Cootie Williams (1911 - 1985)

Born in Mobile, Alabama, United States, Cootie Williams began his professional career with the Young Family band, which included saxophonist Lester Young, when he was 14 years old. According to Williams he acquired his nickname as a boy when his father took him to a band concert. When it was over his father asked him […]

Bubber Miley (1903 - 1932)

Bubber Miley was born in Aiken, South Carolina, United States, into a musical family. At the age of six, he and his family moved to New York City where, as a child, he occasionally sang for money on the streets, and later, at the age of fourteen, studied to play the trombone and cornet. In 1920, […]

Jimmy McHugh (1894 - 1969)

Jimmy McHugh began his career in Boston, where he published about a dozen songs with local publishers. His first success was with the World War I song “Keep the Love-Light Burning in the Window Till the Boys Come Marching Home”, and this also came near the start of a decade-long collaboration with lyricist Jack Caddigan. […]

Johnny Hodges (1907 - 1970)

Johnny Hodges joined Duke Ellington’s orchestra in November 1928. He was one of the prominent Ellington Band members who featured in Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. Goodman described Hodges as “by far the greatest man on alto sax that I ever heard.” Charlie Parker called him “the Lily Pons of his instrument.” Ellington’s practice of […]

Sippie Wallace (1898 - 1986)

Sippie Wallace followed her brothers to Chicago in 1923 and worked her way into the city’s bustling jazz scene. Her reputation led to a recording contract with Okeh Records in 1923. Her first recorded songs, “Shorty George” and “Up the Country Blues”, the former written with her brother George, sold well enough to make her […]

Peetie Wheatstraw (1902 - 1941)

William Bunch (December 21, 1902 – December 21, 1941), known as Peetie Wheatstraw, was an American musician, an influential figure among 1930s blues singers. The only known photograph of him shows him holding a National brand tricone resonator guitar, but he played the piano on most of his recordings. William Bunch was the son of James […]

Bo Carter (1893 - 1964)

Armenter Chatmon (June 30, 1893 – September 21, 1964), known as Bo Carter, was an early American blues musician. He was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks in concerts and on a few of their recordings. He also managed that group, which included his brothers Lonnie Chatmon on fiddle and, occasionally, Sam Chatmon on bass […]

Sam Chatmon (1897 - 1983)

Sam Chatmon (January 10, 1897 – February 2, 1983) was a Delta blues guitarist and singer. He was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks. He may have been Charlie Patton’s half-brother. Chatmon was born in Bolton, Mississippi. His family was well known in Mississippi for their musical talents; he was a member of the family’s string […]

Harry Jerome (1940 - 1982)

Harry Jerome competed at the university level for Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon. He competed for Canada in the 1960, 1964, and 1968 Summer Olympics, winning 100 metre bronze in 1964. Such were the Olympics, Jerome wore his University of Oregon sweats (rather than the contemporary practice of an official national outfit for […]

Lamar Lundy (1935 - 2007)

Lamar J. Lundy, Jr. (April 17, 1935 – February 24, 2007) was an American defensive end with the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League for 13 seasons, from 1957 to 1969. Along with Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, and Rosey Grier, Lundy was a member of the Fearsome Foursome, often considered one of the […]

Ed Friendly (1922 - 2007)

Edwin “Ed” S. Friendly Jr. (April 8, 1922 – June 17, 2007) was an American television producer. He was responsible for creating several successful television programs including Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, Little House on the Prairie, and Backstairs at the White House. Ed Friendly served with the United States Army in the Pacific Theater of Operations […]

Chelsea Brown (1942 - 2017)

Chelsea Brown (December 6, 1942 – March 27, 2017) was an American born actress of television and film, comedienne and dancer, who appeared as a regular performer in comedy series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. She had a successful career in her native land before emigrating to Australia, where she became well-known mostly for her roles […]

Hugo Friedhofer (1901 - 1981)

Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer (May 3, 1901 – May 17, 1981) was an American composer best known for his motion picture scores. He was born in San Francisco. His father was a cellist trained in Dresden, Germany; his mother, Eva König, was born in Germany. Hugo Friedhofer began playing cello at the age of 13. After taking lessons […]

Paul Smith (1906 - 1985)

Paul J. Smith (October 30, 1906 – January 25, 1985) was an American music composer. Paul Smith was born in Calumet, Michigan on October 30, 1906. Upon graduating high school, he studied music at The College of Idaho from 1923 to 1925 before he was accepted into the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. His […]

Ken Darby (1909 - 1992)

Kenneth Lorin Darby was born in Hebron, Nebraska, on May 13, 1909, to Lorin Edward Darby and Clara Alice Powell. Darby was married to Vera Matson from 1932 to 1992. Ken Darby’s choral group, The Ken Darby Singers, sang backup for Bing Crosby on the original 1942 Decca Records studio recording of “White Christmas.” In […]

Ray Heindorf (1908 - 1980)

Born in Haverstraw, New York, Ray Heindorf worked as a pianist in a movie house in Mechanicville in his early teens. In 1928, he moved to New York City, where he worked as a musical arranger before heading to Hollywood. He gained his first job as an orchestrator at MGM, where he worked on Hollywood […]

Franz Waxman (1906 - 1967)

In Hollywood, Franz Waxman met James Whale, who had been highly impressed by Waxman’s score for Liliom. The success of his score for Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935) led to the young composer’s appointment as Head of Music at Universal Studios. Waxman, however, was more interested in composition than musical direction for film, and in […]

Francis Sumner (1895 - 1954)

Francis Sumner’s area of focus was in investigating how to refute racism and bias in the theories used to conclude the inferiority of African Americans. Sumner’s work is thought to be a response to the Eurocentric methods of psychology. Upon his graduation Sumner accepted a professor position at Wilberforce University in the fall of 1920. […]

Margaret Floy Washburn (1871 - 1939)

Born July 25, 1871 in New York City, Margaret Floy Washburn was raised in Harlem by her father Francis, an Episcopal priest, and her mother, Elizabeth Floy, who came from a prosperous New York family. Her ancestors were of Dutch and English descent and were all in America before 1720. Washburn was an only child; […]

Rosalie Rayner (1898 - 1935)

Rosalie Rayner was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 25, 1898. Her father and grandfather, Albert William Rayner and William Solomon Rayner, respectively, were successful businessmen. Her mother, Rebecca Selner Rayner, and father had one other daughter, Evelyn. Albert William Rayner made a living dealing with railroads, mining, and shipbuilding. The Rayner family also supported […]

John Garcia (1917 - 2012)

John Garcia was born to a farm family on June 12, 1917, near Santa Rosa, California, and died a world-renowned member of the National Academy of Sciences on October 12, 2012. He was a farmer, a cartoonist, a ship fitter, an Air Corps Cadet, an amateur boxer, a high school teacher and a college professor, […]

Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934)

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (Russian: Лев Семёнович Вы́готский or Выго́тский, born Лев Симхович Выгодский [Lev Simkhovich Vygodskiy], November 17 [O.S. November 5] 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist, the founder of an unfinished theory of human cultural and bio-social development commonly referred to as cultural-historical psychology, the prominent advocate for the new theory […]

Ivan Sechenov (1829 - 1905)

Ivan Mikhaylovich Sechenov (Russian: Ива́н Миха́йлович Се́ченов; August 13 [O.S. August 1] 1829, Tyoply Stan (now Sechenovo) near Simbirsk, Russia – November 15 [O.S. November 2] 1905, Moscow), was a Russian physiologist, named by Ivan Pavlov as “The Father of Russian physiology”. Ivan Sechenov authored the classic Reflexes of the Brain introducing electrophysiology and neurophysiology […]

Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936)

After completing his doctorate, Pavlov went to Germany where he studied in Leipzig with Carl Ludwig and Eimear Kelly in the Heidenhain laboratories in Breslau. He remained there from 1884 to 1886. Heidenhain was studying digestion in dogs, using an exteriorized section of the stomach. However, Pavlov perfected the technique by overcoming the problem of […]

Mary Calkins (1863 - 1930)

Mary Calkins began her serious study of psychology under William James, shortly after his highly renowned textbook, The Principles of Psychology, was printed in 1890. Calkins highly regards one of her first experiences with James in her autobiography, claiming “what I gained from the written page, and even more from tete-a-tete discussion was, it seems […]

Mary Cover Jones (1897 - 1987)

Mary Cover Jones was the middle child of three born to Carrie Louise Higson and Charles Blair Cover. She had a brother who was five years older than her, and a sister who was four years younger than her. Jones’ mother was a homemaker involved in several local community organizations while her father was a […]

Louis Thurstone (1887 - 1955)

Louis Thurstone was responsible for the standardized mean and standard deviation of IQ scores used today, as opposed to the Intelligence Test system originally used by Alfred Binet. He is also known for the development of the Thurstone scale. Thurstone’s work in factor analysis led him to formulate a model of intelligence center around “Primary Mental […]

David Wechsler (1896 - 1981)

David Wechsler is best known for his intelligence tests. He was one of the most influential advocates of the role of nonintellective factors in testing. He emphasized that factors other than intellectual ability are involved in intelligent behavior. David Wechsler objected to the single score offered by the 1937 Binet scale. Although his test did […]

Bénédict Morel (1809 - 1873)

Bénédict Morel was born in Vienna, Austria in 1809, of French parents. In the aftermath of the War of the Sixth Coalition Morel was abandoned by his parents, and left with the Luxembourgish Abbé Dupont and his servant Marianne, who raised him. Morel received his education in Paris, and while a student, supplemented his income by […]

Carl von Rokitansky (1804 - 1878)

Carl von Rokitansky was born in Hradec Králové (German: Königgrätz), Bohemia. He studied at the Charles University in Prague (1821–1824) and attained a doctorate in medicine on 6 March 1828 at the University of Vienna. In 1830, he became assistant to Johann Wagner, the professor of pathological anatomy, and succeeded him in 1834 as prosector, […]