Wallace Ford (1898 - 1966)

Following military service as a trooper at Fort Riley, in Kansas with the United States Army Cavalry during World War I, he became a vaudeville stage actor in an American stock company. In 1919, he performed in an adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen, which played to full houses in Chicago for several months, before transferring […]

Christy Cabanne (1888 - 1950)

Christy Cabanne (pronounced “CAB-a-nay”) spent several years in the US Navy, leaving the service in 1908. He decided on a career in the theater, and became a director as well as an actor. Although acting was his main profession, when he finally broke into the film industry it was chiefly as a director after appearing […]

Mark Sandrich (1900 - 1945)

Mark Sandrich was born in New York City, to a Jewish family. His sister was Ruth Harriet Louise. He was an engineering student at Columbia University when he began in the film business by accident. While visiting a friend on a film set, he saw that the director had a problem in setting up a […]

Benjamin Bristow (1832 - 1896)

Benjamin Helm Bristow (June 20, 1832 – June 22, 1896) was the 30th U.S. Treasury Secretary, the first Solicitor General, an American lawyer, a Union military officer, Republican Party politician, reformer, and civil rights advocate. Benjamin Bristow, during his tenure as Secretary of Treasury, is primarily known for breaking up and prosecuting the Whiskey Ring, […]

Bryan Budd (1977 - 2006)

Born in Belfast together with twin sister Tracy, Bryan Budd moved to the north of England as a child. He attended Thomas Sumpter School in Scunthorpe. Budd had been in the British Army for ten years, serving with the elite Pathfinder Platoon, which carries out reconnaissance deep behind enemy lines. As part of the Pathfinders, […]

William Alfred Buckingham (1804 - 1875)

William Alfred Buckingham entered into a career in the mercantile industry, and in 1848 helped to organize the Hayward Rubber Company, a business that developed into a successful enterprise. Buckingham served as the mayor of Norwich, Connecticut from 1849 to 1850, and again from 1856 to 1857. He also served as Norwich’s town treasurer and a […]

Ralph Buckland (1812 - 1892)

Born in Leyden, Massachusetts Ralph Buckland moved with his parents to Ravenna, Ohio, the same year. He attended the country schools, Tallmadge (Ohio) Academy, and Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1837 and commenced practice in Fremont, Ohio. He served as the mayor of Fremont from […]

Alexander Buckley (1891 - 1918)

Alexander Buckley was born on 22 July 1891 to James and Julia Buckley at Gulargambone, New South Wales, Australia. One of four children, he was home schooled on his parents’ property Homebush during his childhood. After completing his schooling, he worked on the family farm with his father. Buckley enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on […]

Wilson Brown (1839 - 1916)

Wilson Brown was born December 25, 1837 in Logan County, Ohio, and enlisted September 6, 1861 at Findlay, Ohio in Company F, 21st Ohio Infantry, mustering into service September 19, 1861. He first saw action at Ivy Mountain, Ky., November 8–9, 1861. Chosen by James Andrews for his abilities as a locomotive engineer, as he had […]

John Calvin Brown (1827 - 1889)

In May 1861, John Calvin Brown enlisted as a private in the Confederate infantry, and was elected Colonel of the 3rd Tennessee Infantry shortly afterward. He was later placed in charge of a brigade consisting of three Tennessee regiments. Following the surrender of Fort Donelson, he was held as a prisoner of war for six months […]

Harvey Brown (1795 - 1874)

Harvey Brown was born in Bridgetown (part of present-day Rahway, New Jersey). He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on July 24, 1818, as a second lieutenant of light artillery. He spent the first years of his military career on garrison duty in Boston, Massachusetts and New London, Connecticut […]

Aldo Rossi (1931 - 1997)

Aldo Rossi began his professional career at the studio of Ignazio Gardella in 1956, moving on to the studio of Marco Zanuso. In 1963 also he began teaching, firstly as an assistant to Ludovico Quaroni (1963) at the school of urban planning in Arezzo, then to Carlo Aymonino at the Institute of Architecture in Venice. […]

Anna Castelli Ferrieri (1918 - 2006)

Anna Castelli Ferrieri was an Italian architect and industrial designer. She is most known for her influence in the use of plastics as a mainstream design material and her work with Kartell, an Italian contemporary furniture company. Ferrieri was born in Milan on August 6, 1918 and died June 22, 2006 at age 87. Ferrieri studied […]

Gae Aulenti (1927 - 2012)

Born as Gaetana Aulenti, a native of Palazzolo dello Stella (Friuli), Gaetana Aulenti (Gae, as she was known, is pronounced “guy”) studied to be an architect at the Milan Polytechnic University, Faculty of Architecture and graduated as one of two women in a class of 20 in 1954. She grew up playing the piano and […]

Achille Castiglioni (1918 - 2002)

Achille Castiglioni (Italian pronunciation: [aˈkille kastiʎˈʎoni]; 16 February 1918 – 2 December 2002) was an Italian designer of furniture, lighting, radiograms and other objects. Castiglioni was born on 16 February 1918 in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. He was the third son of the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni and his wife Livia Bolla. His elder brothers […]

Joe Cesare Colombo (1930 - 1971)

Cesare “Joe” Colombo was until 1949 educated at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, the academy of fine arts, in Milano as a painter and studied afterwards until 1954 Architecture at Politecnico di Milano University. In 1951 he joined the Movimento Nucleare, founded by Sergio D´Angelo and Enrico Baj. The following four years Colombo was […]

Marco Zanuso (1916 - 2001)

Marco Zanuso was born in Milano (Italy) May 14, 1916. He was one of a group of Italian designers from Milan shaping the international idea of “good design” in the postwar years. Trained in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano university, he opened his own design office in 1945. From the beginning of his career, […]

Gio Ponti (1891 - 1979)

Ponti’s parents were Enrico Ponti and Giovanna Rigone. He did military service during World War I in the Pontonier Corps with the rank of captain, from 1916 to 1918, receiving the Bronze Medal and the Italian Military Cross. Gio Ponti graduated with a degree in Architecture in 1921 from the Politecnico di Milano University. Also in […]

Ettore Sottsass (1917 - 2007)

Ettore Sottsass was born on 14 September 1917 in Innsbruck, Austria, and grew up in Milan, where his father was an architect. He was educated at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin and graduated in 1939 with a degree in architecture. He served in the Italian military and spent much of World War II in a […]

Craig Strickland (1986 - 1970)

Craig Strickland Country singer Craig Strickland is missing and feared dead after he and a friend went on a duck hunting trip in Kay County, Oklahoma, during a violent storm last weekend. Their boat was found capsized in Kaw Lake north of Tulsa just after midnight on Monday morning. The remains of Strickland’s friend, 22-year-old Chase […]

Carrie Fisher (1956 - 2016)

Carrie Fisher Actress Carrie Fisher, whose grit and wit made “Star Wars’” Princess Leia an iconic and beloved figure to millions of moviegoers, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 60. Her death was confirmed in a statement issued by the publicist for Billie Lourd, Fisher’s daughter. “It is with a very deep sadness that […]

Alfred P. Sloan (1875 - 1966)

Alfred P.Sloan (/sloʊn/; May 23, 1875 – February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time President, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation. Sloan, first as a senior executive and later as the head of the organization, helped GM grow from the 1920s through the 1950s, decades […]

Zora Arkus-Duntov (1909 - 1996)

Zora Arkus-Duntov (December 25, 1909 – April 21, 1996) was a Belgian-born American engineer whose work on the Chevrolet Corvette earned him the nickname “Father of the Corvette.” He is sometimes erroneously referred to as the inventor of the Corvette, although that title belongs to Harley Earl. Zora joined General Motors in 1953 after seeing the […]

Virgil Exner (1909 - 1973)

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Virgil Exner was adopted by George W. and Iva Exner as a baby. Virgil showed a strong interest in art and automobiles. He went to Buchanan High School in Buchanan, Michigan then studied art at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana but, in 1928, dropped out after two years […]

Harley Earl (1893 - 1969)

Harley Earl was born in Hollywood, California. His father, J. W. Earl, began work as a coachbuilder in 1889. The senior Earl eventually changed his practice from horse-drawn vehicles to custom bodies and customized parts and accessories for automobiles, founding Earl Automobile Works in 1908. Earl began studies at Stanford University, but left prematurely to work […]

James Buchanan Duke (1856 - 1925)

James Buchanan Duke, known by the nickname “Buck”, was born on December 23, 1856, near Durham, North Carolina, to industrialist and philanthropist Washington Duke and his second wife, Artelia Roney Duke. Washington Duke (1820–1905), had owned a tobacco company that his sons James Buchanan Duke and Benjamin Newton Duke (1855–1929) took over in the 1880s. In […]

Phebe Sudlow (1831 - 1922)

Phebe W. Sudlow (July 11, 1831 – June 8, 1922) was a pioneer for women in the education field and was the first female superintendent of a public school in the United States. Phebe Sudlow also became the first female professor at the University of Iowa in 1878, despite having no formal college degree. Phebe W. […]

Samuel Francis Smith (1808 - 1895)

Samuel Francis Smith was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 21, 1808. Smith gave Lowell Mason the lyrics he had written and the song was first performed in public on July 4, 1831, at a children’s Independence Day celebration at Park Street Church in Boston. The song, titled “America”, was first published by Lowell Mason in […]

Maria Sanford (1836 - 1920)

Maria Sanford was born in Saybrook, Connecticut. Her love for education began early; at the age of 16 she was already teaching in county day schools. She graduated with honors from Connecticut Normal School (now Central Connecticut State University), using her dowry funds for tuition. She rose in the ranks of local and national educators, […]

William Rice (1816 - 1900)

William Rice was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the third of ten children of David and Patty (née Hall) Rice. His first job was as a grocery store clerk in Springfield, at the age of 15. By age 22, he had purchased the store from its owner. In 1838, Rice traveled to Texas in search of […]