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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Posted on September 13, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the “Father of Bluegrass,” Bill Monroe, born in Rosine, Kentucky (1911), a brilliant mandolinist and a hard-driving tenor singer. His mother was an excellent fiddler, but his main inspiration was his Uncle Pen Vandiver, whom Monroe later honored with the song “Uncle Pen.” In 1938, Bill formed the Blue Grass Boys, a group that would include future stars of country music such as Don Reno, Jimmy Martin, Carter Stanley, Vassar Clements, Chubby Wise, and Byron Berline — and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Posted on September 12, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of French scientist Irène Joliot-Curie, born in Paris (1897). She was the daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie. She was homeschooled as part of an educational experiment run by her parents and their friends. Called “The Cooperative,” the adults — all experts in their respective fields — took turns teaching one another’s children. She then studied at the Sorbonne, but World War I interrupted her university career, so she helped her mother operate mobile X-ray units in field hospitals instead.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, September 11, 2023

Posted on September 11, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of English novelist, poet, and short-story writer D.H. Lawrence (1885), born David Herbert Richards Lawrence. He’s best known for his novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), which was banned in several countries for its explicit content. Lawrence’s books include The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was his last novel.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, September 10, 2023

Posted on September 10, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of best-selling poet Mary Oliver, born in Maple Heights, Ohio (1935). She published five books of poetry, and still almost no one had heard of her. She doesn’t remember ever having given a reading before 1984, which is the year that she was doing dishes one evening when the phone rang and it was someone calling to tell her that her most recent book, American Primitive (1983), had won the Pulitzer Prize. Suddenly, she was famous.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, September 9, 2023

Posted on September 9, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1839 that Englishman John Herschel took the first glass plate photograph. Cameras, and photography, weren’t new: the Chinese had been experimenting with pinhole cameras as far back as the fifth century B.C. A pinhole camera is a box with a tiny hole in the front. When light enters through the hole, an upside-down image is displayed on the inside back wall of the box. They also knew that some chemicals changed when exposed to light. They just couldn’t quite figure out how to combine the two so that an image stayed permanent. Images were proving too light sensitive and would quickly fade.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, September 8, 2023

Posted on September 8, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Jimmie Rodgers, the American singer-songwriter and guitarist known as “The Father of Country Music.” Born in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1897, Rodgers was one of the first nationally recognized country music stars and the first inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame. His influence reached later country musicians, including Hank Snow, Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb, and Lefty Frizzell.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, September 7, 2023

Posted on September 7, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1927, a 21-year-old inventor named Philo T. Farnsworth achieved the first fully electronic television system. He successfully transmitted an image through the purely electronic means of a device he called an “image dissector” (the first television camera tube). On that day in his lab at 202 Green Street in San Francisco, he transmitted a tele-electronic image onto a glass slide in a different room. Over the course of his life, Farnsworth held more than 300 patents, and even helped develop important advances in nuclear fusion.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Posted on September 6, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of social reformer and peace activist Jane Addams, born in Cedarville, Illinois (1860). When she was in her 20s, she and her friend Ellen Gates Starr took the Grand Tour of Europe, an excursion that was popular for young people at the time, in which they traveled widely before choosing marriage or school. Addams had already graduated from the Rockford Female Seminary in 1881, but she also suffered depression, and physical pain related to a childhood disability, and she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Posted on September 5, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1978, peace accord discussions began with United States President Jimmy Carter, Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin, and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. When President Jimmy Carter introduced the Accords to the public, he said: “It’s been more than 2,000 years since there was peace between Egypt and a free Jewish nation. If our present expectations are realized, this year we shall see such peace again.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, September 4, 2023

Posted on September 4, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

George Eastman received a patent for the first film camera, which he called Kodak, on this date in 1888. Eastman had been an enthusiastic photographer since he was a young man, but found the whole method — with its bulky cameras and heavy, breakable glass plates — cumbersome and inconvenient. He wanted to make it easier for people to take up the hobby, so he worked on new technology in his spare time. The name “Kodak” is also an invention of Eastman’s, and carries no special meaning. He once explained: “I devised the name myself.

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