title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass's best-known work is his first autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave", written during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts and published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 "Narrative" was his biggest seller and probably allowed him to raise the funds to gain his legal freedom the following year, as discussed below. In 1855, Douglass published "My Bondage and My Freedom". In 1881, in his sixties, Douglass published "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass", which he revised in 1892.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass's friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back. They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the "Cambria" for Liverpool, England, on August 16, 1845. He traveled in Ireland as the Great Famine was beginning.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Eleven days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland]. I breathe, and lo! the chattel [slave] becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlor—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended... I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, "We don't allow niggers in here!"


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Still, Douglass was astounded by the extreme levels of poverty he encountered, much of it reminding him of his experiences in slavery. In a letter to William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass wrote "I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over. He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: He also met and befriended the Irish nationalist and strident abolitionist Daniel O'Connell, who was to be a great inspiration.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Great Britain, lecturing in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation". One example was his hugely popular "London Reception Speech", which Douglass delivered in May 1846 at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel. Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man".


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In 1846, Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies. During this trip Douglass became legally free, as British supporters led by Anna Richardson and her sister-in-law Ellen of Newcastle upon Tyne raised funds to buy his freedom from his American owner Thomas Auld. Many supporters tried to encourage Douglass to remain in England but, with his wife still in Massachusetts and three million of his black brethren in bondage in the United States, he returned to America in the spring of 1847, soon after the death of Daniel O'Connell.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass spent time in Scotland and was appointed "Scotland's Antislavery agent." He made anti-slavery speeches and wrote letters back to the USA. He considered the city of Edinburgh to be elegant, grand and very welcoming. Maps of the places in the city that were important to his stay are held by the National Library of Scotland. A plaque and a mural on Gilmore Place in Edinburgh mark his stay there in 1846.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: "A variety of collaborative projects are currently [in 2021] underway to commemorate Frederick Douglass’s journey and visit to Ireland in the 19th century."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After returning to the U.S. in 1847, using £500 () given to him by English supporters, Douglass started publishing his first abolitionist newspaper, the "North Star", from the basement of the Memorial AME Zion Church in Rochester, New York. Originally, Pittsburgh journalist Martin Delany was co-editor but Douglass didn't feel he brought in enough subscriptions, and they parted ways. The "North Star"'s motto was "Right is of no Sex – Truth is of no Color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren." The AME Church and "North Star" joined in the freedmen community's vigorous opposition to the mostly white American Colonization Society and its proposal to send free black people to Africa. Douglass also participated in the Underground Railroad. He and his wife provided lodging and resources in their home to more than four hundred escaped slaves.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass also soon split with Garrison, who he found unwilling to support actions against American slavery. Earlier Douglass had agreed with Garrison's position that the Constitution was pro-slavery, because of the Three-Fifths Clause, the compromise that provided that 60 percent of the number of slaves would be added to "the whole Number of free Persons" for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats; and protection of the international slave trade through 1807. Garrison had burned copies of the Constitution to express his opinion. However, Lysander Spooner published "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery" (1846), which examined the United States Constitution as an anti-slavery document. Douglass's change of opinion about the Constitution and his splitting from Garrison around 1847 became one of the abolitionist movement's most notable divisions. Douglass angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In September 1848, on the tenth anniversary of his escape, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and inquiring after members of his family still held by Auld. In the course of the letter, Douglass adeptly transitions from formal and restrained to familiar and then to impassioned. At one point he is the proud parent, describing his improved circumstances and the progress of his own four young children. But then he dramatically shifts tone: Oh! sir, a slaveholder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear children. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. … The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me, the wails of millions pierce my heart, and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the deathlike gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman, the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda as a slave, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld. Yet in his conclusion Douglass shows his focus and benevolence, stating that he has "no malice towards him personally," and asserts that, "there is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In 1848, Douglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, in upstate New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage. Many of those present opposed the idea, including influential Quakers James and Lucretia Mott. Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor of women's suffrage; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could also not claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In the wake of the Seneca Falls Convention, Douglass used an editorial in "The North Star" to press the case for women's rights. He recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: On the first count, Douglass acknowledged the "decorum" of the participants in the face of disagreement. In the remainder, he discussed the primary document that emerged from the conference, a Declaration of Sentiments, and the "infant" feminist cause. Strikingly, he expressed the belief that "[a] discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency...than would be a discussion of the rights of women," and Douglass noted the link between abolitionism and feminism, the overlap between the communities.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: His opinion as the editor of a prominent newspaper carried weight, and he stated the position of the "North Star" explicitly: "We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man." This letter, written a week after the convention, reaffirmed the first part of the paper's slogan, "right is of no sex."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After the Civil War, when the 15th Amendment giving black men the right to vote was being debated, Douglass split with the Stanton-led faction of the women's rights movement. Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men. Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited the expansion of suffrage to black men; she predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote. Stanton argued that American women and black men should band together to fight for universal suffrage, and opposed any bill that split the issues. Douglass and Stanton both knew that there was not yet enough male support for women's right to vote, but that an amendment giving black men the vote could pass in the late 1860s. Stanton wanted to attach women's suffrage to that of black men so that her cause would be carried to success.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage. He feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both. Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote. Black women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once black men had the vote. Douglass assured the American women that at no time had he ever argued against women's right to vote.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Meanwhile, in 1851, Douglass merged the "North Star" with Gerrit Smith's "Liberty Party Paper" to form "Frederick Douglass' Paper", which was published until 1860.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: On July 5, 1852, Douglass delivered an address in Corinthian Hall at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. This speech eventually became known as "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"; one biographer called it "perhaps the greatest antislavery oration ever given." In 1853, he was a prominent attendee of the radical abolitionist National African American Convention in Rochester. Douglass's was one of five names attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, "The Claims of Our Common Cause", along with Amos Noë Freeman, James Monroe Whitfield, Henry O. Wagoner, and George Boyer Vashon.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Like many abolitionists, Douglass believed that education would be crucial for African Americans to improve their lives; he was an early advocate for school desegregation. In the 1850s, Douglass observed that New York's facilities and instruction for African-American children were vastly inferior to those for European Americans. Douglass called for court action to open all schools to all children. He said that full inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: On March 12, 1859, Douglass met with radical abolitionists John Brown, George DeBaptiste, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation. Douglass met Brown again when Brown visited his home two months before leading the raid on Harpers Ferry. Brown penned his Provisional Constitution during his two-week stay with Douglass. Also staying with Douglass for over a year was Shields Green, a fugitive slave whom Douglass was helping, as he often did.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Shortly before the raid, Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Brown's communications headquarters. He was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture. Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery. Green joined him on the stage; Brown, incognito, sat in the audience. A white reporter, referring to "Nigger Democracy", called it a "flaming address" by "the notorious Negro Orator".


title: Frederick Douglass

text: There, in an abandoned stone quarry for secrecy, Douglass and Green met with Brown and John Henri Kagi, to discuss the raid. After discussions lasting, as Douglass put it, "a day and a night", he disappointed Brown by declining to join him, considering the mission suicidal. To Douglass's surprise, Green went with Brown instead of returning to Rochester with Douglass. Anne Brown said that Green told her that Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but David Blight called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality".


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Almost all that is known about this incident comes from Douglass. It is clear that it was of immense importance to him, both as a turning point in his life—not accompanying John Brown—and its importance in his public image. The meeting was not revealed by Douglass for 20 years. He first disclosed it in his speech on John Brown at Storer College in 1881, trying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man. He again referred to it stunningly in his last "Autobiography."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After the raid, which took place between October 16 and 18, 1859, Douglass was accused both of supporting Brown and of not supporting him enough. He was nearly arrested on a Virginia warrant, and fled for a brief time to Canada before proceeding onward to England on a previously planned lecture tour, arriving near the end of November. During his lecture tour of Great Britain, on March 26, 1860, Douglass delivered a speech before the Scottish Anti-Slavery Society in Glasgow, "", outlining his views on the American Constitution. That month, on the 13th, Douglass's youngest daughter Annie died in Rochester, New York, just days shy of her 11th birthday. Douglass sailed back from England the following month, traveling through Canada to avoid detection.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Years later, in 1881, Douglass shared a stage at Storer College in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who secured Brown's conviction and execution. Hunter congratulated Douglass.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass considered photography very important in ending slavery and racism, and believed that the camera would not lie, even in the hands of a racist white person, as photographs were an excellent counter to many racist caricatures, particularly in blackface minstrelsy. He was the most photographed American of the 19th century, consciously using photography to advance his political views. He never smiled, specifically so as not to play into the racist caricature of a happy slave. He tended to look directly into the camera and confront the viewer with a stern look.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: As a child, Douglass was exposed to a number of religious sermons, and in his youth, he sometimes heard Sophia Auld reading the Bible. In time, he became interested in literacy; he began reading and copying bible verses, and he eventually converted to Christianity. He described this approach in his last biography, "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass":


title: Frederick Douglass

text: I was not more than thirteen years old, when in my loneliness and destitution I longed for some one to whom I could go, as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson, was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were by nature rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise.I consulted a good old colored man named Charles Lawson, and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to "cast all my care upon God." This I sought to do; and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially, did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass was mentored by Rev. Charles Lawson, and, early in his activism, he often included biblical allusions and religious metaphors in his speeches. Although a believer, he strongly criticized religious hypocrisy, and accused slaveholders of "wickedness", lack of morality, and failure to follow the Golden Rule. In this sense, Douglass distinguished between the "Christianity of Christ" and the "Christianity of America" and considered religious slaveholders and clergymen who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all who represented "wolves in sheep's clothing".


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", an oration Douglass gave in the Corinthian Hall of Rochester, he sharply criticized the attitude of religious people who kept silent about slavery, and he charged that ministers committed a "blasphemy" when they taught it as sanctioned by religion. He considered that a law passed to support slavery was "one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty" and said that pro-slavery clergymen within the American Church "stripped the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form", and "an abomination in the sight of God".


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Of ministers like John Chase Lord, Leonard Elijah Lathrop, Ichabod Spencer, and Orville Dewey, he said that they taught, against the Scriptures, that "we ought to obey man's law before the law of God". He further asserted, "in speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States ... Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend [Robert R. Raymonde]".


title: Frederick Douglass

text: He maintained that "upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption from his chains". In addition, he called religious people to embrace abolitionism, stating, "let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: During his visits to the United Kingdom between 1846 and 1848, Douglass asked British Christians never to support American churches that permitted slavery, and he expressed his happiness to know that a group of ministers in Belfast had refused to admit slaveholders as members of the Church.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: On his return to the United States, Douglass founded the "North Star", a weekly publication with the motto "Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren." Douglass later wrote a letter to his former slaveholder, in which he denounced him for leaving Douglass's family illiterate:


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Sometimes considered a precursor of a non-denominational liberation theology, Douglass was a deeply spiritual man, as his home continues to show. The fireplace mantle features busts of two of his favorite philosophers, David Friedrich Strauss, author of "The Life of Jesus", and Ludwig Feuerbach, author of "The Essence of Christianity". In addition to several Bibles and books about various religions in the library, images of angels and Jesus are displayed, as well as interior and exterior photographs of Washington's Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Throughout his life, Douglass had linked that individual experience with social reform, and like other Christian abolitionists, he followed practices such as abstaining from tobacco, alcohol and other substances that he believed corrupted body and soul.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his orations on the condition of the black race and on other issues such as women's rights. His eloquence gathered crowds at every location. His reception by leaders in England and Ireland added to his stature.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: He had been seriously proposed for the congressional seat of his friend and supporter Gerrit Smith, who declined to run again after his term ended in 1854. Smith recommended to him that he not run, because there were "strenuous objections" from members of Congress. The possibility "afflicted some with convulsions, others with panic, more with an astonishing flow of exceedingly select and nervous language", "giving vent to all sorts of linguistic enormities." If the House agreed to seat him, which was unlikely, all the Southern members would walk out, so the country would finally be split. No black person would serve in Congress until 1870, just after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass and the abolitionists argued that because the aim of the Civil War was to end slavery, African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom. Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. After Lincoln had finally allowed black soldiers to serve in the Union army, Douglass helped the recruitment efforts, publishing his famous broadside "Men of Color to Arms!" on March 21, 1863. His eldest son, Charles Douglass, joined the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, but was ill for much of his service. Lewis Douglass fought at the Battle of Fort Wagner. Another son, Frederick Douglass Jr., also served as a recruiter.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: With the North no longer obliged to return slaves to their owners in the South, Douglass fought for equality for his people. Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers and on plans to move liberated slaves out of the South.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. (Slaves in Union-held areas were not covered because the proclamation was permissible under the Constitution only as a war measure; they were freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.) Douglass described the spirit of those awaiting the proclamation: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky ... we were watching ... by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day ... we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: During the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864, Douglass supported John C. Frémont, who was the candidate of the abolitionist Radical Democracy Party. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglass believed that since African-American men were fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: The postwar ratification of the 13th Amendment, on December 6, 1865, outlawed slavery, "except as a punishment for crime." The 14th Amendment provided for birthright citizenship and prohibited the states from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States or denying any "person" due process of law or equal protection of the laws. The 15th Amendment protected all citizens from being discriminated against in voting because of race.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After Lincoln had been assassinated, Douglass conferred with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: On April 14, 1876, Douglass delivered the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park. He spoke frankly about Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President. Calling Lincoln "the white man's President," Douglass criticized Lincoln's tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation, noting that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. But Douglass also asked, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?" He also said: "Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery..." Most famously, he added: "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: The crowd, roused by his speech, gave Douglass a standing ovation. Lincoln's widow Mary Lincoln supposedly gave Lincoln's favorite walking-stick to Douglass in appreciation. That walking-stick still rests in his final residence, "Cedar Hill" in Washington, D.C., now preserved as the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After delivering the speech, Frederick Douglass immediately wrote to the National Republican newspaper in Washington (which published five days later, April 19), criticizing the statue's design and suggesting the park could be improved by more dignified monuments of free black people. "The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude," Douglass wrote. "What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After the Civil War, Douglass continued to work for equality for African Americans and women. Due to his prominence and activism during the war, Douglass received several political appointments. He served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Meanwhile, white insurgents had quickly arisen in the South after the war, organizing first as secret vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Armed insurgency took different forms. Powerful paramilitary groups included the White League and the Red Shirts, both active during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections. Starting 10 years after the war, Democrats regained political power in every state of the former Confederacy and began to reassert white supremacy. They enforced this by a combination of violence, late 19th-century laws imposing segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans. New labor and criminal laws also limited their freedom.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: To combat these efforts, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. In 1870, Douglass started his last newspaper, the "New National Era", attempting to hold his country to its commitment to equality. President Grant sent a congressionally sponsored commission, accompanied by Douglass, on a mission to the West Indies to investigate whether the annexation of Santo Domingo would be good for the United States. Grant believed annexation would help relieve the violent situation in the South by allowing African Americans their own state. Douglass and the commission favored annexation, but Congress remained opposed to annexation. Douglass criticized Senator Charles Sumner, who opposed annexation, stating that if Sumner continued to oppose annexation he would "regard him as the worst foe the colored race has on this continent."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After the midterm elections, Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Klan Act), and the second and third Enforcement Acts. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending "habeas corpus" in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states. Under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites but earned praise from Douglass. A Douglass associate wrote that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of [Grant's] name, fame and great services."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States, as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge. Douglass neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated. In that year, he was presidential elector at large for the State of New York, and took that state's votes to Washington, D.C.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: However, in early June of that year, Douglass's third Rochester home, on South Avenue, burned down; arson was suspected. There was extensive damage to the house, its furnishings, and the grounds; in addition, sixteen volumes of the "North Star" and "Frederick Douglass' Paper" were lost. Douglass then moved to Washington, D.C.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Throughout the Reconstruction era, Douglass continued speaking, emphasizing the importance of work, voting rights and actual exercise of suffrage. His speeches for the twenty-five years following the war emphasized work to counter the racism that was then prevalent in unions. In a November 15, 1867, speech he said "A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex." Douglass spoke at many colleges around the country, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1873.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In 1881, Douglass delivered at Storer College, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, a speech praising John Brown and revealing unknown information about their relationship, including their meeting in an abandoned stone quarry near Chambersburg shortly before the raid.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass and Anna Murray had five children: Rosetta Douglass, Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick Douglass Jr., Charles Remond Douglass, and Annie Douglass (died at the age of ten). Charles and Rosetta helped produce his newspapers.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Anna Douglass remained a loyal supporter of her husband's public work. His relationships with Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assing, two women with whom he was professionally involved, caused recurring speculation and scandals. Assing was a journalist recently immigrated from Germany, who first visited Douglass in 1856 seeking permission to translate "My Bondage and My Freedom" into German. Until 1872, she often stayed at his house "for several months at a time" as his "intellectual and emotional companion."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Assing held Anna Douglass "in utter contempt" and was vainly hoping that Douglass would separate from his wife. Douglass biographer David W. Blight concludes that Assing and Douglass "were probably lovers". Though Douglass and Assing are widely believed to have had an intimate relationship, the surviving correspondence contains no proof of such a relationship.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: After Anna died in 1882, in 1884 Douglass married again, to Helen Pitts, a white suffragist and abolitionist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass's. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), Pitts worked on a radical feminist publication named "Alpha" while living in Washington, D.C. She later worked as Douglass's secretary.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Assing, who had depression and was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer, committed suicide in France in 1884 after hearing of the marriage. Upon her death, Assing bequeathed Douglass a $13,000 trust fund, a "large album", and his choice of books from her library.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: The marriage of Douglass and Pitts provoked a storm of controversy, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger. Her family stopped speaking to her; his children considered the marriage a repudiation of their mother. But feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple. Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: The Freedman's Savings Bank went bankrupt on June 29, 1874, just a few months after Douglass became its president in late March. During that same economic crisis, his final newspaper, "The New National Era", failed in September. When Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president, he named Douglass as United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, the first person of color to be so named. The Senate voted to confirm him on March 17, 1877. Douglass accepted the appointment, which helped assure his family's financial security. During his tenure, Douglass was urged by his supporters to resign from his commission, since he was never asked to introduce visiting foreign dignitaries to the President, which is one of the usual duties of that post. However, Douglass believed that no covert racism was implied by the omission and stated that he was always warmly welcomed in presidential circles.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In 1877, Douglass visited his former slavemaster Thomas Auld on his deathbed, and the two men reconciled. Douglass had met Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears, some years prior. She had requested the meeting and had subsequently attended and cheered one of Douglass's speeches. Her father complimented her for reaching out to Douglass. The visit also appears to have brought closure to Douglass, although some criticized his effort.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: That same year, Douglass bought the house that was to be the family's final home in Washington, D.C., on a hill above the Anacostia River. He and Anna named it "Cedar Hill" (also spelled "CedarHill"). They expanded the house from 14 to 21 rooms, and included a china closet. One year later, Douglass purchased adjoining lots and expanded the property to 15 acres (61,000 m). The home is now preserved as the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In 1881, Douglass published the final edition of his autobiography, "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass", which he updated in 1892. In 1881, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. His wife Anna Murray Douglass died in 1882, leaving the widower devastated. After a period of mourning, Douglass found new meaning from working with activist Ida B. Wells. He remarried in 1884, as mentioned above.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass also continued his speaking engagements and travel, both in the United States and abroad. With new wife Helen, Douglass traveled to England, Ireland, France, Italy, Egypt, and Greece from 1886 to 1887. He became known for advocating Irish Home Rule and supported Charles Stewart Parnell in Ireland.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote. That year, Douglass spoke at Claflin College, a historically black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and the state's oldest such institution.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Many African Americans, called Exodusters, escaped the Klan and racially discriminatory laws in the South by moving to Kansas, where some formed all-black towns to have a greater level of freedom and autonomy. Douglass favored neither this nor the Back-to-Africa movement. He thought the latter resembled the American Colonization Society, which he had opposed in his youth. In 1892, at an Indianapolis conference convened by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, Douglass spoke out against the separatist movements, urging blacks to stick it out. He made similar speeches as early as 1879 and was criticized both by fellow leaders and some audiences, who even booed him for this position. Speaking in Baltimore in 1894, Douglass said, "I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: President Harrison appointed Douglass as the United States's minister resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti and Chargé d'affaires for Santo Domingo in 1889. but Douglass resigned the commission in July 1891 when it became apparent that the American President was intent upon gaining permanent access to Haitian territory regardless of that country's desires. In 1892, Haiti made Douglass a co-commissioner of its pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: In 1892, Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as Douglass Place, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. The complex still exists, and in 2003 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Douglass died of a massive heart attack. He was 77.


title: Frederick Douglass

text: His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Although Douglass had attended several churches in the nation's capital, he had a pew here and had donated two standing candelabras when this church had moved to a new building in 1886. He also gave many lectures there, including his last major speech, "The Lesson of the Hour."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Thousands of people passed by his coffin to show their respect. United States Senators and Supreme Court judges were pallbearers. Jeremiah Rankin, President of Howard University, delivered "a masterly address". A letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton was read. The Secretary of the Haitian Legation "expressed the condolence of his country in melodious French."


title: Frederick Douglass

text: Douglass's coffin was transported to Rochester, New York, where he had lived for 25 years, longer than anywhere else in his life. His body was received in state at City Hall, flags were flown at half mast, and schools adjourned. He was buried next to Anna in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester's premier memorial park. Helen was also buried there, in 1903. His grave is, with that of Susan B. Anthony, the most visited in the cemetery. A marker, erected by the University of Rochester and other friends, describes him as "escaped slave, abolitionist, suffragist, journalist and statesman, founder of the Civil Rights Movement in America".


title: Frederick Douglass

text: The most influential African American of the nineteenth century, Douglass made a career of agitating the American conscience. He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education, and the abolition of capital punishment. But he devoted the bulk of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans. These were the central concerns of his long reform career. Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation. And he recognized that African Americans must play a conspicuous role in that struggle. Less than a month before his death, when a young black man solicited his advice to an African American just starting out in the world, Douglass replied without hesitation: ″Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!″


title: Frederick Douglass

text: The Episcopal Church remembers Douglass with a Lesser Feast annually on its liturgical calendar for February 20, the anniversary of his death. Many public schools have also been named in his honor. Douglass still has living descendants today, such as Ken Morris, who is also a descendant of Booker T. Washington. Other honors and remembrances include:


title: Orca

text: The orca or killer whale (Orcinus orca) is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus "Orcinus" and is recognizable by its black-and-white patterned body. A cosmopolitan species, orcas can be found in all of the world's oceans in a variety of marine environments, from Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas.


title: Orca

text: Orcas have a diverse diet, although individual populations often specialize in particular types of prey. Some feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals such as seals and other species of dolphin. They have been known to attack baleen whale calves, and even adult whales. Orcas are apex predators, as they have no natural predators. They are highly social; some populations are composed of very stable matrilineal family groups (pods) which are the most stable of any animal species. Their sophisticated hunting techniques and vocal behaviours, which are often specific to a particular group and passed across generations, have been described as manifestations of animal culture.


title: Orca

text: The International Union for Conservation of Nature assesses the orca's conservation status as data deficient because of the likelihood that two or more orca types are separate species. Some local populations are considered threatened or endangered due to prey depletion, habitat loss, pollution (by PCBs), capture for marine mammal parks, and conflicts with human fisheries. In late 2005, the southern resident orcas, which swim in British Columbia and Washington waters, were placed on the U.S. Endangered Species list.


title: Orca

text: Wild orcas are not considered a threat to humans, and no fatal attack on humans has ever been documented. There have been cases of captive orcas killing or injuring their handlers at marine theme parks. Orcas feature strongly in the mythologies of indigenous cultures, and their reputation in different cultures ranges from being the souls of humans to merciless killers.


title: Orca

text: Orcas are commonly referred to as "killer whales", despite being a type of dolphin. Since the 1960s, the use of "orca" instead of "killer whale" has steadily grown in common use.


title: Orca

text: The genus name "Orcinus" means "of the kingdom of the dead", or "belonging to Orcus". Ancient Romans originally used "orca" (pl. "orcae") for these animals, possibly borrowing Ancient Greek ("óryx"). This Greek word which referred (among other things) to a whale species, perhaps a narwhal. As part of the family Delphinidae, the species is more closely related to other oceanic dolphins than to other whales.


title: Orca

text: They are sometimes referred to as "blackfish", a name also used for other whale species. "Grampus" is a former name for the species, but is now seldom used. This meaning of "grampus" should not be confused with the genus "Grampus", whose only member is Risso's dolphin.


title: Orca

text: "Orcinus orca" is the only recognized extant species in the genus "Orcinus", and one of many animal species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of "Systema Naturae". Konrad Gessner wrote the first scientific description of an orca in his "Piscium & aquatilium animantium natura" of 1558, part of the larger "Historia animalium", based on examination of a dead stranded animal in the Bay of Greifswald that had attracted a great deal of local interest.


title: Orca

text: The orca is one of 35 species in the oceanic dolphin family, which first appeared about 11 million years ago. The orca lineage probably branched off shortly thereafter. Although it has morphological similarities with the false killer whale, the pygmy killer whale and the pilot whales, a study of cytochrome b gene sequences indicates that its closest extant relatives are the snubfin dolphins of the genus "Orcaella". However, a more recent (2018) study places the orca as a sister taxon to the Lissodelphininae, a clade that includes "Lagenorhynchus" and "Cephalorhynchus". In contrast, a 2019 phylogenetic study found the orca to be the second most basal member of the Delphinidae, with only the Atlantic white-sided dolphin ("Leucopleurus acutus") being more basal.


title: Orca

text: The three to five types of orcas may be distinct enough to be considered different races, subspecies, or possibly even species (see Species problem). The IUCN reported in 2008, "The taxonomy of this genus is clearly in need of review, and it is likely that "O. orca" will be split into a number of different species or at least subspecies over the next few years." Although large variation in the ecological distinctiveness of different orca groups complicate simple differentiation into types, research off the west coast of North America has identified fish-eating "residents", mammal-eating "transients" and "offshores". Other populations have not been as well studied, although specialized fish and mammal eating orcas have been distinguished elsewhere. Mammal-eating orcas in different regions were long thought likely to be closely related, but genetic testing has refuted this hypothesis.


title: Orca

text: Four types have been documented in the Antarctic, Types A–D. Two dwarf species, named "Orcinus nanus" and "Orcinus glacialis", were described during the 1980s by Soviet researchers, but most cetacean researchers are skeptical about their status Complete mitochondrial sequencing indicates the two Antarctic groups (types B and C) should be recognized as distinct species, as should the North Pacific transients, leaving the others as subspecies pending additional data. A 2019 study of Type D orcas also found them to be distinct from other populations and possibly even a unique species.


title: Orca

text: Orcas are the largest extant members of the dolphin family. Males typically range from long and weigh in excess of . Females are smaller, generally ranging from and weighing about . Calves at birth weigh about and are about long. The skeleton of the orca is typical for an oceanic dolphin, but more robust.


title: Orca

text: With their distinctive pigmentation, adult orcas are seldom confused with any other species. When seen from a distance, juveniles can be confused with false orcas or Risso's dolphins. The orca typically has a sharply contrasted black-and-white body; being mostly black on the upper side and white on the underside. The entire lower jaw is white and from here, the colouration stretches across the underside to the genital area; narrowing between the flippers then widening some and extending into lateral flank patches close to the end. The tail fluke is also white on the underside, while the eyes have white oval-shaped patches behind and above them, and a grey or white "saddle patch" exists behind the dorsal fin and across the back. Males and females also have different patterns of black and white skin in their genital areas. In newborns, the white areas are yellow or orange coloured. Antarctic orcas may have pale grey to nearly white backs. Some Antarctic orcas are brown and yellow due to diatoms in the water. Both albino and melanistic orcas have been documented.


title: Orca

text: Orca pectoral fins are large and rounded, resembling paddles, with those of males significantly larger than those of females. Dorsal fins also exhibit sexual dimorphism, with those of males about high, more than twice the size of the female's, with the male's fin more like a tall, elongated isosceles triangle, whereas the female's is shorter and more curved. In the skull, adult males have longer lower jaws than females, as well as larger occipital crests. The snout is blunt and lacks the beak of other species. The orca's teeth are very strong, and its jaws exert a powerful grip; the upper teeth fall into the gaps between the lower teeth when the mouth is closed. The firm middle and back teeth hold prey in place, while the front teeth are inclined slightly forward and outward to protect them from powerful jerking movements.


title: Orca

text: Orcas have good eyesight above and below the water, excellent hearing, and a good sense of touch. They have exceptionally sophisticated echolocation abilities, detecting the location and characteristics of prey and other objects in the water by emitting clicks and listening for echoes, as do other members of the dolphin family. The mean body temperature of the orca is . Like most marine mammals, orcas have a layer of insulating blubber ranging from thick beneath the skin. The pulse is about 60 heartbeats per minute when the orca is at the surface, dropping to 30 beats/min when submerged.


title: Orca

text: An individual orca can often be identified from its dorsal fin and saddle patch. Variations such as nicks, scratches, and tears on the dorsal fin and the pattern of white or grey in the saddle patch are unique. Published directories contain identifying photographs and names for hundreds of North Pacific animals. Photographic identification has enabled the local population of orcas to be counted each year rather than estimated, and has enabled great insight into life cycles and social structures.


title: Orca

text: Orcas are found in all oceans and most seas. Due to their enormous range, numbers, and density, relative distribution is difficult to estimate, but they clearly prefer higher latitudes and coastal areas over pelagic environments. Areas which serve as major study sites for the species include the coasts of Iceland, Norway, the Valdes Peninsula of Argentina, the Crozet Islands, New Zealand and parts of the west coast of North America, from California to Alaska. Systematic surveys indicate the highest densities of orcas (>0.40 individuals per 100 km) in the northeast Atlantic around the Norwegian coast, in the north Pacific along the Aleutian Islands, the Gulf of Alaska and in the Southern Ocean off much of the coast of Antarctica. They are considered "common" (0.20–0.40 individuals per 100 km) in the eastern Pacific along the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, in the North Atlantic Ocean around Iceland and the Faroe Islands.


title: Orca

text: In the Antarctic, orcas range up to the edge of the pack ice and are believed to venture into the denser pack ice, finding open leads much like beluga whales in the Arctic. However, orcas are merely seasonal visitors to Arctic waters, and do not approach the pack ice in the summer. With the rapid Arctic sea ice decline in the Hudson Strait, their range now extends deep into the northwest Atlantic. Occasionally, orcas swim into freshwater rivers. They have been documented up the Columbia River in the United States. They have also been found in the Fraser River in Canada and the Horikawa River in Japan.


title: Orca

text: Migration patterns are poorly understood. Each summer, the same individuals appear off the coasts of British Columbia and Washington. Despite decades of research, where these animals go for the rest of the year remains unknown. Transient pods have been sighted from southern Alaska to central California.


title: Orca

text: Worldwide population estimates are uncertain, but recent consensus suggests a minimum of 50,000 (2006). Local estimates include roughly 25,000 in the Antarctic, 8,500 in the tropical Pacific, 2,250–2,700 off the cooler northeast Pacific and 500–1,500 off Norway. Japan's Fisheries Agency estimated in the 2000s that 2,321 orcas were in the seas around Japan.


title: Orca

text: Orcas are apex predators, meaning that they themselves have no natural predators. They are sometimes called "wolves of the sea", because they hunt in groups like wolf packs. Orcas hunt varied prey including fish, cephalopods, mammals, seabirds, and sea turtles. Different populations or ecotypes may specialize, and some can have a dramatic impact on prey species. However, whales in tropical areas appear to have more generalized diets due to lower food productivity. Orcas spend most of their time at shallow depths, but occasionally dive several hundred metres depending on their prey.


title: Orca

text: Fish-eating orcas prey on around 30 species of fish. Some populations in the Norwegian and Greenland sea specialize in herring and follow that fish's autumnal migration to the Norwegian coast. Salmon account for 96% of northeast Pacific residents' diet, including 65% of large, fatty Chinook. Chum salmon are also eaten, but smaller sockeye and pink salmon are not a significant food item. Depletion of specific prey species in an area is, therefore, cause for concern for local populations, despite the high diversity of prey. On average, an orca eats each day. While salmon are usually hunted by an individual whale or a small group, herring are often caught using carousel feeding: the orcas force the herring into a tight ball by releasing bursts of bubbles or flashing their white undersides. They then slap the ball with their tail flukes, stunning or killing up to 15 fish at a time, then eating them one by one. Carousel feeding has only been documented in the Norwegian orca population, as well as some oceanic dolphin species.


title: Orca

text: In New Zealand, sharks and rays appear to be important prey, including eagle rays, long-tail and short-tail stingrays, common threshers, smooth hammerheads, blue sharks, basking sharks, and shortfin makos. With sharks, orcas may herd them to the surface and strike them with their tail flukes, while bottom-dwelling rays are cornered, pinned to the ground and taken to the surface. In other parts of the world, orcas have preyed on broadnose sevengill sharks, small whale sharks and even great white sharks. Competition between orcas and white sharks is probable in regions where their diets overlap. The arrival of orcas in an area can cause white sharks to flee and forage elsewhere. Orcas appear to target the liver of sharks.


title: Orca

text: Orcas are sophisticated and effective predators of marine mammals. They are recorded to prey on other cetacean species, usually smaller dolphins and porpoises such as common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, Pacific white-sided dolphins, dusky dolphins, harbour porpoises and Dall's porpoises. While hunting these species, orcas usually have to chase them to exhaustion. For highly social species, orca pods try to separate an individual from its group. Larger groups have a better chance of preventing their prey from escaping, which is killed by being thrown around, rammed and jumped on. Arctic orcas may attack beluga whales and narwhals stuck in pools enclosed by sea ice, the former are also driven into shallower water where juveniles are grabbed. By contrast, orcas appear to be wary of pilot whales, which have been recorded to mob and chase them.


title: Orca

text: Orcas also prey on larger species such as sperm whales, grey whales and humpback whales. In 2019, orcas were recorded to have killed a blue whale on three separate occasions off the south coast of Western Australia, including an estimated individual. Large whales require much effort and coordination to kill and orcas often target calves. A hunt begins with a chase followed by a violent attack on the exhausted prey. Large whales often show signs of orca attack via tooth rake marks. Pods of female sperm whales sometimes protect themselves by forming a protective circle around their calves with their flukes facing outwards, using them to repel the attackers. There is also evidence that humpback whales will defend against or mob orcas who are attacking either humpback calves or juveniles as well as members of other species.


title: Orca

text: Prior to the advent of industrial whaling, great whales may have been the major food source for orcas. The introduction of modern whaling techniques may have aided orcas by the sound of exploding harpoons indicating the availability of prey to scavenge, and compressed air inflation of whale carcasses causing them to float, thus exposing them to scavenging. However, the devastation of great whale populations by unfettered whaling has possibly reduced their availability for orcas, and caused them to expand their consumption of smaller marine mammals, thus contributing to the decline of these as well.


title: Orca

text: Other marine mammal prey includes seal species such as harbour seals, elephant seals, California sea lions, Steller sea lions, South American sea lions and walruses. Often, to avoid injury, orcas disable their prey before killing and eating it. This may involve throwing it in the air, slapping it with their tails, ramming it, or breaching and landing on it. In steeply banked beaches off Península Valdés, Argentina, and the Crozet Islands, orcas feed on sea lions and elephant seals in shallow water, even beaching temporarily to grab prey before wriggling back to the sea. Beaching, usually fatal to cetaceans, is not an instinctive behaviour, and can require years of practice for the young. Orcas can then release the animal near juvenile whales, allowing the younger whales to practice the difficult capture technique on the now-weakened prey. "Wave-hunting" orcas "spy-hop" to locate Weddell seals, crabeater seals and leopard seals resting on ice floes, and then swim in groups to create waves that wash over the floe. This washes the prey into the water, where other orcas lie in wait.


title: Orca

text: In the Aleutian Islands, a decline in sea otter populations in the 1990s was controversially attributed by some scientists to orca predation, although with no direct evidence. The decline of sea otters followed a decline in seal populations, which in turn may be substitutes for their original prey, now decimated by industrial whaling. Orcas have been observed preying on terrestrial mammals, such as deer swimming between islands off the northwest coast of North America. Orca cannibalism has also been reported based on analysis of stomach contents, but this is likely to be the result of scavenging remains dumped by whalers. One orca was also attacked by its companions after being shot. Although resident orcas have never been observed to eat other marine mammals, they occasionally harass and kill porpoises and seals for no apparent reason.


title: Orca

text: Orcas do consume seabirds but are more likely to kill and leave them uneaten. Penguin species recorded as prey in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters include gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, king penguins and rockhopper penguins. Orcas in many areas may prey on cormorants and gulls. A captive orca at Marineland of Canada discovered it could regurgitate fish onto the surface, attracting sea gulls, and then eat the birds. Four others then learned to copy the behaviour.


title: Orca

text: Day-to-day orca behaviour generally consists of foraging, travelling, resting and socializing. Orcas frequently engage in surface behaviour such as breaching (jumping completely out of the water) and tail-slapping. These activities may have a variety of purposes, such as courtship, communication, dislodging parasites, or play. Spyhopping is a behaviour in which a whale holds its head above water to view its surroundings. Resident orcas swim alongside porpoises and other dolphins.


title: Orca

text: Orcas are notable for their complex societies. Only elephants and higher primates live in comparably complex social structures. Due to orcas' complex social bonds, many marine experts have concerns about how humane it is to keep them in captivity.


title: Orca

text: Resident orcas in the eastern North Pacific live in particularly complex and stable social groups. Unlike any other known mammal social structure, resident whales live with their mothers for their entire lives. These family groups are based on matrilines consisting of the eldest female (matriarch) and her sons and daughters, and the descendants of her daughters, etc. The average size of a matriline is 5.5 animals. Because females can reach age 90, as many as four generations travel together. These matrilineal groups are highly stable. Individuals separate for only a few hours at a time, to mate or forage. With one exception, an orca named Luna, no permanent separation of an individual from a resident matriline has been recorded.


title: Orca

text: Closely related matrilines form loose aggregations called pods, usually consisting of one to four matrilines. Unlike matrilines, pods may separate for weeks or months at a time. DNA testing indicates resident males nearly always mate with females from other pods. Clans, the next level of resident social structure, are composed of pods with similar dialects, and common but older maternal heritage. Clan ranges overlap, mingling pods from different clans. The highest association layer is the community, which consists of pods that regularly associate with each other but share no maternal relations or dialects.


title: Orca

text: Transient pods are smaller than resident pods, typically consisting of an adult female and one or two of her offspring. Males typically maintain stronger relationships with their mothers than other females. These bonds can extend well into adulthood. Unlike residents, extended or permanent separation of transient offspring from natal matrilines is common, with juveniles and adults of both sexes participating. Some males become "rovers" and do not form long-term associations, occasionally joining groups that contain reproductive females. As in resident clans, transient community members share an acoustic repertoire, although regional differences in vocalizations have been noted.


title: Orca

text: As with residents and transients, the lifestyle of these whales appears to reflect their diet; fish-eating orcas off Norway have resident-like social structures, while mammal-eating orcas in Argentina and the Crozet Islands behave more like transients.


title: Orca

text: Orcas of the same sex and age group may engage in physical contact and synchronous surfacing. These behaviours do not occur randomly among individuals in a pod, providing evidence of "friendships".


title: Orca

text: Like all cetaceans, orcas depend heavily on underwater sound for orientation, feeding, and communication. They produce three categories of sounds: clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls. Clicks are believed to be used primarily for navigation and discriminating prey and other objects in the surrounding environment, but are also commonly heard during social interactions.


title: Orca

text: Northeast Pacific resident groups tend to be much more vocal than transient groups in the same waters. Residents feed primarily on Chinook and chum salmon, which are insensitive to orca calls (inferred from the audiogram of Atlantic salmon). In contrast, the marine mammal prey of transients hear whale calls well and thus transients are typically silent. Vocal behaviour in these whales is mainly limited to surfacing activities and milling (slow swimming with no apparent direction) after a kill.


title: Orca

text: All members of a resident pod use similar calls, known collectively as a dialect. Dialects are composed of specific numbers and types of discrete, repetitive calls. They are complex and stable over time. Call patterns and structure are distinctive within matrilines. Newborns produce calls similar to their mothers, but have a more limited repertoire. Individuals likely learn their dialect through contact with pod members. Family-specific calls have been observed more frequently in the days following a calf's birth, which may help the calf learn them. Dialects are probably an important means of maintaining group identity and cohesiveness. Similarity in dialects likely reflects the degree of relatedness between pods, with variation growing over time. When pods meet, dominant call types decrease and subset call types increase. The use of both call types is called biphonation. The increased subset call types may be the distinguishing factor between pods and inter-pod relations.


title: Orca

text: Dialects also distinguish types. Resident dialects contain seven to 17 (mean = 11) distinctive call types. All members of the North American west coast transient community express the same basic dialect, although minor regional variation in call types is evident. Preliminary research indicates offshore orcas have group-specific dialects unlike those of residents and transients.


title: Orca

text: Norwegian and Icelandic herring-eating orcas appear to have different vocalizations for activities like hunting. A population that live in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica have 28 complex burst-pulse and whistle calls.


title: Orca

text: Orcas have the second-heaviest brains among marine mammals (after sperm whales, which have the largest brain of any animal). They can be trained in captivity and are often described as intelligent, although defining and measuring "intelligence" is difficult in a species whose environment and behavioural strategies are very different from those of humans. Orcas imitate others, and seem to deliberately teach skills to their kin. Off the Crozet Islands, mothers push their calves onto the beach, waiting to pull the youngster back if needed.


title: Orca

text: People who have interacted closely with orcas offer numerous anecdotes demonstrating the whales' curiosity, playfulness, and ability to solve problems. Alaskan orcas have not only learned how to steal fish from longlines, but have also overcome a variety of techniques designed to stop them, such as the use of unbaited lines as decoys. Once, fishermen placed their boats several miles apart, taking turns retrieving small amounts of their catch, in the hope that the whales would not have enough time to move between boats to steal the catch as it was being retrieved. The tactic worked initially, but the orcas figured it out quickly and split into groups.


title: Orca

text: In other anecdotes, researchers describe incidents in which wild orcas playfully tease humans by repeatedly moving objects the humans are trying to reach, or suddenly start to toss around a chunk of ice after a human throws a snowball.


title: Orca

text: The orca's use of dialects and the passing of other learned behaviours from generation to generation have been described as a form of animal culture.


title: Orca

text: Female orcas begin to mature at around the age of 10 and reach peak fertility around 20, experiencing periods of polyestrous cycling separated by non-cycling periods of three to 16 months. Females can often breed until age 40, followed by a rapid decrease in fertility. Orcas are among the few animals that undergo menopause and live for decades after they have finished breeding. The lifespans of wild females average 50 to 80 years. Some are claimed to have lived substantially longer: Granny (J2) was estimated by some researchers to have been as old as 105 years at the time of her death, though a biopsy sample indicated her age as 65 to 80 years. It is thought that orcas held in captivity tend to have shorter lives than those in the wild, although this is subject to scientific debate.


title: Orca

text: Males mate with females from other pods, which prevents inbreeding. Gestation varies from 15 to 18 months. Mothers usually calve a single offspring about once every five years. In resident pods, births occur at any time of year, although winter is the most common. Mortality is extremely high during the first seven months of life, when 37–50% of all calves die. Weaning begins at about 12 months of age, and is complete by two years. According to observations in several regions, all male and female pod members participate in the care of the young.


title: Orca

text: Males sexually mature at the age of 15, but do not typically reproduce until age 21. Wild males live around 29 years on average, with a maximum of about 60 years. One male, known as Old Tom, was reportedly spotted every winter between the 1840s and 1930 off New South Wales, Australia, which would have made him up to 90 years old. Examination of his teeth indicated he died around age 35, but this method of age determination is now believed to be inaccurate for older animals. One male known to researchers in the Pacific Northwest (identified as J1) was estimated to have been 59 years old when he died in 2010. Orcas are unique among cetaceans, as their caudal sections elongate with age, making their heads relatively shorter.


title: Orca

text: Infanticide, once thought to occur only in captive orcas, was observed in wild populations by researchers off British Columbia on December 2, 2016. In this incident, an adult male killed the calf of a female within the same pod, with the adult male's mother also joining in the assault. It is theorized that the male killed the young calf in order to mate with its mother (something that occurs in other carnivore species), while the male's mother supported the breeding opportunity for her son. The attack ended when the calf's mother struck and injured the attacking male. Such behaviour matches that of many smaller dolphin species, such as the bottlenose dolphin.


title: Orca

text: In 2008, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) changed its assessment of the orca's conservation status from conservation dependent to data deficient, recognizing that one or more orca types may actually be separate, endangered species. Depletion of prey species, pollution, large-scale oil spills, and habitat disturbance caused by noise and conflicts with boats are the most significant worldwide threats. In January 2020, the first orca in England and Wales since 2001 was found dead with a large fragment of plastic in its stomach.


title: Orca

text: Like other animals at the highest trophic levels, the orca is particularly at risk of poisoning from bioaccumulation of toxins, including Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). European harbour seals have problems in reproductive and immune functions associated with high levels of PCBs and related contaminants, and a survey off the Washington coast found PCB levels in orcas were higher than levels that had caused health problems in harbour seals. Blubber samples in the Norwegian Arctic show higher levels of PCBs, pesticides and brominated flame-retardants than in polar bears. A 2018 study published in "Science" found that global orca populations are poised to dramatically decline due such toxic pollution.


title: Orca

text: In the Pacific Northwest, wild salmon stocks, a main resident food source, have declined dramatically in recent years. In the Puget Sound region, only 75 whales remain with few births over the last few years. On the west coast of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, seal and sea lion populations have also substantially declined.


title: Orca

text: In 2005, the United States government listed the southern resident community as an endangered population under the Endangered Species Act. This community comprises three pods which live mostly in the Georgia and Haro Straits and Puget Sound in British Columbia and Washington. They do not breed outside of their community, which was once estimated at around 200 animals and later shrank to around 90. In October 2008, the annual survey revealed seven were missing and presumed dead, reducing the count to 83. This is potentially the largest decline in the population in the past 10 years. These deaths can be attributed to declines in Chinook salmon.


title: Orca

text: Scientist Ken Balcomb has extensively studied orcas since 1976; he is the research biologist responsible for discovering U.S. Navy sonar may harm orcas. He studied orcas from the Center for Whale Research, located in Friday Harbor, Washington. He was also able to study orcas from "his home porch perched above Puget Sound, where the animals hunt and play in summer months". In May 2003, Balcomb (along with other whale watchers near the Puget Sound coastline) noticed uncharacteristic behaviour displayed by the orcas. The whales seemed "agitated and were moving haphazardly, attempting to lift their heads free of the water" to escape the sound of the sonars. "Balcomb confirmed at the time that strange underwater pinging noises detected with underwater microphones were sonar. The sound originated from a U.S. Navy frigate 12 miles (19 kilometres) distant, Balcomb said." The impact of sonar waves on orcas is potentially life-threatening. Three years prior to Balcomb's discovery, research in the Bahamas showed 14 beaked whales washed up on the shore. These whales were beached on the day U.S. Navy destroyers were activated into sonar exercise. Of the 14 whales beached, six of them died. These six dead whales were studied, and CAT scans of two of the whale heads showed hemorrhaging around the brain and the ears, which is consistent with decompression sickness.


title: Orca

text: Another conservation concern was made public in September 2008 when the Canadian government decided it was not necessary to enforce further protections (including the Species at Risk Act in place to protect endangered animals along with their habitats) for orcas aside from the laws already in place. In response to this decision, six environmental groups sued the federal government, claiming orcas were facing many threats on the British Columbia Coast and the federal government did nothing to protect them from these threats. A legal and scientific nonprofit organization, Ecojustice, led the lawsuit and represented the David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence, Greenpeace Canada, International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, and the Wilderness Committee. Many scientists involved in this lawsuit, including Bill Wareham, a marine scientist with the David Suzuki Foundation, noted increased boat traffic, water toxic wastes, and low salmon population as major threats, putting approximately 87 orcas on the British Columbia Coast in danger.


title: Orca

text: Underwater noise from shipping, drilling, and other human activities is a significant concern in some key orca habitats, including Johnstone Strait and Haro Strait. In the mid-1990s, loud underwater noises from salmon farms were used to deter seals. Orcas also avoided the surrounding waters. High-intensity sonar used by the Navy disturbs orcas along with other marine mammals. Orcas are popular with whale watchers, which may stress the whales and alter their behaviour, particularly if boats approach too closely or block their lines of travel.


title: Orca

text: The "Exxon Valdez" oil spill adversely affected orcas in Prince William Sound and Alaska's Kenai Fjords region. Eleven members (about half) of one resident pod disappeared in the following year. The spill damaged salmon and other prey populations, which in turn damaged local orcas. By 2009, scientists estimated the AT1 transient population (considered part of a larger population of 346 transients), numbered only seven individuals and had not reproduced since the spill. This population is expected to die out.


title: Orca

text: Orcas are included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), meaning international trade (including in parts/derivatives) is regulated.


title: Orca

text: The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast feature orcas throughout their art, history, spirituality and religion. The Haida regarded orcas as the most powerful animals in the ocean, and their mythology tells of orcas living in houses and towns under the sea. According to these myths, they took on human form when submerged, and humans who drowned went to live with them. For the Kwakwaka'wakw, the orca was regarded as the ruler of the undersea world, with sea lions for slaves and dolphins for warriors. In Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka'wakw mythology, orcas may embody the souls of deceased chiefs. The Tlingit of southeastern Alaska regarded the orca as custodian of the sea and a benefactor of humans.


title: Orca

text: The Maritime Archaic people of Newfoundland also had great respect for orcas, as evidenced by stone carvings found in a 4,000-year-old burial at the Port au Choix Archaeological Site.


title: Orca

text: In the tales and beliefs of the Siberian Yupik people, orcas are said to appear as wolves in winter, and wolves as orcas in summer. Orcas are believed to assist their hunters in driving walrus. Reverence is expressed in several forms: the boat represents the animal, and a wooden carving hung from the hunter's belt. Small sacrifices such as tobacco or meat are strewn into the sea for them.


title: Orca

text: The Ainu people of Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and southern Sakhalin often referred to orcas in their folklore and myth as "Repun Kamuy" (God of Sea/Offshore) to bring fortunes (whales) to the coasts, and there had been traditional funerals for stranded or deceased orcas akin to funerals for other animals such as brown bears.


title: Orca

text: In Western cultures, orcas were historically feared as dangerous, savage predators. The first written description of an orca was given by Pliny the Elder "circa" AD 70, who wrote, "Orcas (the appearance of which no image can express, other than an enormous mass of savage flesh with teeth) are the enemy of [other kinds of whale]... they charge and pierce them like warships ramming."


title: Orca

text: Of the very few confirmed attacks on humans by wild orcas, none have been fatal. In one instance, orcas tried to tip ice floes on which a dog team and photographer of the Terra Nova Expedition were standing. The sled dogs' barking is speculated to have sounded enough like seal calls to trigger the orca's hunting curiosity. In the 1970s, a surfer in California was bitten, and in 2005, a boy in Alaska who was splashing in a region frequented by harbour seals was bumped by an orca that apparently misidentified him as prey. Unlike wild orcas, captive orcas have made nearly two dozen attacks on humans since the 1970s, some of which have been fatal.


title: Orca

text: Competition with fishermen also led to orcas being regarded as pests. In the waters of the Pacific Northwest and Iceland, the shooting of orcas was accepted and even encouraged by governments. As an indication of the intensity of shooting that occurred until fairly recently, about 25% of the orcas captured in Puget Sound for aquariums through 1970 bore bullet scars. The U.S. Navy claimed to have deliberately killed hundreds of orcas in Icelandic waters in 1956 with machine guns, rockets, and depth charges.


title: Orca

text: Western attitudes towards orcas have changed dramatically in recent decades. In the mid-1960s and early 1970s, orcas came to much greater public and scientific awareness, starting with the live-capture and display of an orca known as Moby Doll, a southern resident orca harpooned off Saturna Island in 1964. He was the first ever orca to be studied at close quarters alive, not postmortem. Moby Doll's impact in scientific research at the time, including the first scientific studies of an orca's sound production, led to two articles about him in the journal "Zoologica". So little was known at the time, it was nearly two months before the whale's keepers discovered what food (fish) it was willing to eat. To the surprise of those who saw him, Moby Doll was a docile, non-aggressive whale who made no attempts to attack humans.


title: Orca

text: Between 1964 and 1976, 50 orcas from the Pacific Northwest were captured for display in aquaria, and public interest in the animals grew. In the 1970s, research pioneered by Michael Bigg led to the discovery of the species' complex social structure, its use of vocal communication, and its extraordinarily stable mother–offspring bonds. Through photo-identification techniques, individuals were named and tracked over decades.


title: Orca

text: Bigg's techniques also revealed the Pacific Northwest population was in the low hundreds rather than the thousands that had been previously assumed. The southern resident community alone had lost 48 of its members to captivity; by 1976, only 80 remained. In the Pacific Northwest, the species that had unthinkingly been targeted became a cultural icon within a few decades.


title: Orca

text: The public's growing appreciation also led to growing opposition to whale–keeping in aquarium. Only one whale has been taken in North American waters since 1976. In recent years, the extent of the public's interest in orcas has manifested itself in several high-profile efforts surrounding individuals. Following the success of the 1993 film "Free Willy", the movie's captive star Keiko was returned to the coast of his native Iceland in 2002. The director of the International Marine Mammal Project for the Earth Island Institute, David Phillips, led the efforts to return Keiko to the Iceland waters. Keiko however did not adapt to the harsh climate of the Arctic Ocean, and died a year into his release after contracting pneumonia, at the age of 27. In 2002, the orphan Springer was discovered in Puget Sound, Washington. She became the first whale to be successfully reintegrated into a wild pod after human intervention, crystallizing decades of research into the vocal behaviour and social structure of the region's orcas. The saving of Springer raised hopes that another young orca named Luna, which had become separated from his pod, could be returned to it. However, his case was marked by controversy about whether and how to intervene, and in 2006, Luna was killed by a boat propeller.


title: Orca

text: The earlier of known records of commercial hunting of orcas date to the 18th century in Japan. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the global whaling industry caught immense numbers of baleen and sperm whales, but largely ignored orcas because of their limited amounts of recoverable oil, their smaller populations, and the difficulty of taking them. Once the stocks of larger species were depleted, orcas were targeted by commercial whalers in the mid-20th century. Between 1954 and 1997, Japan took 1,178 orcas (although the Ministry of the Environment claims that there had been domestic catches of about 1,600 whales between late 1940s to 1960s) and Norway took 987. Extensive hunting of orcas, including an Antarctic catch of 916 in 1979–80 alone, prompted the International Whaling Commission to recommend a ban on commercial hunting of the species pending further research. Today, no country carries out a substantial hunt, although Indonesia and Greenland permit small subsistence hunts (see Aboriginal whaling). Other than commercial hunts, orcas were hunted along Japanese coasts out of public concern for potential conflicts with fisheries. Such cases include a semi-resident male-female pair in Akashi Strait and Harimanada being killed in the Seto Inland Sea in 1957, the killing of five whales from a pod of 11 members that swam into Tokyo Bay in 1970, and a catch record in southern Taiwan in the 1990s.


title: Orca

text: Orcas have helped humans hunting other whales. One well-known example was the orcas of Eden, Australia, including the male known as Old Tom. Whalers more often considered them a nuisance, however, as orcas would gather to scavenge meat from the whalers' catch. Some populations, such as in Alaska's Prince William Sound, may have been reduced significantly by whalers shooting them in retaliation.


title: Orca

text: Whale watching continues to increase in popularity, but may have some problematic impacts on orcas. Exposure to exhaust gases from large amounts of vessel traffic is causing concern for the overall health of the 75 remaining southern resident orcas (SRKWs) left as of early 2019. This population is followed by approximately 20 vessels for 12 hours a day during the months May–September. Researchers discovered that these vessels are in the line of sight for these whales for 98–99.5% of daylight hours. With so many vessels, the air quality around these whales deteriorates and impacts their health. Air pollutants that bind with exhaust fumes are responsible for the activation of the cytochrome P450 1A gene family. Researchers have successfully identified this gene in skin biopsies of live whales and also the lungs of deceased whales. A direct correlation between activation of this gene and the air pollutants can not be made because there are other known factors that will induce the same gene. Vessels can have either wet or dry exhaust systems, with wet exhaust systems leaving more pollutants in the water due to various gas solubility. A modelling study determined that the lowest-observed-adverse-effect-level (LOAEL) of exhaust pollutants was about 12% of the human dose.


title: Orca

text: As a response to this, in 2017 boats off the British Columbia coast now have a minimum approach distance of 200 metres compared to the previous 100 metres. This new rule complements Washington State's minimum approach zone of 180 metres that has been in effect since 2011. If a whale approaches a vessel it must be placed in neutral until the whale passes. The World Health Organization has set air quality standards in an effort to control the emissions produced by these vessels.


title: Orca

text: The orca's intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness in captivity and sheer size have made it a popular exhibit at aquaria and aquatic theme parks. From 1976 to 1997, 55 whales were taken from the wild in Iceland, 19 from Japan, and three from Argentina. These figures exclude animals that died during capture. Live captures fell dramatically in the 1990s, and by 1999, about 40% of the 48 animals on display in the world were captive-born.


title: Orca

text: Organizations such as World Animal Protection and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation campaign against the practice of keeping them in captivity. In captivity, they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of captive males. Captives have vastly reduced life expectancies, on average only living into their 20s. That said, a 2015 study coauthored by staff at SeaWorld and the Minnesota Zoo suggested no significant difference in survivorship between free-ranging and captive orcas. However, in the wild, females who survive infancy live 46 years on average, and up to 70–80 years in rare cases. Wild males who survive infancy live 31 years on average, and up to 50–60 years. Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat, and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim captive life is stressful due to these factors and the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild orca behaviour, see above. Wild orcas may travel up to in a day, and critics say the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity. Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress. Between 1991 and 2010, the bull orca known as Tilikum was involved in the death of three people, and was featured in the critically acclaimed 2013 film "Blackfish". Tilikum lived at SeaWorld from 1992 until his death in 2017.


title: Orca

text: In March 2016, SeaWorld announced that they would be ending their orca breeding program and their theatrical shows. As of 2020, theatrical shows featuring orcas are still ongoing, however.


title: Linda McCartney

text: Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney ( Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, animal rights activist, vegetarian cookbook author and advocate, and entrepreneur. She was the keyboardist in the band Wings, which also featured her husband, Paul McCartney, a former member of the Beatles.


title: Linda McCartney

text: Beginning in the mid-1960s, Linda began a career as a photographer, landing with "Town & Country", where she soon gained assignments to photograph various musicians and entertainers. By the late 1960s, she was a regular fixture at the Fillmore East, a New York concert venue, where she became the unofficial house photographer, photographing numerous performances at the legendary club, and was the first woman to have a photograph on the cover of the influential music journal "Rolling Stone". Her photographs were displayed in galleries and museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, and were collected in several books.


title: Linda McCartney

text: Linda had been learning to play keyboards from her husband, and after the 1970 breakup of the Beatles, Paul and Linda recorded the album "Ram" together, and they formed the band Wings in 1971. She continued to play alongside Paul following Wings' breakup in 1981 up until The New World Tour in 1993.


title: Linda McCartney

text: She was a vocal animal rights activist and wrote and published several vegetarian cookbooks. She also founded the vegetarian Linda McCartney Foods company with her husband. In 1995, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and died from the disease three years later at the age of 56.


title: Linda McCartney

text: Linda McCartney was born Linda Louise Eastman in Scarsdale, New York, on September 24, 1941. She had one older brother named John, and two younger sisters named Laura and Louise Jr. Her mother, Louise Sara Eastman (née Lindner), was from a German-Jewish family. Her maternal grandfather was Max J. Lindner, founder of the Lindner Company clothing store in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father, Lee Eastman, was born Leopold Vail Epstein and was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. His sister Rose Frisch became a noted scientist who worked on women's fertility and population studies. Her father practiced entertainment law in New York and counted among his famous clients Harold Arlen, Tommy Dorsey, Willem de Kooning, Jack Lawrence, and Mark Rothko. At Eastman's request, Lawrence wrote the song "Linda" when she was four years old. It was recorded by Buddy Clark in 1947 and went to No. 1 on the charts, and was recorded again in 1963 by duo Jan and Dean.


title: Linda McCartney

text: Eastman graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1959. She then attended Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont, where she received an Associate of Arts in 1961. Her brother John, who studied law like their father, later became the attorney and manager of her husband Paul McCartney. She preferred nature and animals while growing up and enjoyed going horseback riding as a child. After graduating from Vermont College, she attended the University of Arizona and majored in fine arts while taking up nature photography as a hobby. While she was studying there, her mother was killed in the 1962 crash of American Airlines Flight 1 in Jamaica Bay, New York. She then left the University of Arizona without graduating, and married Joseph Melville See Jr. (in June 1962) Their daughter Heather was born in December 1962. They divorced in 1965, and Linda resumed using her maiden name.


title: Linda McCartney

text: Linda became a receptionist and editorial assistant for "Town & Country" magazine. In 1965, she became romantically involved with photographer David Dalton. She studied how he worked during photo shoots, how he set up shots and managed lighting and composition. When she began her own shoots, such as with music groups, he said he was "astonished" at how easily she could take control of unruly or uncooperative musicians. He said that shooting rock groups was "a bloody pain in the neck. But with the lovely Linda, all this changed... Now their eyes were pinned on her."


title: Linda McCartney

text: Dalton was also impressed by the intelligence of Eastman's daughter. "Linda and I would get high and Heather would say the most amazing things... I'd think, 'This is André Breton at six years old!'" He added that he found Linda's relationship with Heather a "very charming aspect of her life with this wonderful child".


title: Linda McCartney

text: When the magazine received an invitation to photograph the Rolling Stones during a record promotion party on a yacht, Eastman immediately volunteered to represent the publication. The photo shoot marked a turning point in her life:


title: Linda McCartney

text: Eastman's father wanted her to undertake formal training with a professional photographer. "Well, I never had the patience for that," she said. "I had to trust my feelings." But she studied the photography of horses at college in Arizona under Hazel Larsen Archer and became an avid nature hobbyist, using a Leica camera. A few months after her Rolling Stones shoot, she was allowed backstage at Shea Stadium, where the Beatles performed.


title: Linda McCartney

text: Eastman had gained some experience in celebrity photography and became an unofficial house photographer at Bill Graham's Fillmore East concert hall. Among the artists she photographed there were Todd Rundgren, Aretha Franklin, Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, Simon & Garfunkel, the Who, the Doors, the Animals, John Lennon and Neil Young. Her photo of Young, taken in 1967, was used on the cover of "Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House 1968" in 2008.


title: Linda McCartney

text: She photographed Clapton for "Rolling Stone" magazine and became the first woman to have a photograph on the cover (May 11, 1968). After she married McCartney, her photo of the two of them appeared on the cover of "Rolling Stone" on January 31, 1974, making her the only person to appear on the magazine's cover who was also the photographer. Her photographs were later exhibited in more than 50 galleries internationally, and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. A collection of photographs from that time, "Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era", was published in 1992. She also took the photograph for the cover of Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's single "The Girl Is Mine".


title: Linda McCartney

text: After the Beatles broke up in 1970, Paul taught Linda to play keyboards and recorded an album with her, "Ram", as a duo. The couple formed the band Wings. They garnered several Grammy Awards, becoming one of the most successful British bands of the 1970s, but had to endure jibes about Linda's singing.


title: Linda McCartney

text: In 1977 the reggae-inspired single "Seaside Woman" was released by an obscure band called Suzy and the Red Stripes on Epic Records in the United States. Suzy and the Red Stripes were Wings, with Linda (who wrote the song) on lead vocals. The song, recorded by Wings in 1972, was written in response to allegations from Paul's publisher that Linda's co-writing credits were inauthentic and that she was not a real songwriter. In 1971 Northern Songs and Maclen Music filed a lawsuit alleging that Paul McCartney had violated an exclusive rights agreement by collaborating with Linda on the song "Another Day", which had the effect of transferring a 50% share of the publishing royalties to his own McCartney Music company. The lawsuit was "amicably settled," according to an ATV spokesman, in June 1972.


title: Linda McCartney

text: The McCartneys shared an Oscar nomination for the song "Live and Let Die"; they were photographed together at the event in April 1974. Linda's album "Wide Prairie", which included "Seaside Woman," was released posthumously in 1998. Along with eight other British composers, Paul contributed to the choral album "A Garland for Linda", and he dedicated his classical album "Ecce Cor Meum" (1999) to Linda.


title: Linda McCartney

text: When she and Paul decided to become vegetarians in 1975, Linda stated that she would no longer "eat anything with a face" and "if slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian."