title: Union County, New Jersey

text: As the last county created in New Jersey in 1857, it was named after the Union threatened by slavery dispute during this period, which would erupt into civil war in 1861.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: All of present-day Union County was part of the Elizabethtown Tract, which was purchased in 1664, by English colonists from the Lenape Native Americans that lived in the area of present-day Elizabeth, New Jersey. Union County was formed on March 19, 1857, from portions of Essex County; it was the last of New Jersey's 21 counties to be established.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Many historic places and structures are to be found in the county, including on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Union County, New Jersey.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Every fall, Union County holds its annual "Four Centuries in a Weekend" festival for the public, celebrating and touring historic buildings, museums and sites in the county.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: According to the 2010 Census, the county had a total area of , including of land (97.6%) and of water (2.4%).


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Much of Union County is relatively flat and low-lying. Only in the northwestern corner does any significant relief appear as the Watchung Mountains cross the county. It is there that highest elevations, two areas approximately above sea level, are found in Berkeley Heights. The lowest elevation is sea level along the eastern shore at the Arthur Kill.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Elizabeth have ranged from a low of in January to a high of in July, although a record low of was recorded in February 1934 and a record high of was recorded in July 1993. Average monthly precipitation ranged from in February to in July. In Berkeley Heights average monthly temperatures range from 29.4 °F in January to 74.7 °F in July. The climate in the county is hot-summer humid continental ("Dfa") except east of approximately the New Jersey Turnpike where a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa") exists.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: County parks are maintained and operated by the Union County Department of Parks and Recreation, the successor agency to the Union County Park Commission.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The Rahway River Parkway is a greenway of parkland that hugs the Rahway River and its tributaries, such as Nomahegan Brook. It was the inaugural project of the Union County Parks Commission designed in the 1920s by the Olmsted Brothers firm, who were the sons of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Several county and municipal parks run along the Rahway River.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The Elizabeth River Parkway is a greenway of parkland alongside the Elizabeth River and its tributaries. It runs through Kean University and Liberty Hall Museum on the river's way to the Arthur Kill. The Elizabeth River Parkway is broken down into separate sections.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County's Division of Golf Operations runs two golf courses, which offer golf lessons and practice areas.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County is diverse ethnically. Berkeley Heights, Clark, Roselle Park, Cranford, Kenilworth, Linden, New Providence, Scotch Plains, Springfield, Summit, Union and Westfield have high percentages of Italian American residents. Elizabeth, Plainfield, Rahway, Roselle and Union all have large African American communities. Roselle Park has a notably large Indian American community, while Roselle Park, Roselle, Linden, Rahway, Plainfield and particularly Elizabeth have fast-growing Hispanic and Portuguese populations.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The county's Jewish population was 35,000 as of 2004, with notable communities located in Cranford, Elizabeth, Hillside, Linden, Scotch Plains, Springfield, Union, and Westfield.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County is governed by a nine-member Board of County Commissioners. The members are elected at-large in partisan elections to serve three-year terms on a staggered basis, with three seats coming up for election each year. The Board sets policies for the operation of the county. The Commissioners perform the county's legislative and executive functions. In their legislative role, they formulate and adopt a budget and set county policies and procedures. In their executive role, they oversee county spending and functioning. Many of the administrative duties are delegated by the Board of County Commissioners to the County Manager. Each of the commissioners serves on various committees and boards as a part of their duties. These include committees on Economic Development, Parks and Recreation, and Public Works and Policy. In addition, the Board oversees the county's Open Space Trust Fund. Day-to-day operation of the county and its departments is supervised by an appointed County Manager, Edward Oatman. In 2016, freeholders were paid $30,692, while the Freeholder vice chairman received $31,732 and the Freeholder chairman had an annual salary of $32,773.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County is governed by a Board of County Commissioners, whose nine members are elected at-large to three-year terms of office on a staggered basis with three seats coming up for election each year, with an appointed County Manager overseeing the day-to-day operations of the county. At an annual reorganization meeting held in the beginning of January, the board selects a Chair and Vice Chair from among its members.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County constitutes Vicinage 12 of the New Jersey Superior Court and is seated at the Union County Courthouse in Elizabeth, with additional facilities also located in Elizabeth; the Assignment Judge for Vicinage 12 is Karen M. Cassidy. Law enforcement at the county level includes the Union County Police Department, the Union County Sheriff's Office, and the Union County Prosecutor's Office. Union County's Acting Prosecutor is Michael A. Monahan.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County has the only county seal in the nation that depicts a woman being shot, the murder of Elizabethtown's Hannah Caldwell by British soldiers during the American Revolutionary War.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Four Congressional Districts cover the county, including portions of the 7th, 8th, 10th and 12th Districts.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: It was headed by Ralph Froehlich, a Union resident who was first elected in 1977 and served in office for 37 years, making him the longest-serving Sheriff in New Jersey history. There are two top deputies, known as undersheriffs, and they are Dennis Burke and Amilcar Colon. A 1981 investigation of the Union County Jail reviewed issues relating to overcrowding, escapes, escape attempts and suicides in the detention facility.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: On July 1, 2021, the Sheriff's Office regained control of the Union County Jail and made it a division within the organization; the Division of Corrections.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association Local 108 is the official labor union and the collective bargaining agent for the Sheriff's Officers of Union County. This body is subdivided into Local 108 for the line officers and Local 108A for the supervisors (sergeants, lieutenants, & captains).


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County is the only county with a county police department. The Union County Police Department operates independently of the Sheriff's office. The Union County Police Department originally began as the Union County Park Police. The Union County Police are tasked with patrolling Union County's properties. They also supplement the local municipalities with police presence and patrol when requested. Captain James Debbie is the current Officer in Charge.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The Union County Police have several divisions and are relied upon for their multiple services. Currently assigned are Patrol, Detective Bureau, Emergency Services Unit, and the Marine Unit. Union County Regional 911 and Dispatch is one of the many services that the County Police provide. They are the primary PSAP for multiple municipalities, provide police/fire/EMS dispatch, dispatch medics, and Union County Fire Mutual Aid. The PD belongs to the New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association, Local 73.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The only line of duty death was under the Union County Park Police. After two years of service, Patrolman Fitzpatrick was killed by a drunk driver October 17, 1928.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: As of October 1, 2021, there were a total of 362,501 registered voters in Union County, of whom 178,449 (49.2%) were registered as Democrats, 57,878 (16.0%) were registered as Republicans and 121,478 (33.5%) were registered as unaffiliated. There were 4,696 voters (1.3%) registered to other parties. Among the county's 2010 Census population, 53.3% were registered to vote, including 70.6% of those ages 18 and over.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 141,417 votes here (63.1%), ahead of Republican John McCain with 78,768 votes (35.2%) and other candidates with 1,912 votes (0.9%), among the 223,951 ballots cast by the county's 299,762 registered voters, for a turnout of 74.7%. In the 2012 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 139,752 votes here (66.0%), ahead of Republican Mitt Romney with 68,314 votes (32.3%) and other candidates with 1,765 votes (0.8%), among the 211,597 ballots cast by the county's 307,628 registered voters, for a turnout of 68.8%. In the 2016 election, Democrat Hillary Clinton won by a slightly wider margin than Barack Obama in 2012, even as the nation shifted to the right. In the 2020 election, Democrat Joe Biden received the highest share of the vote for a Democrat in the county's history.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Democrat Jon Corzine received 68,867 ballots cast (50.6%), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 56,769 votes (41.7%), Independent Chris Daggett with 7,999 votes (5.9%) and other candidates with 1,058 votes (0.8%), among the 136,110 ballots cast by the county's 292,490 registered voters, yielding a 46.5% turnout. In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Republican Governor Chris Christie narrowly won the county 51.2% (58,135 votes) to 47.4% (53,869 votes) over Democrat Barbara Buono, marking the only time the county voted Republican in the 21st century. In the 2017 gubernatorial election, Republican Kim Guadagno received 32.6% of the vote (39,552 ballots cast) to Democrat Phil Murphy with 65.2% (79,113 votes). In the 2021 gubernatorial election, Republican Jack Ciattarelli received 37.6% of the vote (51,279 ballots cast) to Democrat Phil Murphy's 61.6% (83,913 votes).


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Kean University, a co-educational, public research university dating back to 1855 is located in Union and Hillside, serving nearly 13,000 undergraduates. Kean University educates its students in the liberal arts, the sciences and the professions; it is best known for its programs in the humanities and social sciences and in education, graduating the most teachers in the state of New Jersey annually, along with a physical therapy program which it holds in conjunction with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County College is the two-year community college for Union County, one of a network of 19 county colleges in New Jersey. Union County College was founded in 1933 and has campuses in Cranford, Elizabeth, Plainfield and Scotch Plains.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Most municipalities have their own public high schools, exceptions being Garwood, whose students attend Arthur L. Johnson High School in Clark; Winfield, whose students attend David Brearley High School in Kenilworth; and Mountainside, whose students attend Governor Livingston High School in Berkeley Heights. Fanwood is mostly merged with Scotch Plains educationally and the two towns have one high school.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The county also has Union County Vocational Technical Schools, which has both full-time magnet programs that students must apply to, and split-time vocational programs.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: , the county had a total of of roadways, of which were maintained by the local municipality, by Union County and by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Major highways which traverse the county include the New Jersey Turnpike (I-95), the Garden State Parkway, I-78, I-278, Route 1/9, Route 22, Route 24. Route 27, Route 28, Route 35 (only in Rahway), Route 82, Route 124, Route 439, and the Goethals Bridge. At 0.15 miles, Route 59, located entirely in Union County, is the shortest state highway in New Jersey.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Passenger rail service is provide by NJ Transit via the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Line, Raritan Valley Line, the Morristown Line and the Gladstone Branch. Freight service is provided by on Conrail's Lehigh Line and Chemical Coast Branch. Freight and passenger rail service was provided by the Rahway Valley Railroad from 1897 until 1992 when the short line closed due to lack of customers.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: NJ Transit provides bus service to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, as well as service to major cities in New Jersey and within Union County.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The southern portion of Newark Liberty International Airport is located in Elizabeth, within Union County.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: Union County Park Line rail trail is a proposed walking and/or biking trail proposed on old railroad tracks. Two abandoned rails exist in the county.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The City of Summit and the Summit Park Line Foundation are working on turning the line from Morris Avenue to Briant Park in Summit into a rail trail that will be approximately one mile long. This rail trail, potentially called the Summit Park Line, could provide a greenway to connect several county parks, akin to a Summit High Line. A path could run directly from Summit to the Arthur Kill in Linden, New Jersey on the Rahway Valley Railroad and the Staten Island Rapid Transit line.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The Summit city council applied for a $1 million grant toward the Summit Park Line project in November 2016. "If Summit is able to complete the project, it might help other parts of the greenway come through," said Union County Public Relations Coordinator, Sebastian Delia.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The Rahway Valley Railroad runs from Summit to Roselle Park. Beginning in Hidden Valley Park, the railroad right-of-way continues by connecting Houdaille Quarry, Briant Park, Meisel Park, Rahway River Parkway, Galloping Hill Golf Course and Black Brook Park. The ending of the railway is on Westfield Avenue in Roselle Park. The Staten Island Rapid Transit runs from Cranford to Staten Island, although the project would only include the section that runs from Cranford to Linden. The possible inception in Cranford would be a lot on South Avenue East. The ending of this trail would be in Linden at an empty lot. A boardwalk would run over the existing tracks to ease line reactivation.


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: The 21 municipalities in Union County (with 2010 Census data for population, housing units and area) are:


title: Union County, New Jersey

text: In 1869, the Union County Historical Society of New Jersey was incorporated. The society meets at the Hanson House in Cranford.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Microsoft Bob is a Microsoft software product intended to provide a more user-friendly interface for the Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems, supplanting the Windows Program Manager. The program was released on March 11, 1995, and discontinued in early 1996. Microsoft Bob presented screens showing a "house", with "rooms" that the user could go to containing familiar objects corresponding to computer applications—for instance, a desk with pen and paper, a checkbook, and other items. In this case, clicking on the pen and paper would open the word processor.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Upon release, Microsoft Bob was criticized in the media and did not gain wide acceptance with users, which resulted in its discontinuation. Its legacy would be observed in future Microsoft products, notably the use of virtual assistants. The Microsoft Bob character Rover appeared as a Windows XP search companion and Clippit, nicknamed "Clippy" the anthropomorphized paperclip as a digital assistant for Microsoft Office.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Microsoft Bob was released in March 1995 (before Windows 95 was released), although it had been widely publicized prior to that date under the codename "Utopia". The project leader for Bob was Karen Fries, a Microsoft researcher. The design was based on research by Professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves of Stanford University. Melinda Gates, then wife of Bill Gates, was marketing manager for the product. Microsoft originally purchased the domain name bob.com from Boston-area techie Bob Antia, but later traded it to Bob Kerstein for the windows2000.com domain name.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Bob included various office suite programs such as a finance application and a word processor. The user interface was designed to simplify the navigational experience for novice computer users.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Similar to early graphical shells like Jane, the main interface is portrayed as the inside of a house, with different rooms corresponding to common real-world room styles such as a kitchen or family room. Each room contains decorations and furniture, as well as icons that represent applications. Bob offers the user the option of fully customizing the entire house. The user has full control over decorating each room, and can add, remove, or reposition all objects. The user can also add or remove rooms from the house and change the destinations of each door. There is also a feature in which Bob offers multiple themes for room designs and decorations, such as contemporary and postmodern.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: The applications built into Bob are represented by matching decorations – for example, clicking on a clock opens the calendar, while a pen and paper represent the word processor. The user can also add shortcuts to applications on their computer. These shortcuts display the icon inside various styles of decorations such as boxes and picture frames.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Bob included the ability to install new applications, but because of the failure of the product only a single add-on application package, Microsoft Great Greetings, was ever released.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Released right as the Internet was beginning to become popular, Bob offered an email client with which a user could subscribe to MCI Mail, a dial-up email account. The price was $5.00 per month to send up to 15 emails per month. Each email was limited to 5000 characters, and each additional email after the limit was reached was an additional 45 cents. A toll-free phone number had to be called to set up the account.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Bob features "Assistants", cartoon characters intended to help the user navigate the virtual house or perform tasks in the main interface or within the built-in applications.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: An edition of Microsoft Bob was bundled with the Gateway 2000 computer around 1995. The Gateway Edition contained Gateway branding on the login screen along with additional rooms and backgrounds not seen in the retail version. One additional room was the attic, which contained the box to a Gateway 2000 computer. Along with the additional rooms, there were more icons that appeared by default in the new rooms.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Although the Consumer Electronics Show demonstration was met with generally positive reactions, reviewers given copies of the software in advance of its launch generally derided it, and Microsoft Bob was one of Microsoft's more visible product failures. "The New York Times" found the characters irritating and the home design apparently the work of an "esthetically challenged sixth-grader", criticized the software's hardware requirements and the choice of file formats in which it stores its data, and concluded that it was not as simple as Microsoft advertised. "The Washington Post" called the home environment "sterile" and "lifeless", said that the characters' cuteness wore thin quickly, and criticized the scarce customization and access to Windows components. According to PC Data, the real sales from its release until its discontinuation were only about 58,000—far short of Microsoft's estimate that it would sell millions like Microsoft Works and "Encarta". Despite being discontinued just one year after launch, Microsoft Bob continued to be severely criticized in reviews and popular media. In 2017, Melinda Gates acknowledged that the software "needed a more powerful computer than most people had back then".


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Bob received the 7th place in "PC World" magazine's list of the 25 worst tech products of all time, number one worst product of the decade by CNET.com, and a spot in a list of the 50 worst inventions published by "Time" magazine, who called Bob "overly cutesy" and an "operating system designed around Clippy". Microsoft's Steve Ballmer mentioned Bob as an example of a situation in which "we decided that we have not succeeded and let's stop [now]".


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Microsoft employee Raymond Chen wrote in an article that an encrypted copy of Bob was included on Windows XP install CDs to consume space to prevent piracy. It was thought that adding an additional 30 megabytes to the disc (in the era of dial up internet) would slow users of 56k modems when they attempted to download the software illegally. In November 2020, retired Microsoft engineer David Plummer confessed to be the one who put an encrypted copy of Microsoft Bob onto the Windows XP installation media. The installer would check for the "blob of Bob" and if you had the "OEM blob" you could only use an OEM product key. Tech journalist Harry McCracken called the story "a delightfully urban legend-y tale" and noted its similarities to an April Fools' Day joke claiming Bob was hidden in Windows Vista.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: The use of virtual assistants in Microsoft Bob later inspired Clippit, nicknamed "Clippy" the paperclip, the default Office Assistant in Microsoft Office. Rover, the software's dog mascot, became a "search companion" for Windows XP's File Search function.


title: Microsoft Bob

text: Microsoft graphic designer Vincent Connare designed the typeface Comic Sans when he noticed that Rover's speech was written in Times New Roman, which he felt seemed inappropriate for a cartoon dog. Although Connare's font did not appear in the final release of Microsoft Bob for the technical reason that the letters did not fit on any of the typographical grids, it did debut in Microsoft's 3D Movie Maker, and later emerged as an additional typeface for Windows 95.


title: Dwight Hauser

text: Dwight Arthur Hauser (July 4, 1911 – January 18, 1969) was an American film screenwriter, actor and film producer, also the father of actor Wings Hauser and grandfather of actors Cole Hauser and Erich Hauser.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: James Bullough Lansing (born James Martini, January 2, 1902 – September 29, 1949) was a pioneering American audio engineer and loudspeaker designer who was most notable for establishing two audio companies that bear his name, Altec Lansing and JBL, the latter taken from his initials, JBL.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: James Martini was born on January 2, 1902, in Greenridge, Nilwood Township, Macoupin County, Illinois to parents Henry Martini of St. Louis, Missouri, and Grace Erbs Martini of Central City, Illinois. His father was a coal mining engineer which meant the family moved around considerably in James' early years. He was the ninth of fourteen children. He lived for a short time with the Bullough family in Springfield, Illinois, and later took their name.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: Lansing graduated eighth grade at Lawrence School in Springfield, Illinois, attended Springfield High School and also took courses at a small business college in Springfield.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: At a young age he built a Leyden jar to play pranks on his friends. He also built crystal sets and a radio transmitter which was apparently powerful enough for the signal to reach Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois. Lansing's transmitter was then dismantled when the Navy tracked the source down.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: Lansing had worked as an automotive mechanic and attended an automotive school in Detroit courtesy of the dealer he worked for.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: His mother died on November 1, 1924, when he was 22, he then left home and met his future wife, Glenna Peterson, in Salt Lake City in 1925. At the time he was working for a radio station as an engineer. He also worked for the Baldwin Radio Company and met his future business partner, Ken Decker in the city.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: Lansing and Decker moved to Los Angeles where they set up a business manufacturing loudspeakers. It was called the Lansing Manufacturing Company. Just before the company was registered on March 9, 1927, Lansing changed his name from James Martini to James Bullough Lansing at the suggestion of his future wife, Glenna. Most of his brothers had adopted the surname Martin, two of which (Bill and George) came to LA to work with him.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: Decker was killed in an airplane crash in 1939 and Lansing Manufacturing Company began to suffer financial difficulties without his business guidance. Altec Service Corporation bought Lansing Manufacturing Company in 1941, seeing the company as a valuable source for loudspeaker components. The combined company was named Altec Lansing. James B. Lansing was made VP of Engineering with a five-year contract.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: In 1946, Lansing left the company on the day his contract expired and started a new company called "Lansing Sound, Incorporated". Altec Lansing had a problem with that name's similarity to trademarked brands they had developed, so James Bullough Lansing renamed his new company "James B. Lansing Sound, Incorporated". Eventually, this became shortened to JBL on product branding and then officially as the company name.


title: James Bullough Lansing

text: James Lansing was noted as an innovative engineer, but a poor businessman. As a result of deteriorating business conditions and personal problems, he took his own life by hanging himself in his home in San Marcos on September 29, 1949, aged 47.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: The Ford Fox platform is an automobile platform that was used by Ford Motor Company. Introduced for compact sedans in the 1978 model year, the Fox architecture was utilized for a wide variety of configurations for Ford and Lincoln-Mercury vehicles. In its original form, the platform was used through the 1993 model year; a substantial redesign of the Ford Mustang extended its life into the 21st century, ending production in 2004. Produced across 26 model years, the Fox platform is the second-longest car architecture ever designed by Ford Motor Company (behind the Panther platform, 33 model years).


title: Ford Fox platform

text: Designed to be relatively lightweight and simple, the Fox platform was initially developed to replace several derivatives of the Ford Falcon compact architecture dating from 1960. For 1978, the Ford Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr were the first models derived from the chassis, replacing the Ford Maverick and Mercury Comet. As downsizing expanded into the intermediate segment, the Fox platform came into use for mid-size applications, replacing the larger Ford Torino chassis. While best known for underpinning the Ford Mustang pony car, the Fox platform also saw use in personal luxury segments, underpinning coupes for all three Ford divisions.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: During the mid-1980s, the usage of the Fox platform began to decline as Ford transitioned its compact and mid-size vehicle lines to front-wheel drive. After the 1992 model year, the Ford Mustang was the sole model to use the chassis. For 2005, the fifth-generation Ford Mustang adopted the rear-wheel drive D2C platform, the fifth and final vehicle architecture developed as a Fox-platform replacement.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: In the American automotive industry, 1973 marked a significant period of transition. In May, the EPA released the first comprehensive list of fuel economy data; in addition for providing information for consumers, the data was required to establish protocols for CAFE and gas-guzzler taxes. October 1973 marked the beginning of the first 1970s oil crisis, leading gas prices to increase to per gallon.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: Under chairman/CEO Henry Ford II and president Lee Iaccoca, several changes were made at the executive level of Ford Motor Company. William O. Bourke, ex-chairman of Ford of Europe and one-time managing director of Ford of Australia, was made executive vice president of North American Operations; Robert Alexander, previously with Ford of Europe as vice president in charge of car development, was moved to same position in the United States. Hal Sperlich was Ford Vice President of Product Planning and Research.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: A proponent of downsizing, Sperlich conceived of a "World Car" that could be sold in both Europe and North America as a solution to the needs of the various divisions. At the time, the Ford small-car product line included the subcompact Pinto and the Mustang II and the compact Maverick; while the Mustang II was several months from release, the Maverick was derived from the Falcon. Lincoln-Mercury sold no small cars of its own, importing the Capri from Ford of Europe. Ford of Europe sold the Escort as its smallest car; Ford UK sold the Cortina while Ford of Germany sold the Taunus


title: Ford Fox platform

text: In December 1973, Lee Iacocca formally approved development of the Fox platform. Sharing its name with the Audi Fox (although not named after it), Ford executives experienced with the automotive industry outside the United States sought to benchmark a new design from a popular European subcompact design.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: Development started in early 1973 on both a short-wheelbase version to replace the Pinto/Cortina/Taunus lines and a long-wheelbase version that would become the Fairmont. Although the Fairmont would be the first Fox-based car to reach the market, development was guided by an anticipated sport coupe to be based on the new platform.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: By 1974 the difficulties faced in meeting the conflicting regulatory requirements in different markets and differing production methods used by the various divisions had killed the world-car idea. While unable to replace the Cortina/Taunus, the Fox platform remained a multiple-wheelbase design, as the short-wheelbase version remained in development to replace the Mustang II. In 1975 North American Automobile Operations took over development of the Fox platform from Sperlich's Product Planning and Research group.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: The first running Fox (Fairmont) prototype was a Cortina with a modified suspension, using MacPherson struts and torsion bars. The torsion bars would not appear in the final version.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: The Fox platform, like most compact and mid-size cars of the late 1970s, was designed with a rear-wheel drive layout. In contrast to the full-size Fords and Mercurys of the time, the Fox platform used unibody construction.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: The Fox platform used MacPherson strut front suspension, continuing the use of a live rear axle suspension configuration. Initially configured with rear drum brakes, four-wheel disc brakes were added to higher-performance vehicles, including the Continental Mark VII, Ford Mustang SVO, 1994–2004 Ford Mustang, and the Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: Due to the use of strut front suspension, the Fox platform was designed with a wider engine bay than its Falcon-chassis predecessor. As a result, the chassis was flexible in its use of longitudinal engines, accommodating a wide variety of powertrains, including four-cylinder (naturally-aspirated and turbocharged), inline-6, V6, and V8 engines, ranging from a 2.3L inline-4 to a 5.8L V8 (the most powerful Fox-platform car is the 2003-2004 Mustang SVT Cobra with a 390 hp supercharged 4.6L V8). To further improve the fuel economy of Lincoln Fox-platform vehicles in the 1980s, the platform was adapted for the use of BMW diesel inline-6 engines.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: The Fox platform was produced in four separate wheelbases, 100.5 inches (for the Ford Mustang/Mercury Capri; lengthened to 101.3 for the SN95 redesign), 104.2 inches (1983–1988 Thunderbird/Cougar), 105.5 inches ("standard"; sedans/wagons), and 108.5 inches ("long"; 1980 Thunderbird/Cougar XR7/ Continental Mark VII/ Lincoln Mark VII/ Lincoln Continental).


title: Ford Fox platform

text: During the early 1980s, the Fox platform would be involved in major changes to many Ford nameplates. In the marketplace, redesigns of the Ford Granada, Ford Thunderbird, and Mercury Cougar had been poorly received by consumers, leading to a collapse in sales for all three nameplates from 1980 to 1982. In addition, fuel prices had stabilized to the point where consumers had shifted back to full-size cars, leading the company to postpone its planned discontinuation of the full-size Panther-platform vehicles. To rectify the sales collapse and capitalize on the move to full-size vehicles, Ford began a major model shift of many of its best-selling vehicle nameplates in all three divisions.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: For 1981, Lincoln saw the first changes, as the Lincoln Continental was rechristened the Lincoln Town Car; the Lincoln Continental nameplate went on hiatus until it reappeared on a Fox platform mid-size sedan for the 1982 model year (again giving Lincoln a Cadillac Seville competitor). To eliminate further duplication, the Continental Mark VI lived out its model cycle and was replaced by the far more contemporary Mark VII for 1984.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: For 1983, the Ford and Mercury product ranges saw a number of extensive changes. To move its full-size nameplates upmarket, the Ford LTD Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis became the sole full-size sedans, while the LTD and Marquis nameplates were moved to the mid-size Fox platform as restyled versions of the Granada and Cougar sedan and wagon to replace those slow selling models. To reverse the sales collapse of the Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar (now solely a coupe), Ford redesigned the two coupes with radical new aerodynamic bodystyling.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: The revision effectively tripled the size of the Lincoln model range while eliminating the duplication of several Ford/Mercury vehicles (the Ford Fairmont/Granada and Mercury Zephyr/Cougar sedan and wagon); the mid-size Fairmont/Zephyr were replaced by the compact Ford Tempo/Mercury Topaz for 1984 and the Cougar reverted to its coupe-only bodystyle.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: By the early 1990s, the Ford Mustang had become the sole model produced on the Fox platform. For the 1994 model year, as the Mustang underwent a major redesign (under the body family program code name Fox-4), the Fox platform itself saw major changes to its architecture. As part of the upgrade, most of its parts were redesigned carrying over only the floor pan and front suspension cross member with major changes to the suspension and improvements to noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH); the updated Mustang-specific platform became known as the SN-95 platform.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: The 2003–2004 Mustang SVT Cobra became the ultimate development of the Fox/SN95 platform, with a 390 hp supercharged 4.6L DOHC V8. The SN95 platform would be produced for 11 years, extending the life of the Fox platform to 26 years of production. For 2005, the Mustang was completely redesigned, using the all-new Ford D2C platform.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: As the company entered the 1980s, Ford became part of a growing trend among automobile manufacturers using front-wheel drive in its vehicles. As part of the 1983 changes to the Ford product range, the Ford Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr were phased out in favor of the front-wheel drive Ford Tempo/Mercury Topaz, introduced as 1984 models and based on a long-wheelbase variation of the Ford Escort platform.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: Introduced as 1983 models, the Ford LTD and Mercury Marquis were replaced after the end of their short 1986 model year run by the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable. As the Lincoln Continental shifted to front-wheel drive after the 1987 model year, sedan production of the Fox platform ended.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: For 1989, Ford moved the Thunderbird and the Mercury Cougar to the all-new MN12 platform; while still rear-wheel drive, the new chassis introduced a number of suspension advances over the Fox platform. As the Lincoln Mark VII was replaced by the Mark VIII for 1993, the Ford Mustang became the sole Fox-platform produced by Ford.


title: Ford Fox platform

text: In total, fifteen distinct vehicles were produced on the Ford Fox platform, with the Ford Fairmont, Mercury Zephyr, Ford Durango, Ford Mustang SVO, and Continental/Lincoln Mark VII produced exclusively on the architecture. The platform would be produced in a variety of body styles, including two-door and four-door sedans, two-door coupes, three-door hatchbacks, five-door station wagons, two-door convertibles (marking the return of the bodystyle to Ford), and a two-door coupe utility (the last coupe utility produced by Ford in North America).


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin (January 29, 1761 – August 12, 1849) was a Genevan–American politician, diplomat, ethnologist and linguist. Often described as "America's Swiss Founding Father", he was a leading figure in the early years of the United States, helping shape the new republic's financial system and foreign policy. Gallatin was a prominent member of the Democratic-Republican Party, represented Pennsylvania in both chambers of Congress, and held several influential roles across four presidencies, most notably as the longest serving U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He is also known for his contributions to academia, namely as the founder of New York University and cofounder of the American Ethnological Society.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin was born in Geneva in present-day Switzerland and spoke French as a first language. Inspired by the ideals of the American Revolution, he immigrated to the United States in the 1780s, settling in western Pennsylvania. He served as a delegate to the 1789 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention and won election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Gallatin was elected to the United States Senate in 1793, emerging as a leading Anti-Federalist and opponent of Alexander Hamilton's economic policies. However, he was soon removed from office on a party-line vote due to not meeting requisite citizenship requirements; returning to Pennsylvania, Gallatin helped calm many angry farmers during the Whiskey Rebellion.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin won election to the House of Representatives in 1795, where he helped establish the House Ways and Means Committee. He became the chief spokesman on financial matters for the Democratic-Republican Party and led opposition to the Federalist economic program. Gallatin helped Thomas Jefferson prevail in the contentious presidential election of 1800, and his reputation as a prudent financial manager led to his appointment as Treasury Secretary. Under Jefferson, Gallatin reduced government spending, instituted checks and balances for government expenditures, and financed the Louisiana Purchase. He retained his position through James Madison's administration until February 1814, maintaining much of Hamilton's financial system while presiding over a reduction in the national debt. Gallatin served on the American commission that agreed to the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. In the aftermath of the war, he helped found the Second Bank of the United States.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Declining another term at the Treasury, Gallatin served as Ambassador to France from 1816 to 1823, struggling with scant success to improve relations during the Bourbon Restoration. In the election of 1824, Gallatin was nominated for Vice President by the Democratic-Republican Congressional caucus, but never wanted the position and ultimately withdrew due to a lack of popular support. In 1826 and 1827, he served as the ambassador to Britain and negotiated several agreements, such as a ten-year extension of the joint occupation of Oregon Country. He thereafter retired from politics and dedicated the rest of his life to various civic, humanitarian, and academic causes. He became the first president of the New York branch of the National Bank from 1831 to 1839, and in 1842 joined John Russell Bartlett to establish the American Ethnological Society; his studies of Native American languages have earned him the moniker, "father of American ethnology." Gallatin remained active in public life as an outspoken opponent of slavery and fiscal irresponsibility and an advocate for free trade and individual liberty.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin was born on January 29, 1761, in Geneva, and was until 1785 a citizen of the Republic of Geneva. His parents were the wealthy Jean Gallatin and his wife Sophie Albertine Rollaz. Gallatin's family had great influence in the Republic of Geneva, and many family members held distinguished positions in the magistracy and the army. Jean Gallatin, a prosperous merchant, died in 1765, followed by Sophie in April 1770. Now orphaned, Gallatin was taken into the care of Mademoiselle Pictet, a family friend and distant relative of Gallatin's father. In January 1773, Gallatin was sent to study at the elite Academy of Geneva. While attending the academy, Gallatin read deeply the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire, along with the French Physiocrats; he became dissatisfied with the traditionalism of Geneva. A student of the Enlightenment, he believed in the nobility of human nature and that when freed from social restrictions, it would display admirable qualities and greater results in both the physical and the moral world. The democratic spirit of the United States attracted him and he decided to emigrate.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: In April 1780, Gallatin secretly left Geneva with his classmate Henri Serre. Carrying letters of recommendation from eminent Americans (including Benjamin Franklin) that the Gallatin family procured, the young men left France in May, sailing on an American ship, "the Kattie". They reached Cape Ann on July 14 and arrived in Boston the next day, traveling the intervening thirty miles by horseback. Bored with monotonous Bostonian life, Gallatin and Serre set sail with a Swiss female companion to the settlement of Machias, located on the northeastern tip of the Maine frontier. At Machias, Gallatin operated a bartering venture, in which he dealt with a variety of goods and supplies. He enjoyed the simple life and the natural environment surrounding him. Gallatin and Serre returned to Boston in October 1781 after abandoning their bartering venture in Machias. Friends of Pictet, who had learned that Gallatin had traveled to the United States, convinced Harvard College to employ Gallatin as a French tutor.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin disliked living in New England, instead preferring to become a farmer in the Trans-Appalachian West, which at that point was the frontier of American settlement. He became the interpreter and business partner of a French land speculator, Jean Savary, and traveled throughout various parts of the United States in order to purchase undeveloped Western lands. In 1785, he became an American citizen after he swore allegiance to the state of Virginia, fulfilling the requirements of citizenship as established under Article IV of the Articles of Confederation. Gallatin inherited a significant sum of money the following year, and he used that money to purchase a 400-acre plot of land in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. He built a stone house named Friendship Hill on the new property. Gallatin co-founded a company designed to attract Swiss settlers to the United States, but the company proved unable to attract many settlers.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: In 1789, Gallatin married Sophie Allègre, the daughter of a Richmond boardinghouse owner, but Allègre died just five months into the marriage. He was in mourning for a number of years and seriously considered returning to Geneva. However, on November 1, 1793, he married Hannah Nicholson, daughter of the well-connected Commodore James Nicholson. They had two sons and four daughters: Catherine, Sophia, Hannah Marie, Frances, James, and Albert Rolaz Gallatin. Catherine, Sophia and Hannah Marie all died as infants. Gallatin's marriage proved to be politically and economically advantageous, as the Nicholsons enjoyed connections in New York, Georgia, and Maryland. With most of his business ventures unsuccessful, Gallatin sold much of his land, excluding Friendship Hill, to Robert Morris; he and his wife would instead live in Philadelphia and other coastal cities for most of the rest of their lives.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: In 1788, Gallatin was elected as a delegate to a state convention to discuss possible revisions to the United States Constitution. In the next two years, he served as a delegate to a state constitutional convention and won election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. As a public official, he aligned with Anti-Federalists and spent much of his time in the state and national capital of Philadelphia. His service on the Ways and Means Committee earned him a strong reputation as an expert in finance and taxation.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin won election to the United States Senate in early 1793, and he took his seat in December of that year. He quickly emerged as a prominent opponent of Alexander Hamilton's economic program but was declared ineligible for a seat in the Senate in February 1794 because he had not been a citizen for the required nine years prior to election. The dispute itself had important ramifications. At the time, the Senate held closed sessions. However, with the American Revolution only a decade ended, the senators were leery of anything which might hint that they intended to establish an aristocracy, so they opened up their chamber for the first time for the debate over whether to unseat Gallatin. Soon after, open sessions became standard procedure for the Senate.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin had strongly opposed the 1791 establishment of an excise tax on whiskey, as whiskey trade and production constituted an important part of the Western economy. In 1794, after Gallatin had been removed from the Senate and returned to Friendship Hill, the Whiskey Rebellion broke out among disgruntled farmers opposed to the federal collection of the whiskey tax. Gallatin did not join in the rebellion, but criticized the military response of the President George Washington's administration as an overreaction. Gallatin helped persuade many of the angered farmers to end the rebellion, urging them to accept that "if any one part of the Union are suffered to oppose by force the determination of the whole, there is an end to government itself and of course to the Union." The rebellion collapsed as the army moved near, and there was no fighting.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: In the aftermath of the Whiskey Rebellion, Gallatin won election to the United States House of Representatives, taking his seat in March 1795. Upon his return to Congress, Gallatin became the leading financial expert of the Democratic-Republican Party. In 1796, Gallatin published "A Sketch on the Finances of the United States", which discussed the operations of the Treasury Department and strongly attacked the Federalist Party's financial program. Some historians and biographers believe that Gallatin founded the House Ways and Means Committee in order to check Hamilton's influence over financial issues, but historian Patrick Furlong argues that Hamilton's Federalist allies were actually responsible for founding the committee. After James Madison declined to seek re-election in 1796, Gallatin emerged as the Democratic-Republican leader in the House of Representatives. During the Quasi-War with France, Gallatin criticized military expenditures and opposed passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. In the contingent election that decided the outcome of the 1800 presidential election, Gallatin helped Thomas Jefferson secure victory over his ostensible running mate, Aaron Burr.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin's mastery of public finance made him the obvious choice as Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury; as Jefferson put it, Gallatin was "the only man in the United States who understands, through all the labyrinths Hamilton involved it, the precise state of the Treasury." Gallatin received a recess appointment in May 1801 and was confirmed by the Senate in January 1802. Along with Secretary of State Madison and Jefferson himself, Gallatin became one of the three key officials in the Jefferson administration. As Jefferson and Madison spent the majority of the summer months at their respective estates, Gallatin was frequently left to preside over the operations of the federal government. He also acted as a moderating force on Jefferson's speeches and policies, in one case convincing Jefferson to refrain from calling for the abolition of the General Welfare Clause. Gallatin also argued against the United States going into trade with the newly liberated Haiti, going as far as to claim that the right of self-determination should be denied to others occasionally, especially if those "others" in question were not white.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: With Gallatin taking charge of fiscal policy, the new administration sought to lower taxation (though not import duties), spending, and the national debt; debt reduction in particular had long been a key goal of the party and Gallatin himself. When Gallatin took office in 1801, the national debt stood at $83 million. By 1812, the U.S. national debt had fallen to $45.2 million. Burrows says of Gallatin:


title: Albert Gallatin

text: His own fears of personal dependency and his small-shopkeeper's sense of integrity, both reinforced by a strain of radical republican thought that originated in England a century earlier, convinced him that public debts were a nursery of multiple public evils—corruption, legislative impotence, executive tyranny, social inequality, financial speculation, and personal indolence. Not only was it necessary to extinguish the existing debt as rapidly as possible, he argued, but Congress would have to ensure against the accumulation of future debts by more diligently supervising government expenditures.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Shortly after taking office, Gallatin worked with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman John Randolph to reduce federal spending and reduce or abolish all internal taxes, including the tax on whiskey. He presided over dramatic reductions in military spending, particularly for the United States Navy. Despite his opposition to debt, Gallatin strongly supported and arranged the financing for the Louisiana Purchase, in which the U.S. bought French Louisiana. Both Jefferson and Gallatin regarded control of the port of New Orleans, which was ceded in the purchase, as the key to the development of the Western United States. Jefferson had doubts about the constitutionality of the purchase, but Gallatin helped convince the president that a constitutional amendment authorizing the purchase was impractical and unnecessary. Gallatin also championed and helped plan the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore lands west of the Mississippi River.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Before and after the Louisiana Purchase, Gallatin presided over a major expansion of public land sales. With the goal of selling land directly to settlers rather than to land speculators, Gallatin increased the number of federal land offices from four to eighteen. In 1812, Congress established the General Land Office as part of the Department of Treasury, charging the new office with overseeing public lands. To help develop western lands, Gallatin advocated for internal improvements such as roads and canals, especially those that would connect to territories west of the Appalachian Mountains. In 1805, despite his earlier constitutional reservations, Jefferson announced his support for federally financed infrastructure projects. Three years later, Gallatin put forward his "Report on Roads and Canals", in which he advocated for a $20 million federal infrastructure program. Among his proposals were canals through Cape Cod, the Delmarva Peninsula, and the Great Dismal Swamp, a road stretching from Maine to Georgia, a series of canals connecting the Hudson River with the Great Lakes, and various other canals to connect seaports like Charleston with interior regions. Resistance from many congressional Democratic-Republicans regarding cost, as well as hostilities with Britain, prevented the passage of a major infrastructure bill, but Gallatin did win funding for the construction of the National Road. The National Road linked the town of Cumberland, on the Potomac River, with the town of Wheeling, which sat on the Ohio River. Many of Gallatin's other proposals were eventually carried out years later by state and local governments, as well as private actors.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Throughout much of Jefferson's presidency, France and Britain engaged in the Napoleonic Wars. During Jefferson's second term, both the British and French stepped up efforts to prevent American trade with their respective enemy. Particularly offensive to many Americans was the British practice of impressment, in which the British forced captured American sailors to crew British ships. Jefferson sent James Monroe to Britain to negotiate a renewal and revision of the 1795 Jay Treaty, but Jefferson rejected the treaty that Monroe reached with the British. After the 1807 Chesapeake–Leopard affair, Jefferson proposed, over Gallatin's strong objections, what would become the Embargo Act of 1807. That act forbade all American ships from engaging in almost all foreign trade, and it remained in place until its repeal in the final days of Jefferson's presidency. Despite Gallatin's objection to the embargo, he was tasked with enforcing it against smugglers, who were able to evade the embargo in various ways. The embargo proved ineffective at accomplishing its intended purpose of punishing Britain and France, and it contributed to growing dissent in New England against the Jefferson administration. Overcoming Jefferson's declining popularity and the resentment at the embargo, Secretary of State Madison won the 1808 presidential election.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: After taking office, Madison sought to appoint Gallatin as Secretary of State, which was generally seen as the most prestigious cabinet position. Opposition from the Senate convinced Madison to retain Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury, and Robert Smith instead received the appointment as Secretary of State. Gallatin was deeply displeased by the appointment of Smith, and he was frequently criticized by Smith's brother, Senator Samuel Smith, as well as journalist William Duane of the influential "Philadelphia Aurora". He considered resigning from government service, but Madison convinced him to stay on as a key cabinet official and adviser.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: In 1810, Gallatin published "Report on the Subject of Manufactures", in which he unsuccessfully urged Congress to create a $20 million federal loan program to support fledgling manufacturers. He was also unable to convince Congress to renew the charter of the First Bank of the United States (commonly known as the national bank). Although the national bank had been established as part of Hamilton's economic program, and Jefferson believed that it was "one of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution," Gallatin saw the national bank as a key part of the country's financial system. In a letter to Jefferson, Gallatin argued that the bank was indispensable because it served as a place of deposit for government funds, a source of credit, and a regulator of currency. In January 1811, the national bank was effectively abolished after the House and the Senate both defeated bills to recharter the national bank in extremely narrow votes. In response, Gallatin sent a letter to Madison, asking for permission to resign and criticizing the president for various actions, including his failure to take a strong stance on the national bank. Shortly afterwards, Madison replaced Secretary of State Smith with James Monroe, and Gallatin withdrew his resignation request.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Following the repeal of the Embargo Act of 1807, Gallatin was charged with enforcing the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, which lifted parts of the trade embargo but still prevented American ships from engaging in trade with the British and French empires. In 1811, Congress replaced the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 with a law known as Macon's Bill Number 2, which authorized the president to restore trade with either France or Britain if either promised to respect American neutrality. As with previous embargo policies pursued by the federal government under Jefferson and Madison, Macon's Bill Number 2 proved to be ineffective at halting the attacks on American shipping. In June 1812, Madison signed a declaration of war against Britain, beginning the War of 1812.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Madison ordered an invasion of Canada by relying on mostly state militias, but British forces defeated the invasion. The U.S. experienced some successes at sea, but were unable to break a British blockade of the United States. With the abolition of the national bank, the drop in import duties due to the war, and the inability or unwillingness of state banks to furnish credit, Gallatin struggled to fund the war. Reluctantly, he drafted and won passage of several new tax laws, as well as an increase in tariff rates. He also sold U.S. securities to investors, and an infusion of cash from wealthy investors Stephen Girard, John Jacob Astor, and David Parish proved critical to the financing of the war. During the War of 1812, the national debt grew dramatically, going from $45 million in early 1812 to $127 million in January 1816.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: In 1813, President James Madison sent Gallatin to St. Petersburg, Russia to serve as a negotiator for a peace agreement to end the War of 1812. He was one of four American commissioners who would negotiate the treaty, serving alongside Henry Clay, James Bayard, Jonathan Russell, and John Quincy Adams. Efforts at starting negotiations in Russia quickly collapsed. While waiting abroad in the hope of future negotiations, Gallatin was replaced as Secretary of the Treasury by George W. Campbell, with the expectation that Gallatin would take up his old post upon his return to the United States. Negotiations with the British finally commenced in Ghent in mid-1814.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Negotiations at Ghent lasted for four months. The British could have chosen to shift resources to North America after the temporary defeat of Napoleon in April 1814, but, as Gallatin learned from Alexander Baring, many in Britain were tired of fighting. In December 1814, the two sides agreed to sign the Treaty of Ghent, which essentially represented a return to the status quo ante bellum. The treaty did not address the issue of impressment, but that issue became a moot point after the British and their allies defeated Napoleon for a final time at the June 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Gallatin's patience and skill in dealing with not only the British but also his fellow members of the American commission, including Clay and Adams, made the treaty "the special and peculiar triumph of Mr. Gallatin." After the end of the war, Gallatin negotiated a commercial treaty providing for a resumption of trade between the United States and Britain. Though the war with Britain had at best been a stalemate, Gallatin was pleased that it resulted in the consolidation of U.S. control over western territories, as the British withdrew their support from dissident Native Americans who had sought to create an independent state in the Great Lakes region. He also noted that "the war has laid the foundation of permanent taxes and military establishments...under our former system we were becoming too selfish, too much attached exclusively to the acquisition of wealth...[and] too much confined in our political feelings to local and State objects."


title: Albert Gallatin

text: When Gallatin returned from Europe in September 1815, he declined Madison's request to take up his old post as Secretary of the Treasury. He did, however, help convince Congress to charter the Second Bank of the United States as a replacement for the defunct First Bank of the United States. Gallatin considered going into business with his longtime friend, John Jacob Astor, but ultimately he accepted appointment as ambassador to France. He served in that position from 1816 to 1823. Though he did not approve of the prevailing ideology of the Bourbon Restoration, Gallatin and his family enjoyed living in Paris. While serving as ambassador to France, he helped negotiate the Rush–Bagot Treaty and the Treaty of 1818, two treaties with Britain that settled several issues left over from the War of 1812 and established joint Anglo-American over Oregon Country.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Upon returning to the United States, Gallatin agreed to serve as William H. Crawford's running mate in the 1824 presidential election, but later withdrew from the race at Crawford's request. Crawford had originally hoped that Gallatin's presence on the ticket would help him win the support of Pennsylvania voters, but the emergence of General Andrew Jackson as a presidential contender caused Crawford to refocus his campaign on other states. Gallatin had never wanted the role and was humiliated when he was forced to withdraw from the race. He was alarmed at the possibility Jackson might win, as he saw Jackson as "an honest man and the idol of the worshippers of military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, altogether unfit for the office." Ultimately, John Quincy Adams won the 1824 presidential election in a contingent election held in the House of Representatives. Gallatin and his wife returned to Friendship Hill after the presidential election, living there until 1826. That year, Gallatin accepted appointment as ambassador to Britain. After negotiating an extension of the Anglo-American control of Oregon Country, Gallatin returned to the United States in November 1827.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin moved to New York City in 1828 and became president of the National Bank of New York the following year. He attempted to persuade President Jackson to recharter the Second Bank of the United States, but Jackson vetoed a recharter bill and the Second Bank lost its federal charter in 1836. In 1831, Gallatin helped found New York University, and in 1843 he was elected president of the New York Historical Society. In the mid-1840s, he opposed President James K. Polk's expansionist policies and wrote a widely-read pamphlet, "Peace with Mexico", that called for an end to the Mexican–American War.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin was deeply interested in Native Americans, and he favored their assimilation into European-American culture as an alternative to forced relocation. He drew upon government contacts to research Native Americans, gathering information through Lewis Cass, explorer William Clark, and Thomas McKenney of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Gallatin developed a personal relationship with Cherokee tribal leader John Ridge, who provided him with information on the vocabulary and the structure of the Cherokee language. Gallatin's research resulted in two published works: "A Table of Indian Languages of the United States" (1826) and "Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America" (1836). His research led him to conclude that the natives of North and South America were linguistically and culturally related and that their common ancestors had migrated from Asia in prehistoric times. Later research efforts include examination of selected Pueblo societies, the Akimel O'odham (Pima) peoples, and the Maricopa of the Southwest. In 1843, he co-founded the American Ethnological Society, serving as the society's first president. Due to his studies of the languages of the Native Americans, he has been called "the father of American ethnology."


title: Albert Gallatin

text: The health of both Gallatin and his wife declined in the late 1840s, and Hannah died in May 1849. On August 12, 1849, Gallatin died in Astoria, now in the Borough of Queens, New York at age 88. He is interred at Trinity Churchyard in New York City. Prior to his death, Gallatin had been the last surviving member of the Jefferson cabinet and the last surviving senator from the 18th century.


title: Albert Gallatin

text: Gallatin is commemorated in the naming of a number of counties, roads, and streets, as well as through his association with New York University. The Gallatin River, named by the Lewis and Clark expedition, is one of three rivers (along with the Jefferson River and the Madison River) that converge near Three Forks, Montana to form the Missouri River. The town of Three Forks is in Gallatin County, Montana, and Montana also hosts Gallatin National Forest and Gallatin Range. Gallatin, Tennessee, the seat of Sumner County and Gallatin County, Kentucky are also named for Gallatin. Gallatin's home of Friendship Hill is maintained by the National Park Service. A statue of Gallatin stands at the northern entrance of the Treasury Building; a statue of Hamilton stands at the building's southern entrance. The Albert Gallatin Area School District, located in southwestern Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and having contained within Gallatin's home, Friendship Hill, is also named after Gallatin. Businessman Albert Gallatin Edwards (who founded his eponymous brokerage firm in 1887 which folded into Wachovia in 2007) was named after Gallatin.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Daughters of the Dust is a 1991 independent film written, directed and produced by Julie Dash and is the first feature film directed by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States. Set in 1902, it tells the story of three generations of Gullah (also known as Geechee) women in the Peazant family on Saint Helena Island as they prepare to migrate off the island, out of the Southern United States, and into the North.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: The film gained critical praise for its lush visuals, Gullah dialogue and non-linear storytelling. The cast features Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara-O, Trula Hoosier, Vertamae Grosvenor, and Kaycee Moore and was filmed on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. "Daughters of the Dust" was selected for the Sundance 1991 dramatic competition. Director of photography Arthur Jafa won the top cinematography prize. The film is also known for being the first by an African American woman to gain a general theatrical release.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Dash has written two books about "Daughters of the Dust", one about making the film, co-authored with Toni Cade Bambara and bell hooks, and one novel, a sequel set 20 years after the film's story. In 2004, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." For its 25th anniversary, "Daughters of the Dust" was restored and re-released in 2016 by the Cohen Media Group.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: "Daughters of the Dust" is set in 1902 among the members of the Peazant family, Gullah islanders who live at Ibo Landing on Dataw Island (St. Simons Island), off the Georgia coast. Their ancestors were brought there as enslaved people centuries ago, and the islanders developed a language—known as Gullah or Sea Island Creole English—and culture that was creolized from West Africans of Ibo, Yoruba, Mende, and Twi origin, along with some influence from the Bakongo of central Africa as well the cultures and languages of the British Isles, with the common variety of English being the superstratum in this case Developed in their relative isolation of large plantations on the islands, the enslaved peoples' unique culture and language have endured over time. Their dialogue is in Gullah creole.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Narrated by the Unborn Child, the future daughter of Eli and Eula, whose voice is influenced by accounts of her ancestors, the film presents poetic visual images and circular narrative structures to represent the past, present and future for the Gullah, the majority of whom are about to embark for the mainland and a more modern, "civilized" way of life. The old ways and African ancestral history are represented by community matriarch Nana Peazant, who practices African spiritual rituals. Nana tells her family as she bids them to remember and honour their ancestors as they embark on their new journey, "We are two people in one body. The last of the old and the first of the new."


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Contrasting cousins, Viola, a devout Christian, and Yellow Mary, a free spirit who has brought her lover, Trula, from the city, arrive at the island by boat from their homes on the mainland for a last dinner with their family. Yellow Mary plans to leave for Nova Scotia after her visit. Mr. Snead, a mainland photographer, accompanies Viola and takes portraits of the islanders before they leave their way of life forever. Intertwined with these narratives is the marital rift between Eli and his wife Eula, who is about to give birth after being raped by a white man on the mainland. Eli struggles with the fact that the unborn child may not be his and his mother's pressure for him to maintain his connection to his ancestors. The unborn child of Eli and Eula narrates the film tracing the legacy before her birth.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Several other family members' stories unfold between these narratives. They include Haagar, a cousin who finds the old spiritual beliefs and provincialism of the island "backwards," and is impatient to leave for a more modern society with its educational and economic opportunities. Her daughter Iona longs to be with her secret lover St. Julien Lastchild, a Cherokee Native American, a resident of the island. Lastchild presents Iona with a letter confessing his devotion the day of Iona's departure asking her to stay with him.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: While the women prepare a traditional meal for the feast, which includes okra, yams and shellfish prepared at the beach, the men gather nearby in groups to talk and play games. The children and teenagers play games, practice religious rites on the beach, and have a Bible-study session with Viola. Yellow Mary and Eula bond as survivors of rape. Bilal Muhammad, a cousin that is believed to be Ibo but hails from the French West Indies, leads a Muslim prayer. Nana evokes the spirits of the family's ancestors who worked on the island's indigo plantations. Nana combines the power of their ancestors with Viola's Bible as a symbol of the old and the new. Eula and Eli reveal the history and folklore of the slave uprising and mass suicide at Ibo Landing. The Peazant family members make their final decisions to leave the island for a new beginning, or stay behind and maintain their way of life. Yellow Mary chooses to stay on the island along with Eli and Eula. In tears, Iona jumps off the boat prior to departing as Lastchild comes for her on horseback. Haagar is held back by another family member while calling for her daughter. Remaining family members watch as most of the Peazants finally depart.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Originally conceived in 1975, Dash planned to make a short film with no dialogue as a visual account of a Gullah family's preparation to leave their Sea Island home to a new life in the North. She was inspired by her father's Gullah family, who migrated to New York City in the early 20th century during the Great Migration of African Americans from the southern states. Her narrative forms were also inspired by the writing of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Melville Herskovits. As the story developed for more than 10 years, Dash clarified her artistic vision and together with Arthur Jafa, her cinematographer and co-producer, she put together a short film to use for marketing.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: She initially was rejected by Hollywood executives, as this was to be her first full-length film. Dash said they thought it was "too different" as she thought their reaction was part of a systematic exclusion of black women from Hollywood. Persisting, Dash finally got $800,000 financing from the PBS series "American Playhouse" in 1988.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: With funding secured, Dash and Casting Director Len Hunt, cast a number of veterans of black independent cinema in various roles, as a tribute to the work they had done and the sacrifices they had made to work in independent films. She would hire a mix of union and non-union members for her crew, with the latter being cast for their familiarity with the Gullah language, which the main actors would have to learn. Rogers had one previous film credit with "School Daze" and was known for her work as a playwright and vocalist, while Jones had worked previously with Dash in the short "Diary of an African Nun" (1977) and Grosvenor was a culinary anthropologist with a Gullah background.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: For the sake of authenticity and poetry, the characters from the island speak in Gullah dialect. Ronald Daise, author of "Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage" (1987), was the dialect coach for her actors, none of whom knew Gullah at the start of production.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: I didn't want to tell a historical drama about African-American women in the same way that I had seen other dramas. I decided to work with a different type of narrative structure...[and] that the typical male-oriented western-narrative structure was not appropriate for this particular film. So I let the story unravel and reveal itself in a way in which an African Gullah would tell the story, because that's part of our tradition. The story unfolds throughout this day-and-a-half in various vignettes. It unfolds and comes back. It's a different way of telling a story. It's totally different, new.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Director of photography Arthur Jafa began shooting on location at St. Helena Island and Hunting Island, off the South Carolina coast. Principal photography lasted 28 days, with a majority of the time spent shooting at exterior locations, such as the beach, in front of rustic homes, or further inland, where Nana's home is located near the island's graveyard. The sets, including cabins, the graveyard, and a figurative-sculpture dock at Igbo Landing, were constructed mostly using materials the Gullah would have had available at the time of the story. The costumes feature the women in long indigo-dyed and bright white dresses. The majority of closeups in the film are on the women, and the majority of dialogue is spoken by women and girls. American artist Kerry James Marshall handled production design, brought on by Jafa despite never meeting before.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: The key make-up artist and hair designer for "Daughters of the Dust" is Pamela Ferrell. During production, Ferrell worked very close with Julie Dash to help provide creative details needed for the vision and style of every scene in the movie. Ferrell also worked with the actors and actresses on set, where she detailed the make-up for each scene to help get the desired aesthetic.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: During production on Hunting Island, the crew was evacuated to Charleston, South Carolina to avoid the incoming Hurricane Hugo. Hugo changed track and scored a direct hit on Charleston, causing a historic amount of damage.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Often, the cast would have to come to set on a last-minute notice because of the environmental factors that took place.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Editing began in January 1990, and it took nearly a year to complete the film. Dash chose not to use subtitles, preferring to have audiences be immersed in the language. The soundtrack was composed by John Barnes, featuring a blend of Synclavier percussion with traditional instruments, including the Middle Eastern santour, and African bata and talking drums.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: "Daughters of the Dust" screened at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and won the Excellence in Cinematography Award. It was released by Kino International—the first feature film made by an African-American woman to be distributed theatrically in the United States.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: The film opened in January 1992 to mostly critical acclaim. "The Boston Globe" called it "Mesmerizing...a film rich with [black women's] faces, voices and movement."


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: "The New York Times" lauded the film's languid pace and "spellbinding visual beauty" while noting that its unconventional narrative structure made the characters in relation to the story at times difficult to follow. Critic Stephen Holden said the individual stories in the film formed a "broad weave in which the fabric of daily life, from food preparation to ritualized remembrance, is ultimately more significant than any of the psychological conflicts that surface." He hailed Dash as a "strikingly original film maker."


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Roger Ebert called the film a tone-poem and highlighted the screenplay's Gullah dialect: "The fact that some of the dialogue is deliberately difficult is not frustrating, but comforting; we relax like children at a family picnic, not understanding everything, but feeling at home with the expression of it."


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Upon its 2016 re-release, "The Village Voice" review commended the film's "stunning motifs and tableaux, the iconography seemingly sourced from dreams as much as from history and folklore." "The Guardian" critic Peter Bradshaw called the film "mysterious, fabular and sometimes dreamlike," comparing it to Chekhov or a performance of Shakespeare's Tempest.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: The film holds a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 77 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.6/10. The site's consensus reads: ""Daughters of the Dust" addresses its weighty themes with lovely visuals and a light, poetic touch, offering an original, absorbing look at a largely unexplored corner of American culture".


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Despite the positive reviews, the promise of an illustrious film career did not pan out for Dash. She concluded that industry executives were uncertain about the film's unconventional form, stating in 2007 that "Hollywood and mainstream television are still not quite open to what I have to offer."


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: Nonetheless, the film has continued to resonate with critics and audiences and Dash would go on to a productive television career.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: The Library of Congress added "Daughters of the Dust" to the National Film Registry in 2004, noting its status as the first feature-length film by an African-American woman to receive wide theatrical release, calling it an "evocative, emotional look at family, era and place."


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: In 2022, "Daughters of the Dust" was named at number 60 in the "Sight & Sound" Greatest Films of All Time list selected by critics and published every 10 years since 1952.


title: Daughters of the Dust

text: For its 25th anniversary, the Cohen Media Group restored "Daughters of the Dust" for a screening at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival and a theatrical release. When Beyoncé's acclaimed visual album "Lemonade" aired on HBO and online in the spring of that year, critics noted that "Lemonade" made several visual references to "Daughters of the Dust". Beyoncé's modern take featured young women, some in long white dresses, walking toward a beach or settled on the front porch of a rustic island cabin. The homage brought attention to the film in articles for "Vanity Fair", "Rolling Stone", NPR, and "Essence". With new acclaim, "Daughters of the Dust" was re-released in theaters in November 2016, along with a new trailer and poster.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The Governor Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge, commonly known as the Tappan Zee Bridge, was a cantilever bridge in the U.S. state of New York. It was built from 1952 to 1955 to cross the Hudson River at one of its widest points, north of Midtown Manhattan, from South Nyack to Tarrytown. As an integral conduit within the New York Metropolitan Area, the bridge connected South Nyack in Rockland County with Tarrytown in Westchester County in the Lower Hudson Valley.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: Opened on December 14, 1955, the Tappan Zee Bridge was one of the primary crossings of the Hudson River north of New York City; it carried much of the traffic between southern New England and points west of the Hudson. The bridge was the longest bridge in New York State, a title retained by its replacement. The total length of the bridge approached . The cantilever span was , which provided a maximum clearance of over the water. The bridge was officially named after former governor Malcolm Wilson in 1994, though the original name continued to be used.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The Tappan Zee Bridge was part of the New York State Thruway mainline and carried the highway concurrency of Interstate 87 and Interstate 287. The span carried seven lanes of motor traffic. The center lane was able to be switched between eastbound and westbound traffic depending on the prevalent commuter direction; on weekdays the center lane was eastbound in the morning and westbound in the evening. The switch was accomplished via a movable center barrier which was moved by a pair of barrier transfer machines. Even with the switchable lane, traffic was frequently very slow.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: In 2013, federal and state authorities started constructing a replacement bridge at a cost of at least $4 billion. All traffic was shifted to the new bridge on October 6, 2017, and demolition of the old bridge began soon afterward. The eastern half of the bridge was demolished in a controlled demolition on January 15, 2019, while the western half was lowered onto a barge and hauled away in May 2019.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The Tappan Zee is named for an American Indian tribe from the area called "Tappan"; and "zee" being the Dutch word for "sea".


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: In 1994, the name of Malcolm Wilson was added to the bridge's name upon the 20th anniversary of his leaving the governor's office in December 1974. However, it was almost never used when the bridge was spoken about colloquially.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: With the increasing demands for commuter travel taxing the existing bridges and tunnels, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had plans in 1950 to construct a bridge across the Hudson near Dobbs Ferry, New York. The proposal was overridden by New York State Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who wanted to construct a bridge to connect the New York State Thruway across Westchester to the New England Thruway. The Port Authority promised its bondholders that it would not allow any other entity to construct a river crossing within its jurisdiction, which reached to a point one mile (1.6 km) south of Nyack on the western shore of the Hudson River and across to Tarrytown on the eastern shore. The bridge was built on a very tight budget of $81 million (1950 dollars), or $796 million in 2014 dollars.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: A May 10, 1950, editorial in "The New York Times" suggested that a site in southern Dobbs Ferry or northern Hastings-on-Hudson, where the Hudson narrowed considerably from its three-mile (5 km) width at Tappan Zee, would be a more appropriate site, and suggested that Governor Dewey work with his counterpart, Governor of New Jersey Alfred E. Driscoll, to craft a compromise that would offer Thruway customers a discounted bridge fare at a more southerly crossing. Two days later, Governor Dewey announced that the Port Authority had dropped its plans to construct a bridge of its own, and that the bridge's location would be close to the Tarrytown-Nyack line, just outside the Port Authority's jurisdiction. Dewey stated that World War II military technology would be used in the bridge's construction.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The site of the bridge, at the Hudson River's second-widest point, added to construction costs. The site was chosen to be as close as possible to New York City, while staying out of the range of the Port Authority's influence, thus ensuring that revenue from collected tolls would go to the newly created New York State Thruway Authority, and not the Port Authority. A unique aspect of the design of the bridge was that the main span was supported by eight hollow concrete caissons. Their buoyancy supported some of the loads and helped reduce costs.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The bridge was designed by Emil Praeger of the Madigan-Hyland engineering firm. Captain Praeger helped develop floating caissons during World War II when the Allied forces needed to create and protect portable harbors for the 1944 invasion of Normandy.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: Construction started in March 1952 and the bridge opened to traffic on December 15, 1955, along with a long section of the New York State Thruway from Suffern to Yonkers. New York State Governor W. Averell Harriman signed a bill on February 28, 1956, to officially name the structure the Tappan Zee Bridge.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: Originally, tolls were collected in both directions. In August 1970, the toll was abolished for westbound drivers, and at the same time, eastbound drivers saw their tolls doubled. The tolls of eleven other New York–New Jersey and Hudson River crossings along a stretch, from the Outerbridge Crossing in the south to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in the north, were also changed to eastbound-only at that time.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: Since the end of the 20th century, calls to replace the aging Tappan Zee Bridge had gone unanswered. The deteriorating structure bore an average of 138,000 vehicles per day by the end of its life, substantially more traffic than its designed capacity. Unlike other major bridges in metropolitan New York, the Tappan Zee was designed to last only 50 years due to material shortages during the Korean War at the time of its construction. In total, the bridge was open for 61 years, 9 months, and 21 days. The new bridge is intended to last at least 100 years without any major repairs.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The collapse of Minnesota's I-35W Mississippi River bridge in 2007 raised worries about the Tappan Zee's structural integrity. These concerns, together with traffic overcapacity and increased maintenance costs, escalated the serious discussions already ongoing about replacing the Tappan Zee with a tunnel or a new bridge. Six options were identified and submitted for project study and environmental review.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: In 2009, the Tappan Zee Bridge was featured on The History Channel "The Crumbling of America" showing the infrastructure crisis in the United States. Many factors contribute to the precarious infrastructure of the bridge, which has been called "one of the most decrepit and potentially dangerous bridges" in the U.S. Engineering assessments have determined that "everything from steel corrosion to earthquakes to maritime accidents could cause major, perhaps catastrophic, damage to the span," prompting one of the top aides in the New York state governor's office to refer to the Tappan Zee as the “hold-your-breath bridge.” A 2009 state report noted that the bridge was not built with a plan that was "conducive to long-term durability” and that the Tappan Zee’s engineers designed it to be “nonredundant,” meaning that one "critical fracture could make the bridge fail completely because its supports couldn’t transfer the structure’s load to other supports."


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) studied the feasibility of either including a rail line across the new bridge or building the new bridge so a new rail line can be installed at a future date. Commuter rail service west of the bridge in Rockland County is limited, and the MTA studied expansion possibilities in Rockland County that would use the new bridge to connect with Metro-North's Hudson Line on the east side of the bridge along the Hudson River for direct service into Manhattan. On September 26, 2008, New York state officials announced their plan to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge with a new bridge that included commuter-train tracks and lanes for high-speed buses. The bridge was estimated to cost $6.4 billion, while adding bus lanes from Suffern to Port Chester was estimated to cost an additional $2.9 billion. Adding a rail line from the Suffern Metro-North station and across the bridge, connecting with Metro-North’s Hudson Line south of Tarrytown, would have added another $6.7 billion. The plan was reviewed for its environmental impacts.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: In 2013, the New York State Thruway Authority began building the new Tappan Zee Bridge, a double-span bridge (four lanes per span in opposite directions) with designated bus lanes, to the north of the old bridge. Construction began as scheduled during 2013, with completion projected for 2017.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The northbound/westbound span opened on August 25, 2017. Southbound/eastbound traffic remained on the old span until October 7, 2017, when it was temporarily shifted to the newer northbound/westbound span. The old bridge was subsequently decommissioned. The replacement bridge project was expected to be completed by June 15, 2018 at a cost of $3.98 billion. After some delays, it was announced that the new southbound/eastbound span would open to traffic on September 8, 2018. However, the opening of the new eastbound span was delayed when a piece of the old bridge came loose on September 7 while being demolished. The eastbound span, which was away from the old bridge, remained closed until the old bridge could be stabilized.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: The old bridge was then demolished in piecemeal fashion in order to minimize impacts on the Hudson River's wildlife and marine traffic. 135 deck panels that were assembled onto the old bridge recently as part of emergency repairs would be sold to local governments for a dollar each so that local governments can build new bridges. Other parts of the old bridge would be sunk off the Atlantic Ocean coast as part of New York State's artificial reef program. In May 2018, the state government began sinking parts of the old bridge to make 12 artificial reefs.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: On January 2, 2019, it was announced that the eastern approach to the old bridge would be demolished with explosives on January 12. However, it was postponed due to high winds. It was demolished on January 15, 2019. The western approach was lowered onto a barge and hauled away beginning on May 12, 2019 and lasting several days.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: From 1998 to 2008, more than 25 people committed suicide on the Tappan Zee Bridge, according to the New York State Thruway Authority.


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: On August 31, 2007, NYSTA officials added four phones – two each on the Rockland and Westchester sides – that connect callers via the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline crisis hotline to counselors at LifeNet or Covenant House. Signs reading "Life is Worth Living" and "When it seems like there is no hope, there is help" were placed on the bridge. Suicide fencing and traffic cameras were also installed along the bridge, and bridge staff were trained in suicide prevention. On October 14, 2012, "Newsday" reported that the Tappan Zee Bridge was called the Golden Gate Bridge of the East and that the "new Tappan Zee, which is in the works, will include fencing designed to thwart jumpers."


title: Tappan Zee Bridge (1955–2017)

text: Suicides on the Tappan Zee Bridge included those of Scott Douglas on December 31, 1993 – after murdering his wife, newspaper heiress Anne Scripps – and of Douglas's stepdaughter Anne Morrell Petrillo, who jumped to her death on September 24, 2009. A US military employee jumped from the bridge to her death in 2010.


title: Flat-panel display

text: A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment.


title: Flat-panel display

text: Flat-panel displays are thin, lightweight, provide better linearity and are capable of higher resolution than typical consumer-grade TVs from earlier eras. They are usually less than thick. While the highest resolution for consumer-grade CRT televisions was 1080i, many flat-panel displays in the 2020s are capable of 1080p and 4K resolution.


title: Flat-panel display

text: In the 2010s, portable consumer electronics such as laptops, mobile phones, and portable cameras have used flat-panel displays since they consume less power and are lightweight. As of 2016, flat-panel displays have almost completely replaced CRT displays.


title: Flat-panel display

text: Most 2010s-era flat-panel displays use LCD or light-emitting diode (LED) technologies, sometimes combined. Most LCD screens are back-lit with color filters used to display colors. In many cases, flat-panel displays are combined with touch screen technology, which allows the user to interact with the display in a natural manner. For example, modern smartphone displays often use OLED panels, with capacitive touch screens.


title: Flat-panel display

text: Flat-panel displays can be divided into two display device categories: volatile and static. The former requires that pixels be periodically electronically refreshed to retain their state (e.g. liquid-crystal displays (LCD)), and can only show an image when it has power. On the other hand, static flat-panel displays rely on materials whose color states are bistable, such as displays that make use of e-ink technology, and as such retain content even when power is removed.


title: Flat-panel display

text: The first engineering proposal for a flat-panel TV was by General Electric in 1954 as a result of its work on radar monitors. The publication of their findings gave all the basics of future flat-panel TVs and monitors. But GE did not continue with the R&D required and never built a working flat panel at that time. The first production flat-panel display was the Aiken tube, developed in the early 1950s and produced in limited numbers in 1958. This saw some use in military systems as a heads up display and as an oscilloscope monitor, but conventional technologies overtook its development. Attempts to commercialize the system for home television use ran into continued problems and the system was never released commercially.


title: Flat-panel display

text: The Philco Predicta featured a relatively flat (for its day) cathode ray tube setup and would be the first commercially released "flat panel" upon its launch in 1958; the Predicta was a commercial failure. The plasma display panel was invented in 1964 at the University of Illinois, according to The History of Plasma Display Panels.


title: Flat-panel display

text: The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, and presented in 1960. Building on their work, Paul K. Weimer at RCA developed the thin-film transistor (TFT) in 1962. It was a type of MOSFET distinct from the standard bulk MOSFET. The idea of a TFT-based LCD was conceived by Bernard J. Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968. B.J. Lechner, F.J. Marlowe, E.O. Nester and J. Tults demonstrated the concept in 1968 with a dynamic scattering LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.