Monthly Archives: June 2015

Calendar Project: May 2015

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May Short List

Kenneth and Mamie Clark & Thurgood Marshall, Publication of Brown versus the Board of Education, The doll experiments

Kenneth and Mamie Clark did the research that lead to Thurgood Marshall winning the Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that ended separate but equal segregation.

May 1847, Ignaz Simmelwiz institutes hand washing with cloronated lime at Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic.

Early advocate for empiricism in medicine.

Other Calendars

Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 May Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar May 2015 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 05 May

May

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
John Dewey “What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good.” — John Dewey, “What Humanism Means to Me”[36]   A Humanist Manifesto, also known as Humanist Manifesto I to distinguish it from later Humanist Manifestos in the series, was written in 1933 primarily by Raymond Bragg and published with 34 signers. Unlike the later manifestos, this first talks of a new religion and refers to humanism as a religious movement meant to transcend and replace previous, deity-based systems. Nevertheless, it is careful not to express a creed or dogma. The document outlines fifteen affirmations on cosmology, biological and cultural evolution, human nature, epistemology, ethics, religion, self-fulfillment, and the quest for freedom and social justice. This latter, stated in article fourteen, proved to be the most controversial, even among humanists, in its opposition to “acquisitive and profit-motivated society” and its demand for an egalitarian world community based on voluntary mutual cooperation. The document’s release was reported by the mainstream media on May 1, simultaneous with its publication in the May/June 1933 issue of the New Humanist. May 1 1933 Publication of the humanists manifesto
Kenneth and Mamie Clark & Thurgood Marshall   Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S.483 (1954), was a landmarkUnited States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court‘s unanimous (9–0) decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” As a result, de jureracial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement.[1] May 17, 1954 Publication of Brown v Board of Education  
Ignaz Semmelweis   Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis[Note 1] (July 1, 1818 – August 13, 1865) (born Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis) was a Hungarian physician of German extraction[1][2] now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the “savior of mothers”, Semmelweis discovered that the incidenceof puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%–35%. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital‘s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had three times the mortality of midwives’ wards.[3] He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings. Semmelweis’s practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the Frenchmicrobiologist‘s research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 47 after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after he was committed.     Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever is a medical book by Ignaz Semmelweis. It includes studies in hospitals conducted in Vienna in 1847, dealing largely with the field of obstretics. It was translated into English by Kay Codell Carter in 1983.   http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/the%20etiology,%20concept%20and%20prophylaxis%20of%20childbed%20fever.pdf May 1847, Simmelwiz institutes hand washing with cloronated lime

Calendar Project April 2015

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April 2015

Short list for April

Publication of the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award[2] and Pulitzer Prize[3] for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962.[4] Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other “Okies”, they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future. (From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath )

Katharine Hepburn – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (awarded 2nd of 4 academy awards), received the American Humanist Association’s Arts Award in 1985.

“I’m an Atheist and that’s it,” said Katharine to Ladies Home Journal in 1991. “I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other, and do what we can for other people.”

Other Calendars

Full BAH Listing and Research on April 2015

April

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
John Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath    The Grapes of Wrath   First edition cover Author  John Steinbeck Cover artist       Elmer Hader Country            United States Language          English Genre   Novel Publisher           The Viking Press-James Lloyd Publication dateApril 14, 1939[1] Media type        Print (hardcover andpaperback) Pages    619 OCLC 289946 Publishes in April

Calendar Project: March 2015

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March 2015

Audrey Hepburn’s work with UNICEF, First field trip to Ethopia, March 1988

“Somebody said to me the other day, ‘You know, it’s really senseless, what you’re doing. There’s always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you’re just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].’ My answer is, ‘Okay, then, let’s start with your grandchild. Don’t buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don’t take it to the hospital if it has an accident.’ It’s against life-against humanity-to think that way.

Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie, March 1944 recording of “This Land is Your Land” is the first known with the private property verse.

As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, That side was made for you and me.

Other Calendars

Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 03 March Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 03 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 03 March

Full BAH Listing Research for March 2015

 

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Audrey Hepburn’s UNICEF Field Missions   http://www.audrey1.org/biography/22/audrey-hepburns-unicef-field-missions   “Somebody said to me the other day, ‘You know, it’s really senseless, what you’re doing. There’s always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you’re just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].’ My answer is, ‘Okay, then, let’s start with your grandchild. Don’t buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don’t take it to the hospital if it has an accident.’ It’s against life-against humanity-to think that way. March   Ethiopia: March 1988 First trip for UNICEF
Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, That side was made for you and me.   Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children’s songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is “This Land Is Your Land.” Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.[1] Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Andy Irvine, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, Bob Childers and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression when Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning him the nickname the “Dust Bowl Troubadour.”[2] Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States Communist groups, though he was seemingly not a member of any.[3] Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntington’s disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.   March   A March 1944 recording in the possession of the Smithsonian, the earliest known recording of the song, has the “private property” verse included. This version was recorded the same day as 75 other songs. This was confirmed by several archivists for Smithsonian who were interviewed as part of the History Channel program Save Our History – Save our Sounds. The 1944 recording with this fourth verse can be found on Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land: The Asch Recordings Volume 1, where it is track 14.

Calendar Project: February 2015

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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.

 

Calendar Project: Overview

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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.  

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 02 February3

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UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 01 January

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UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 12 December

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UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 11 November

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UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 10 October

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