Dayton Duncan was the writer and co-producer of documentary produced by Ken Burns, and has also been involved for many years with other series by Burns including The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz. For the 12-hour series The West about the history of the American West, broadcast in 1996, Duncan was the co-writer and consulting producer. It won the Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians.

He is the writer and producer of , a four-hour documentary broadcast in November 1997. The film attained the second-highest ratings (following The Civil War) in the history of PBS and won a Western Heritage award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a CINE Golden Eagle, as well as many other honors. He is the co-writer and producer of Mark Twain, a four-hour film biography of the great American humorist which was broadcast on PBS in 2002. His next film with Burns was , about the first transcontinental automobile trip, which he wrote and produced. It won the prestigious Christopher Award and a Telly Award.

In politics, Duncan served as chief of staff to New Hampshire Gov. Hugh Gallen; deputy national press secretary for Walter Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984; and national press secretary for Michael Dukakis's 1988 presidential campaign. President Clinton appointed him chair of the American Heritage Rivers Advisory Committee and Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt appointed him as a director of the National Park Foundation. Duncan now serves on the board of the Student Conservation Association, the National Conservation System Foundation and the New Hampshire Humanities Council.

Born and raised in Indianola, Iowa, Duncan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 with a degree in German literature and was also a fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy. He holds honorary doctorates from Franklin Pierce College and Drake University.

For the last thirty years he has lived in New Hampshire, where he makes his home in the small town of Walpole with his wife, Dianne, and their two children.

External links

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/about/qa-dayton-duncan/

Category:American television writers Category:Living people

Name	Ken Burns
Caption	Ken Burns, September 2007
Birth name	Kenneth Lauren Burns
Birth date	July 29, 1953
Birth place	Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Spouse	Julie Deborah Brown (2003-present)Amy Stechler Burns (1982-1993)
Years active	1981 – present

Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American director and producer of documentary films known for his style of using archival footage and photographs. Among his most notable productions are The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), and (2009).

Burns's documentaries have been nominated for two Academy Awards (Brooklyn Bridge in 1982 and The Statue of Liberty in 1986) and have won seven Emmy Awards, mostly for The Civil War and Baseball.

Personal life

Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Lyla (née Tupper), a homemaker, and Robert Kyle Burns, an anthropology professor. His brother Ric Burns also has become a noted documentary filmmaker.

Burns graduated from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1975, and went on to be one of the co-founders of Florentine Films. The recipient of more than 20 honorary degrees, Burns is a sought-after public speaker, appearing at colleges, civic organizations and business groups throughout the country. He resides in Walpole, New Hampshire with his wife Julie.

Burns is a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, with almost $40,000 in political donations. In 2008, the Democratic National Committee chose Burns to produce the introductory video for Senator Edward Kennedy's August 2008 speech to the Democratic National Convention.

Career

As chief cinematographer on many of his documentaries, he has shaped the overall looks of the works. A key visual trait is the filming of live-action material (such as old houses, or battlefield locations) during the low sunlight of dawn or dusk. As a result, much of the original filmed material in a typical Ken Burns documentary contains a distinctive golden cast of low light.

Burns frequently incorporates simple musical leitmotifs or melodies. For example, his acclaimed The Civil War features a distinctive violin melody throughout, "Ashokan Farewell", which was composed and performed for the film by the musician Jay Ungar). In a review of Burns's work, the online journal Salon.com noted, "One of the most memorable things about The Civil War was its haunting, repeated violin melody, whose thin, yearning notes seemed somehow to sum up all the pathos of that great struggle."

Burns often gives "life" to still photographs by slowly zooming in on subjects of interest and panning from one subject to another. For example, in a photograph of a baseball team, he might slowly pan across the faces of the players and come to rest on the player who is the subject of the narrator.

This technique, possible in many professional and home software applications, was affectionately named "The Ken Burns Effect" in Apple Inc.'s iPhoto and iMovie software applications. It also figures in the 6th-generation iPod interface in the cover art of the main menu.

Of Burns's many film series, The Civil War is generally considered to be his masterpiece. He was director, producer, co-writer, chief cinematographer, music director and executive producer of the series. It has been honored with more than 40 major film and television awards, including two Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, the Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild of America, a People's Choice Award, a Peabody Award, a duPont-Columbia Award, a D.W. Griffith Award, and the $50,000 Lincoln Prize, among dozens of others. The nine episodes explore the Civil War through personal stories and photos. During the creation of the movie Burns filmed thousands of archived photographs. The Civil War has been seen by more than 40 million people.

The War, 15 hours in length and seven years in the making, tells the story of the Second World War from the personal perspective of the men and women from four geographically distributed American towns: Waterbury, CT; Mobile, AL; Sacramento, CA; and Luverne, MN. Airing in the fall of 2007, it was the most watched series in the last ten years on PBS. 117 PBS stations across the nation participated in some form of community outreach (local documentaries, screenings, workshops, etc.) and nearly 30,000 educator guides went to every high school in the country.

The National Parks: America's Best Idea was a 2009 documentary broadcast on PBS that explored the history of America's national parks, along with interviews with the people who helped create and influence the parks and park policies. Like his previous most prominent films, The National Parks was very well received.

Filmography

Brooklyn Bridge (1981)

(1984)

The Statue of Liberty (1985)

Huey Long (1985)

The Congress (1988)

Thomas Hart Benton (1988)

The Civil War (1990)

(1991)

Baseball (1994), updated with the 10th Inning (2010)

Thomas Jefferson (1997)

(1997)

Frank Lloyd Wright (1998)

(1999)

Jazz (2001)

Mark Twain (2001)

Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (2003)

(2005)

The War (2007)

(2009)

Prohibition (2011) The Dust Bowl (scheduled for 2012)

The Central Park Five (2013)

The Roosevelts (2013)

Under Burns's name only

The West (1996) (Executive Producer, Directed by Stephen Ives)

Short Films

William Segal (Biography) (1992)

Vezelay (1996)

In the Marketplace (2000)

Film Roles

Gettysburg (1993) - Hancock's staff officer

Culture references

Ken Burns's prolific output (especially its documentary length and exhaustive nature) has often been subject to satire in popular media.

An episode of the 1990s HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show featured a video mockumentary entitled The Civil War: The Reenactments, a parody of Burns's The Civil War.

In an episode of where Jimmy and his friends travel to Egypt, his classmates are watching a "97 hour-long documentary about Egypt by Ken Burns."

In The Simpsons episode Pray Anything, Homer inadvertently watches a documentary by, about, and named for Ken Burns due to his inability to find his television remote. In the Episode The Color Yellow, it is implied that Burns and his brother Ric are related to Montgomery Burns.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Episode 0805 The Thing That Couldn't Die segment four: Crow T. Robot produces a Civil War documentary, at once elaborate and hastily thrown together. Reminded that Ken Burns has already made a Civil War documentary, he states: "Oh, but was it about the Civil War?"

In Season 6, Episode 2 of , Det. John Munch pokes fun at Burns by saying he made something more boring than baseball, a documentary about baseball.

References

External links

Blue Ridge Country - Ken Burns: The Interview with Blue Ridge County Magazine

Florentine Films - Ken Burns's production company

Write TV Public Television Interview with Ken Burns

Ken Burns at MyNorthwest.com

Ken Burns on PBS

Downloadable 15-minute interview with Ken Burns from Wisconsin Public Television Ken Burns talks about his passion for filmmaking, his upcoming project "The War," and the controversies surrounding it.

Ken Burns bibliography

Ken Burns Archive of American Television Interview

Speaking Profile Ken Burns's profile and lecture topics on the Random House Speakers Bureau

Category:1953 births Category:American documentary filmmakers Category:Documentary film directors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Hampshire College alumni Category:Living people Category:People from Ann Arbor, Michigan Category:People from Brooklyn Category:People from New Castle County, Delaware Category:Winners of the Lincoln Prize Category:People from Cheshire County, New Hampshire Category:National Humanities Medal recipients

Name	Truman C. Everts
Caption	Photo of Everts published in The Discovery of Yellowstone Park (1870)
Birth date	1816
Birth place	Burlington, Vermont
Death date	February 16, 1901
Death place	Hyattsville, Maryland
Known for	Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition
Occupation	Assessor of Internal Revenue for the Montana Territory (1864-1870)

Truman C. Everts (1816– February 16, 1901) was part of the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition exploring the area which later became Yellowstone National Park. He became lost for 37 days during the 1870 expedition, and a year later became more widely known after writing about his 1870 experiences for Scribner’s Monthly.

History

Everts was one of six brothers born in Burlington, Vermont to a Great Lakes ship captain.

"Thirty-Seven Days of Peril"

After wandering away from the rest of the expedition on September 9, 1870, he managed to lose the pack horse which was carrying all of his supplies. He ate a local thistle plant to stay alive, a plant (Cirsium foliosum or elk thistle) later named after him.

The next year, his account of the experience—"Thirty-Seven Days of Peril"— was published in Scribner’s Monthly. The article helped raise awareness of the Yellowstone area before it became a national park..

Later years

After the two expeditions and the fame from his article, he was offered a superintendent position with the newly formed Yellowstone park, but he declined since it did not include a salary. He later moved to Hyattsville, Maryland and worked in the Post Office. He died there in 1901.

References

Category:Montana Territory officials Category:19th-century explorers Category:Explorers of North America Category:1816 births Category:People from Burlington, Vermont Category:1901 deaths Category:People from Prince George's County, Maryland Category:Yellowstone Category:Internal Revenue Service Category:Date of birth unknown

Charles Floyd (1782 – August 20, 1804) was a United States explorer, a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, and quartermaster in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. A native of Kentucky, he was a relative of William Clark, an uncle to the politician John Floyd, and a brother to James John Floyd. He was one of the first men to join the expedition, and the only person to die on the expedition.

While exploring the Louisiana Purchase with Lewis and Clark, he took ill at the end of July 1804. On July 31, Floyd wrote in his diary, "I am very sick and have been for sometime but have recovered my health again." However, this apparent recovery was soon followed by a severe turn for the worse. William Clark described Floyd's death as one "with a great deal of composure" and that before Floyd died he said to Clark, "I am going away. I want you to write me a letter."

A funeral was held and Floyd was buried on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River. The expedition named the location Floyd's Bluff in his honor. They camped that night at the mouth of Floyd River, "about 30 yards wide, a beautiful evening.--"

Clark diagnosed the condition which led to Floyd's demise as bilious colic, though modern doctors and historians believe Floyd's death was more likely to have been caused by a ruptured appendix. The brief "recovery" Floyd described may have represented the temporary relief afforded by the bursting of the organ, which would have been followed by a fatal peritonitis. If that were the case, because there was no known cure for appendicitis at that time, he would have been no better off had he been with the best physicians of the day.

Legacy

Floyd's Bluff is currently within the city limits of Sioux City, Iowa. The Sergeant Floyd Monument was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1960. This monument is now located in a park that offers visitors a view of the Missouri River valley. Floyd's final resting place is located on old U.S. Highway 75, in the southern part of Sioux City, Iowa, in the United States.

After Floyd's expedition journal was published in 1894, new interest was taken in him and his grave-marker was stolen by thieves. He was re-buried once more on August 20, 1895, with a monument. A marble cornerstone three feet wide and seven feet long was placed in 1900. When the obelisk of white sandstone standing high was completed on May 30, 1901, Floyd's grave was moved for the fourth time to rest nearby. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 30, 1960.

The Interstate 129 bridge between Sioux City and South Sioux City, Nebraska is named the Sergeant Floyd Memorial Bridge in his honor.

References

The Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark: John Speedway and Charles Floyd ISBN 0-8032-8021-1

External links

Lewis and Clark Trail: Sioux City

Sgt. Floyd Monument NPS

George Catlin's 1832 painting of "Floyd's Bluff"

Floyd Biography

Category:1782 births Category:1804 deaths Category:Lewis and Clark Expedition people Category:Quartermasters Category:People from Kentucky Category:Woodbury County, Iowa Category:Deaths from peritonitis

Chiura Obata (Nov. 18, 1885 - 1975) was a well-known Japanese-American artist. He came to the United States in 1903, at age 17. After initially working as an illustrator and commercial decorator, he had a successful career as a painter, following a 1927 summer spent in the Sierra Nevada, and was a faculty member in the Art Department at the University of California at Berkeley from 1932 to 1953, interrupted by World War II, when he spent over a year in internment camps. After his retirement, he continued to paint and to lead group tours to Japan to see gardens and art.

Early life

Obata was born in 1885 in Okayama prefecture in Japan. He was the youngest of a very large family. At the age of five, he showed a natural inclination for drawing. He was then adopted by his older brother, Rokuichi, When he got to San Francisco, he found work as a domestic servant in a household, with the pay of $1.50 per week plus room and board.

From 1915-1917 Obata was an illustrator and cover page designer for the magazine Japan, published for the Toyo Kisen Kaisha Steamship Co., during which time he turned out about 3000 illustrations and numerous cover designs.

Executive Order 9066 led to Obata organizing a large sale of his many paintings and woodblock prints. He donated the profits from the sale to a campus student fund. University President Robert Gordon Sproul, a friend of the Obatas, offered to store many of the remaining works. In 1954 he became a naturalized citizen.

Obata played a pivotal role in introducing Japanese art techniques and aesthetics to other artists in California. These techniques and aesthetics became one of the distinctive characteristics of the California Watercolor School.

After retirement

In 1954, Chiura and Haruko Obata led the first of the "Obata Tours" to Japan, to see Japanese gardens and Japanese art. and, in 2000, at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, a retrospective of 100 ink and brush paintings, large scrolls and color woodblock prints. The museum collection at Yosemite National Park contains several Obata prints of the park. The Smithsonian American Art Museum organized an exhibition of Obata's Yosemite woodblock prints, which was shown at the American Art Museum in Washington, DC in early 2008 and then traveled to the Wichita Falls Museum, Wichita, TX (2008) and Federal Hall National Memorial, National Park Service, in New York, NY (2009).

Personal life

In 1912, Obata married Haruko Kohashi (1892-1989). She was one of the first teachers of ikebana in the San Francisco Bay Area. She had an exhibition of her arrangements in 1913 at San Francisco’s 75th Diamond Jubilee Celebration, and in 1915 she exhibited at the Panama Pacific Exposition, beginning a career as a teacher of that art. Their first child, a daughter, was named Fujiko. Their second child, a son, was named Kim; the third, also a son, was named Gyo. Their last was a daughter, Yuri. Haruko's last public demonstration was in Golden Gate Park when she was 93 years old. Their son Gyo Obata became a famous architect, one of the founding partners of the global architecture-engineering giant HOK.

Publications

From the Sierra to the Sea (1937)

The Seasons at California (1939) (color reproductions of paintings on silk , prepared for publication by the editorial staff of California Monthly

Sumie (1967)

Through Japan with Brush & Ink (1968) (in Japanese)

References

Further reading

Obata's Yosemite: The Art and Letters of Chiura Obata from His Trip to the High Sierra in 1927 , edited by Janice Tolhurst Driesbach and Susan Landauer (1993), ISBN 978-0939666676

Topaz Moon: Chiura Obata's Art of the Internment, Kimi Kodani Hill (2000), ISBN 1-8901771-26-0

The New Wave - Twentieth Century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, Amy Reigle Stephens, Bamboo Publishing Ltd. London, ISBN 1-870076-19-2

External links

Brief bio, and resource list, Japanese Migrants and their Descendants, discovernikkei.org

The Great Nature of Chiura Obata Macromedia Flash presentation

Sierra Nevada virtual museum

Category:1885 births Category:1975 deaths Category:Artists from California Category:People from San Francisco, California Category:People from Sendai Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty Category:Japanese expatriates in the United States Category:American artists of Japanese descent Category:Japanese-American internees Category:Japanese immigrants to the United States