fraud and other charges, he fled to Europe.
Irving, Washington (1783–1859) Today remembered chiefly for his short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving was a prolific man of letters and the first American writer to achieve a truly international reputation. His “Rip Van Winkle” is generally considered the first American short story, inaugurating a literary form in which American writers would excel.
Ives, Charles (1874–1954) Ives was the son of a bandleader who enjoyed experimenting with strange sounds and unconventional harmonies. Although Ives received a formal