Category Archives: Building Humanist Community

Calendar Project: September 2015

Leave a reply

September BAH Short List

September, 26, 1900, Jesse Lazear dies of yellow fever after allowing himself to be bite by a mosquito.

September, Hull House started in Chicago, Jane Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18, 1889

The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community. Its main object was the establishment of “settlement houses” in poor urban areas, in which volunteer middle-class “settlement workers” would live, hoping to share knowledge and culture with, and alleviate the poverty of their low-income neighbors. The “settlement houses” provided services such as daycare, education, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor in these areas.[1] In the US, by 1913 there were 413 settlements in 32 states.[2]  (From wikipedia)

Other calendars

 

Full BAH Research

September

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Racheal Carson Silent Spring is an environmental science book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962
Jane Addams Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was a pioneer settlement social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader inwomen’s suffrage and world peace. In an era when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent[1] reformers of the Progressive Era. She helped turn the US to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health, and world peace. She said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their communities and making them better places to live, they needed the vote to be effective in doing so. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy.[2] In 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States   Addams followed the example of Toynbee Hall, which was founded in 1885 in the East End of London as a center for social reform. She described Toynbee Hall as “a community of university men” who, while living there, held their recreational clubs and social gatherings at the settlement house…among the poor people and in the same style they would in their own circle.[10] September, Hull House started in Chicago Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18, 1889.[11]   Nobel Peace Prize 1931; December  
Yellow fever and mosquitos Walter Reed, Jesse Lazear, Carlos Finlay   After a few months in Quemados, Lazear, together with Walter Reed (1851–1902), James Carroll (1854–1907) and Aristides Agramonte (1869–1931), participated in a commission studying the transmission of yellow fever, the Yellow Fever Board. During his research at Camp Colombia, he confirmed the 1881 hypothesis of Carlos Finlay that mosquitos transmitted this disease. A portion of his study, though, had been conducted on himself: without telling his colleagues, he had allowed himself to be bitten by yellow fever-infected mosquitoes, and died of the disease at age 34. A dormitory at Johns Hopkins University was named after him in honor of his sacrifice, as was a former chemistry building at Washington & Jefferson College, Lazear’s alma mater. September, 26, 1900, Lazear dies of yellow fever after allowing himself to be bite by a mosquito.

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 10 October

Leave a reply

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 11 November

Leave a reply

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 12 December

Leave a reply

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 02 February3

Leave a reply

Calendar Project: Overview

Leave a reply

Some general reminders about the project. First, we decided to limit the nominees this time to people who have passed on.  This was for two reasons, one is to limit the scope.  The other was to limit our likelihood of copyright issues over images used.  I would add, that by delving into history, we show the depth and breathe of the movement and how critical humanists have been to getting us to where we are today. Second, what you are seeing are names and people nominated by other BAH members.  These are the names or events in the actual post. Third, I have focused on events and achievements for picking the months.  There are a lot of ways we can go and a lot of different calendars we can do.  I just personally think that it is what you do that counts and by focusing on events and not something random like a birthday. Finally, there are a lot of calendars we can do as we move this project forward.  The focus right now is to be able to tell a story for each month.  I am willing to listen to other nominees for any month, but we need a story with the nominees at this point.  So if you have a nominee, please provide information about the nominee or event or achievement and why it is relevant to the month.  

Calendar Project: February 2015

Leave a reply

Here are the suggestions for January.  We are trying to avoid birthdays and focus an important event.

February 2015 – BAH Suggestions

Publication of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony completed in February 1824.

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (sometimes known simply as “the Choral”), is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best-known works of the repertoire of classical music.[1] Among critics, it is almost universally considered to be among Beethoven’s greatest works, and is considered by some to be the greatest piece of music ever written.

  • Publication of article identifying DNA as the hereditary material of biology. Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty

In their paper “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Deoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III”, published in the February 1944 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Avery and his colleagues suggest that DNA, rather than protein as widely believed at the time, may be the hereditary material of bacteria, and could be analogous to genes and/or viruses in higher organisms.[1][2] Please comment below if you prefer one of these or suggest someone or an event for January.  Below are some places to look. Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 02 February Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 02 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 02 February3

February Full BAH Research Listing

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Samuel Clements “Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer   The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy’s belief in the right thing to do though most believed that it was wrong. Hemingway also wrote in the same essay: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”[64]   February Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885
Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty The Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment was an experimental demonstration, reported in 1944 by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty, that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation, in an era when it had been widely believed that it was proteins that served the function of carrying genetic information (with the very word protein itself coined to indicate a belief that its function was primary). It was the culmination of research in the 1930s and early 1940s at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research to purify and characterize the “transforming principle” responsible for the transformation phenomenon first described in Griffith’s experiment of 1928: killed Streptococcus pneumoniae of the virulent strain type III-S, when injected along with living but non-virulent type II-R pneumococci, resulted in a deadly infection of type III-S pneumococci.   In their paper “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Deoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III“, published in the February 1944 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Avery and his colleagues suggest that DNA, rather than protein as widely believed at the time, may be the hereditary material of bacteria, and could be analogous to genes and/or viruses in higher organisms.[1][2] February 1944   Publication date
Beethoven Composition of Ninth Symphony completed [edit] The Philharmonic Society of London originally commissioned the symphony in 1817.[5] The main composition work was done between autumn 1822 and the completion of the autograph in February 1824.[6] The symphony emerged from other pieces by Beethoven that, while completed works in their own right, are also in some sense sketches for the future symphony. The Choral Fantasy Opus. 80 (1808), basically a piano concerto movement, brings in a chorus and vocal soloists near the end to form the climax. As in the Ninth Symphony, the vocal forces sing a theme first played instrumentally, and this theme is highly reminiscent of the corresponding theme in the Ninth Symphony (for a detailed comparison, see Choral Fantasy). Going further back, an earlier version of the Choral Fantasy theme is found in the song “Gegenliebe” (“Returned Love”), for piano and high voice, which dates from before 1795.[7] According to Robert W. Gutman, Mozart’s K. 222 Offertory in D minor, “Misericordias Domini”, written in 1775, contains a melody that foreshadows “Ode to Joy”.[8] Premiere[edit] Although his major works had primarily been premiered in Vienna, Beethoven was eager to have his latest composition performed in Berlin as soon as possible after finishing it, since he thought that musical taste in Vienna had become dominated by Italian composers such as Rossini.[9] When his friends and financiers heard this, they urged him to premiere the symphony in Vienna in the form of a petition signed by a number of prominent Viennese music patrons and performers.[9] Beethoven was flattered by the adoration of Vienna, so the Ninth Symphony was premiered on 7 May 1824 in the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna, along with the overture The Consecration of the House (Die Weihe des Hauses) and three parts of the Missa solemnis (the Kyrie, Credo, and the Agnus Dei).   February 1824 finished   Premiered in May    
Upton Sinclair The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelistUpton Sinclair (1878–1968).[1] Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the lives ofimmigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. Many readers were most concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper. The book depicts working class poverty, the absence of social programs, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, “the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage slavery.”[2] Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[3] He first published the novel in serial form in 1905 in the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905. In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. It was published as a book on 26 February 1906 by Doubleday and in a subscribers’ edition.[4] A film version of the novel was made in 1914, but it has since become lost.   February   Publication of the Jungle was in the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905.

 

ADL 2015 10 October

Leave a reply

ADL 2015 11 November

Leave a reply

ADL 2015 12 December

Leave a reply