document_title: List of To Kill a Mockingbird characters

question_text: calpurnia son name in to kill a mockingbird

text: Primary characters[edit]

text: Atticus Finch[edit]

text: Atticus Finch is the middle-aged father of Jem and Scout Finch. He is a lawyer and was once known as "the deadliest shot in Maycomb County". Although he was a good shot, he does not like to mention the fact as he does not like the thought of having an advantage over people. He appears to support racial equality and was appointed to represent Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. The town disapproves of him defending Tom especially when he makes clear his intent to defend Tom Robinson to the best of his abilities. He is portrayed by Gregory Peck in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: "Scout" Finch[edit]

text: Jean Louise "Scout" Finch is the narrator and To Kill a Mockingbird is told by an adult Scout who often comments on how she could not understand something at the time but now can appreciate it. She gets in trouble with her teacher Miss Caroline because Miss Caroline expects Scout to learn reading and writing her way. She is a tomboy and spends the most of her time with her brother Jem and best friend Dill. To Jem’s advice to pretend to be a lady and start sewing or something, she answers ‘Hell no.’ The rare hints the narrator gives us about her grown-up life reveal that she ultimately hasn’t changed herself for others.[2]

text: She matures from age 6 to age 9 as the novel progresses but remains naive and idealistic, despite an increased understanding of human nature and racism in her town. At the beginning of the book, Scout is confused by some of the words and names she hears people directing towards her father, such as "nigger-lover". Being only six, Scout does not know how to handle such situations so she tries to resolve her problems by fighting, or by talking to Atticus about what she has heard. By the end of the book, Scout realizes that racism does exist and comes to terms with its presence in her town. Scout also learns how to deal with others, including the Finch family housekeeper, Calpurnia, and her aunt, Alexandra. Scout is the only one of the novel's primary three children (Dill, Jem, and herself) to see and speak to Boo Radley during the course of the novel and realize that he is harmless, despite her initial fear of him. She also stops a mob that is trying to lynch Tom Robinson by talking to the mob leader, Mr. Cunningham, about inviting his son, Walter, over for dinner. Mr. Cunningham then tells the other mob members to get back in their cars and leave them alone. The members listen, and Scout unintentionally saves Tom Robinson's life. She is portrayed by Mary Badham in the film adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: Notable quote: "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." [3]

text: "Jem" Finch[edit]

text: Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch is Atticus' son and Scout's older brother by four years. Jem matures greatly throughout the course of the novel, much more affected by events than Scout seems to be. Being four years Scout's senior, Jem is seen to have a greater understanding of - and therefore greater difficulty in navigating - the obstacles thrown their way. Jem is seen explaining many things to Scout throughout the novel. Bob Ewell breaks Jem's arm, subsequently resulting in it being shorter than it had been, in an attempt to protect his sister. He is portrayed by Phillip Alford in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: Dill Harris[edit]

text: Charles Baker "Dill" Harris is a short, smart boy who visits Maycomb every summer from Meridian, Mississippi, and stays with his Aunt Rachel (Aunt Stephanie in the film). Dill is the best friend of both Jem and Scout, and his goal throughout the novel is to get Boo Radley to come out of his house. The children concoct many plans to lure Boo Radley out of his house for a few summers until Atticus tells them to stop. In chapter 5 of the novel, Dill promises to marry Scout and they become "engaged". One night Dill runs away from his home in Meridian, arriving in Maycomb County where he hides under Scout's bed. When she finds Dill, he tells both Scout and Atticus that he was chained to a wall in his father's basement; later, he confesses he actually ran away because he felt he was being replaced by his stepfather. Before Dill returned to Meridian after the summer, he went swimming with Jem at the Barker's Eddy creek. Scout, unfortunately, was unable to participate, because both boys were swimming naked.

text: Unlike Scout and Jem, Dill lacks the security of family support. He is unwanted and unloved by his mother and stepfather: "They do get on a lot better without me, I cannot help them any." As Francis (a cousin of Jem and Scout) says, "He hasn't got a home, he just gets passed around from relative to relative." Dill maintains he has no father; he doesn't know where his father might live, or if he will ever come back. He is played by John Megna in the film adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: This character is believed to be based on author Truman Capote, a childhood friend of Harper Lee.[citation needed]

text: Calpurnia[edit]

text: Calpurnia, nicknamed Cal, is the Finch family's African-American housekeeper, whom the children love and Atticus deeply respects (he remarks in her defense that she "never indulged [the children] like most colored nurses"). She is highly regarded by Atticus. She is an important figure in Scout's life, providing discipline, instruction, and love. She also fills the maternal role for the children after their mother's death. Calpurnia is a mother herself and raised her son, Zeebo, to adulthood. Calpurnia is one of the few black characters in the novel who is able to read and write, and it is she who taught Scout to write. She learned how to read from Miss Maudie's aunt, Miss Buford, who taught her how to read out of Blackstone's Commentaries, a book given to her. Aunt Alexandra despised Calpurnia because Alexandra believed that Calpurnia was not a "maternal figure" for Jem and Scout, especially for Scout.

text: Calpurnia is a member of the First Purchase M.E. African Church in Maycomb. While Scout always hears her speak proper English, she is surprised to learn that Calpurnia does not do so at church, especially with the uneducated members of the congregation.

text: While everyone in the novel is filtered through Scout’s perception, Calpurnia in particular appears for a long time more as Scout’s idea of her than as a real person. At the beginning of the novel, Scout appears to think of Calpurnia as the wicked stepmother to Scout’s own Cinderella. However, towards the end of the book, Scout views Calpurnia as someone she can look up to, and realizes Calpurnia has only protected her over the years. She is played by Estelle Evans in the film.

text: Arthur “Boo” Radley[edit]

text: Arthur "Boo" Radley is a recluse in To Kill a Mockingbird.

text: Maycomb children believe he is a horrible person, due to the rumors spread about him and a trial he underwent as a teenager. It is implied during the story that Boo is a very lonely man who attempts to reach out to Jem and Scout for love and friendship, such as leaving them small gifts and figures in a tree knothole. Scout finally meets him at the very end of the book, when he saves the children's lives from Bob Ewell. Scout describes him as being sickly white, with a thin mouth, thin and feathery hair, and grey eyes, almost as if he were blind. During the same night, when Boo whispers to Scout to walk him back to the Radley house, Scout takes a moment to picture what it would be like to be Boo Radley. While standing on his porch, she realizes his "exile" inside his house is really not that lonely.

text: Boo Radley's heroics in protecting the children from Bob Ewell are covered up by Atticus, Sheriff Tate, and Scout. This can be read as a wise refusal of fame. As Tate notes, if word got out that Boo killed Ewell, Boo would be inundated with gifts and visits, calamitous for him due to his reclusive personality. The precocious Scout recognizes the danger: renown would "kill the mockingbird". Boo Radley is a ghost who haunts the book yet manifests himself at just the right moments in just the right way. He is, arguably, the most potent character in the whole book and as such, inspires the other key characters to save him when he needs saving.

text: After the Tom Robinson trial, Jem and Scout have a different understanding of Boo Radley. “Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time… it's because he wants to stay inside." (23.117) Having seen a sample of the horrible things their fellow townspeople can do, choosing to stay out of the mess of humanity doesn’t seem like such a strange choice.[4]

text: When Boo finally does come out, he has a good reason: Bob Ewell is trying to murder the Finch children. No one sees what happens in the scuffle, but at the end of it, Ewell is dead and Boo carries an unconscious Jem to the Finch house. Finally faced with Boo, Scout doesn’t recognize him at first, but suddenly realizes who he is. Boo Radley is played by Robert Duvall in the film.

text: Judge John Taylor[edit]

text: Judge John Taylor is a white-haired old man with a reputation for running his court in an informal fashion and an enjoyment of singing and dipping tobacco. He is unimportant to the children until he presides over the Tom Robinson trial, in which he shows great distaste for the Ewells and great respect for Atticus. Because of the judge's sympathies for Tom, Bob Ewell breaks into the judge's house while the judge's wife is at church. After the trial, Miss Maudie points out to the children that the judge had tried to help Tom by appointing Atticus to the case instead of Maxwell Green, the new, untried lawyer who usually received court-appointed cases. Judge Taylor knew that Atticus was the only man who would stand a chance at acquitting Tom, or at least would be able to keep the jury thinking for more than a few minutes. By doing this, Judge Taylor was not giving in or supporting racism. He is portrayed in the film by Paul Fix.

text: Miss Maudie Atkinson[edit]

text: Miss Maude "Maudie" Atkinson lives across the street from the Finch family. She had known the Finches for many years, having been brought up on the Buford place, which was near the Finches' ancestral home, Finch's Landing. She is described as a woman of about 40 who enjoys baking and gardening; her cakes are especially held in high regard. However, she is frequently harassed by devout "Foot-Washing Baptists", who tell her that her enjoyment of gardening is a sin. Miss Maudie befriends Scout and Jem and tells them stories about Atticus as a boy. It is strongly implied that she and Atticus have a more than platonic relationship. Also, she is one of the few adults that Jem and Scout hold in high regard and respect. She does not act condescendingly towards them, even though they are young children. During the course of the novel, her house burns down; however, she shows remarkable courage throughout this (even saying that she wanted to burn it down herself to make more room for her flowers). She is not prejudiced, though she talks caustically to Miss Stephanie Crawford, unlike many of her Southern neighbors, and teaches Scout important lessons about racism and human nature. It is important to note that Miss Maudie fully explains that "it is a sin to kill a mockingbird", whereas Atticus Finch initially brings up the subject but doesn't go into depth. When Jem gets older, and doesn't want to be bothered by Scout, Miss Maudie keeps her from getting angry. Maudie is played by Rosemary Murphy in the film.

text: Bob Ewell[edit]

text: Robert E. Lee "Bob" Ewell is the main antagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird. He has a daughter named Mayella and a younger son named Burris, as well as six other unnamed children. He is an alcoholic, poaching game to feed his family because he spends whatever money they legally gain via government "relief checks" on alcohol. It is implied, and evidence suggests, that he was the one who abused his daughter Mayella, not Tom Robinson (the African American man accused of doing so). Although most everybody in town knows that the Ewells are a disgrace and not to be trusted, it is made clear that Tom Robinson was convicted because he is a Negro whose accuser is white. Upon hearing of Tom's death, Bob is absolutely gleeful, gloating about his success. After being humiliated at the trial, however, he goes on a quest for revenge, becoming increasingly violent. He begins by spitting in Atticus' face, followed by a failed attempt to break into the home of Judge Taylor, then finally menacing Helen, the poor widow of Tom Robinson. Ewell later attempts to murder Jem and Scout Finch with a knife to complete his revenge. Fortunately, Boo Radley saves Jem and Scout and it is believed that he kills Ewell with the knife. Heck Tate, the sheriff, puts in the official report that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife and died after lying under a tree for 45 minutes. Ewell is played by James Anderson in the film.

text: Mayella Ewell[edit]

text: Mayella Violet Ewell, 19, is the oldest of the eight Ewell children. Before the trial, Mayella is noted for growing red geraniums outside her otherwise dirty home in order to bring some beauty into her life. Due to her family's living situation, Mayella has no opportunity for human contact or love. She eventually gets so desperate that she attempts to seduce a black man, Tom Robinson, by saving up nickels to send her siblings to go get ice cream so that Mayella can be alone with Tom. Her father sees this through a window and in punishment he beats her. Ewell then finds the sheriff, Heck Tate, and tells him that his daughter has been raped and beaten by Tom. At the trial, Atticus points out that only the right side of Mayella's face is injured, suggesting a left-handed assailant; Tom's left arm is mangled and useless, but Bob Ewell is left-handed. When Atticus asks her if she has any friends, she becomes confused because she does not know what a friend is. During her testimony she is confused by Atticus' polite speech and thinks that his use of "Miss Mayella" is meant to mock her. She testifies against Tom Robinson. Mayella is played by Collin Wilcox in the film.

text: Tom Robinson[edit]

text: Thomas "Tom" Robinson is an African-American who is put on trial for the rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Atticus is assigned to defend him, and stands up to a lynch mob intent on exacting their own justice against him before the trial begins. Tom's left arm is crippled and useless, the result of an accident with a cotton gin when he was a child. Atticus uses this fact as the cornerstone of his defense strategy, pointing out that the nature of Mayella's facial injuries strongly suggest a left-handed assailant. Tom testifies that he had frequently helped Mayella with household chores because he felt sorry for her and the family's difficult life - a statement that shocks the all-white, male jury. Despite Atticus' skilled defense, the jury's racial prejudices lead them to find Tom guilty. Atticus plans to appeal the verdict, but before he can do so, Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape the prison where he is being held. Tom Robinson is played by Brock Peters.

text: Aunt Alexandra[edit]

text: Alexandra Hancock (née Finch) is Atticus' and Jack's sister, married to James "Uncle Jimmy" Hancock. She has a son named Henry and a very spoiled grandson named Francis. Around the middle of the book, Aunt Alexandra decides to leave her husband at Finch's Landing, the Finch family homestead to come stay with the Finches. Aunt Alexandra doesn't consider the black Calpurnia to be a very good motherly figure for Jem and Scout; she disapproves of Scout being a tomboy and wants to make Scout into a southern belle (encouraging her to act more 'lady like').[5] This is the cause of many conflicts between Scout and Alexandra throughout the course of the novel. However, as the trial progresses, Scout comes to see how much her aunt cares for her father and what a strong woman she is. This is especially evidenced by a tea party when Scout is horrified by the racism displayed, and her aunt and Miss Maudie help her deal with her feelings. By the end of the book, it's clear that Alexandra cares very much for her niece and nephew, though she and Scout will probably never really get along.

text: Minor characters[edit]

text: Jack Finch[edit]

text: John Hale "Jack" Finch is Atticus' and Alexandra's younger brother. (He is about 40, which is 10 years younger than Atticus.) Jack smells like alcohol and something sweet, and is said that he and Alexandra have similar features. Jack is a childless doctor who can always make Scout and Jem laugh, and they adore him. He and Miss Maudie are close to the same age; he frequently teases her with marriage proposals, which she always declines. Jack also has a pet cat named Rose Aylmer, who is mentioned during the Christmas visit.

text: Francis Hancock[edit]

text: Francis Hancock is the spoiled grandson of Aunt Alexandra. (The son of her son, Henry Hancock.) Every Christmas, Henry and his wife drop Francis at Finch's Landing, which is the only time Scout and Jem see him. Francis lives in Mobile, Alabama, and is a bit of a tattle-tale. He gets along well with Jem, but often spars with Scout. One Christmas, Francis calls Atticus a "n*****-lover," as well as insisting that he was ruining the family and the likes, which infuriates Scout and causes them to get into a fight. Francis lies about his role in it, telling Uncle Jack that Scout started it by calling him a "whore lady", and Jack therefore punishes Scout. However, she explains the full story and charitably persuades her uncle not to punish Francis about it, but to let Atticus think they had been fighting about something else (although Atticus later discovers the truth).

text: Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose[edit]

text: Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose is an elderly woman who lives near the Finches. She is hated by the children, who run by her house to avoid her. Scout describes Mrs. Dubose as "plain hell." A virulent racist, she calls Atticus a "nigger-lover" to his children's faces, and Jem flies into a rage and ravages Mrs. Dubose's camellia bushes. As a punishment, Jem is required to read to Mrs. Dubose each day for a month. As Jem reads, she experiences a fit of drooling and twitching and does not seem to pay any attention to the words. When an alarm rings, Jem is allowed to leave for the day. She extends the punishment for one extra week and dies shortly after letting Jem go for the last time. Atticus informs him that Mrs. Dubose was terminally ill and had become addicted to morphine. By reading to her, Jem had distracted her so that she could break the addiction. In thanks, she leaves him a candy box with a camellia flower in it; Jem burns the box in anger, but is later seen by Scout admiring the flower. Atticus tells Jem that Mrs. Dubose was the bravest person he ever knew, and she was trying to teach Jem the importance of bravery and true courage to endure anything when the situation is hopeless, as in her morphine addiction.

text: Mr. Heck Tate[edit]

text: Mr. Heck Tate is a friend of Atticus and also the sheriff of Maycomb County. He believes in protecting the innocent although he doesn't usually show it. When Tom has been locked in jail and a lynch mob turns up to kill him, the sheriff refuses to hand Tom over, instead dispersing the crowd. At the end of the book, the two men argue over whether Jem or Boo Radley should be held responsible for the death of Bob Ewell. Heck eventually persuades Atticus to accept the theory that Ewell accidentally fell on his own knife, thus saving the harmless, reclusive Boo from the public exposure of a criminal trial.

text: Mr. Braxton Underwood[edit]

text: Mr. Braxton Bragg Underwood is a news reporter and a friend of Atticus. He owns and also publishes The Maycomb Tribune. Being a racist, he disagrees with Atticus on principle. He also has a strong belief in justice, as exemplified when he defends Atticus from the Cunningham mob by having his double barrel shotgun loaded and ready to shoot them. He also demonstrates some humanity when he publishes a scathing editorial comparing the killing of Tom Robinson (a cripple) to "the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children".

text: Mr. Horace Gilmer[edit]

text: Mr. Horace Gilmer is a lawyer from Abbottsville, and is the prosecuting attorney in the Tom Robinson case. Mr. Gilmer is between the ages of forty and sixty. Mr. Gilmer has a slight cast with one eye, which he uses to his advantage in trial. Mr. Gilmer appeared to be racist in his harsh cross-examination of Tom Robinson, but it is hinted at that he is in fact going easy on Tom. He and Atticus are not rivals and talk to each other during recesses during the case.

text: Dr. Scott Reynolds[edit]

text: Dr. Reynolds is the Maycomb doctor. He is well known to Scout and Jem. Scout says that he "had brought Jem and me into the world, had led us through every childhood disease known to man including the time Jem fell out of the tree house, and he had never lost our friendship. Dr. Reynolds said that if we were boil-prone things would have been different..." (ch. 28). He inspects Jem's broken arm and Scout's minor bruises after the attack from Bob Ewell under the tree.

text: Dolphus Raymond[edit]

text: Dolphus Raymond is a white landowner who is jaded by the hypocrisy of the white society and prefers to live among black folks. In fact, he has children with a black woman. Dolphus pretends he is an alcoholic so that the people of Maycomb will have an excuse for his behavior, but in fact he only drinks Coca Cola out of a paper bag to try to hide it. When Dill and Scout discover that he is not a drunk, they are amazed. He shows Scout how sometimes you can pretend to be someone you're not so people will be more understanding of you.

text: Link Deas[edit]

text: Link Deas owns cotton fields and a store in Maycomb who employs Tom and later Helen because she does not get accepted by any other employers in the county due to Tom Robinson's legal troubles. He announces to the court (in defense of Tom) at one point in the trial that he hadn't “had a speck o' trouble outta him” in the eight years Tom had been working for him, and gets sent out by Judge John Taylor for doing so. When Bob Ewell starts threatening Helen after the trial, Mr. Deas fiercely defends her and threatens to have Mr. Ewell arrested if he keeps bothering her. He is on Tom Robinson's side during the trial and remains loyal to the family afterward.

text: Miss Caroline Fisher[edit]

text: Miss Caroline Fisher is Scout's first grade teacher and is new to Maycomb, Alabama and its ways. She attempts to teach the first grade class using a new system which she learned from taking certain college courses (Jem mistakenly refers to it as the "Dewey Decimal System", which is really how library books are organized.). She is upset by Scout's advanced reading capabilities and believes that Scout is receiving lessons from Atticus. She feels as though Scout is trying to outsmart and mock her. In an effort to standardize the class, she forbids Scout from reading with her father. Atticus asks Scout to step into Miss Caroline's skin. However, he continues to allow Scout to read with him at night so long as she continues to go to school. Miss Caroline has good intentions but proves quite incompetent as a teacher. When Scout tells Miss Fisher that she shamed a student (Walter Cunningham, Jr.) by giving him lunch money, she raps Scout's palms with a ruler (a punishment unheard of in Maycomb). She is also very sensitive and gets emotionally hurt quite easily, as seen when she cries after Burris Ewell yells at her, "Report and be damned to ye! Ain't no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin'! You ain't makin' me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain't makin' me go nowhere!" After the Burris Ewell incident, Miss Caroline is seldom seen and soon forgotten.

text: Reverend Sykes[edit]

text: Reverend Sykes is the reverend of the First Purchase M.E. African Church in Maycomb County. This is the church Tom Robinson attended. Reverend Sykes forces the congregation to donate 10 dollars for Tom Robinson's family since at the time, Tom's wife, Helen, was having trouble finding work. During the trial, when the courtroom was too packed for the children to find seats, Reverend Sykes lets the kids sit with him up in the colored balcony and even saves their seats for them.

text: Miss Stephanie Crawford[edit]

text: Stephanie Crawford is the neighborhood gossip who claimed that she saw Boo Radley from her bedroom standing outside of her cleaned window one night. Crawford is one of the first on the scene after a loud gunshot is heard behind the Radley house. Because she is the neighborhood gossip, it is unwise to think of anything that she says as true, because most of the time it is not true at all. She is a friend of Alexandra Hancock. She lets Miss Maudie live with her when Miss Maudie's house burns down, supposedly in order to steal Miss Maudie's Lane cake recipe. She is thrilled to pass on gossip to the kids about Boo Radley. She claimed to have witnessed Bob Ewell's threatening Atticus at the Post Office corner as she was returning from the local Jitney Jungle grocery store.

text: In the film she takes the place of Rachel Haverford and is now Dill's aunt.

text: Miss Rachel Haverford[edit]

text: Miss Rachel Haverford is Dill's aunt and the Finches' next door neighbor. She drank neat whiskey heavily after seeing a rattlesnake coiled in her closet, on her washing, when she hung her negligee up. Even though she can be very hard to deal with, she truly does love her nephew. Her family name, in the legends of Maycomb County, is synonymous with jackass. She is also a Southern Belle.

text: In the film, she is not a character and Miss Stephanie takes her place as Dill's aunt.

text: Helen(Sophy) Robinson[edit]

text: Helen Robinson is the wife of Tom Robinson. She is spoken about many times. She has three children. Employed by Link Deas following the death of her husband, she is repeatedly harassed by Bob Ewell when traveling to work. Upon learning of this, Deas threatens Ewell, forcing him to stop. She is an example of how one person's actions can have an effect on a lot of people and she elucidates the hardships that surround the Tom Robinson case.

text: Nathan Radley[edit]

text: Nathan Radley is the brother of Arthur "Boo" Radley and another difficult character to understand in To Kill a Mockingbird. When the children try to catch a view of "Boo" late one night through a window, he shoots over their heads with a shotgun (albeit thinking he was aiming at a black person). Nathan also cements up the knothole in which Arthur leaves little gifts for the children. On the other hand, he helps Miss Maudie by saving some of her belongings when her house is on fire. He is more present than his brother, but equally mysterious.

text: Jessie[edit]

text: Jessie is Mrs. Dubose's black nurse. She is the woman who shoos the children out when Mrs. Dubose has her fits, and she seems to care enormously for Mrs. Dubose. When Jem is forced to stay reading to Mrs. Dubose, Jessie kindly leads Jem and Scout to the door when Mrs. Dubose's alarm goes off. The rumors about Mrs. Dubose concealing a gun about her person involves Jessie; the book says "and even if Mrs. Dubose missed, her girl Jessie wouldn't".

text: Burris Ewell[edit]

text: Burris Ewell is a son of Bob Ewell and a younger sibling of Mayella Ewell as well as the first antagonist of the novel. Burris is described as being chiefly antagonistic of Little Chuck Little and his teacher Miss Caroline Fisher. He comes to the first day of school, but departs just as everyone else in his family does. Burris is also poor. He has live lice in his hair. Burris also scared his teacher Caroline Fisher. He behaves rudely when she tells him to go home, wash his hair, and come back clean the next day. He refuses, and a student explains to Miss Caroline that Ewell children don't attend school. All they do is show up for the first day, get marked down on the register, and then they miss the entire school year until the first day of the next year. His famous quote was, "Report and be damned to ye! Ain't no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin'! You ain't makin' me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain't makin' me go nowhere!" As of Scout's first year of school (the first grade), Burris has repeated the first grade three times. Burris is also like his father and is very belligerent.

text: Lula[edit]

text: Lula is an African-American woman with a dislike for white people. She doesn't like the idea of Calpurnia bringing Atticus Finch's children, Jem and Scout, with her to church and tells her so but is overruled by the other congregants. According to James Zeebo, Calpurnia's son, Lula's said to be, "a troublemaker from way back, with fancy ideas and haughty ways." She's threatened with being "churched" (subjected to church discipline) by Reverend Sykes.

text: Mrs. Grace Merriweather[edit]

text: Mrs. Grace Merriweather is the producer of the play in which Scout plays as a ham. She tells Everett that "the ladies of the South Maycomb Alabama Methodist Episcopal Church are behind him one hundred percent." She is mostly known for her devotion to the church and is widely held as the most devout lady in Maycomb; however, like many of her peers, she is very hypocritical and loves to gossip with all the other women.

text: Walter Cunningham, Jr.[edit]

text: Walter Cunningham, Jr is a child who is almost as old as Jem but is in Scout's class. He is too poor to even pay off a 25-cent debt because the Great Depression hit his poor family hard. Walter is not only too poor but also his family is too proud to take any money. He is invited over to the Finches' house once, after engaging in a fight with Scout, where he covers up all of his dinner with molasses, much to Scout's vocal dismay. This teaches Scout a lesson in humility and compassion.

text: Walter Cunningham, Sr.[edit]

text: Walter Cunningham, Sr. is Walter Cunningham Jr.'s father. He appears only twice, once at the beginning of the story when he has to pay off the debt to Atticus (Walter Cunningham Sr. was his client) by giving him firewood, vegetables and other supplies. He also leads the mob that comes to lynch Tom Robinson the night before the trial. Only when Scout talks to him about his son and how much he owes to Atticus does he reconsider and call off the mob. Scout innocently shames him because Scout reminds him of all the things that Atticus has done for him and for Maycomb County. After the verdict is given in the trial, Atticus tells Jem that one of the Cunninghams had changed his thoughts about Tom and pleaded that Tom was not guilty to the jury.

text: Little Chuck Little[edit]

text: Little Chuck Little is a student in Scout's first grade class who has the mindset of an adult. His real name is Charles. He is depicted as chiefly antagonistic of Burris Ewell. He is presented in the novel when Miss Caroline is frightened by Burris' lice. He warned Miss Caroline that if Burris wasn't released from class, he might try something that would put their classmates at risk. When Burris starts advancing on Little Chuck after his warning/veiled insult, Little Chuck's hand moved to his pocket (implying that he was going to pull out a knife) while saying, "Watch your step, Burris. I'd soon's kill you as look at you. Now go home." Scared by Little Chuck's bravery and his implied knife, Burris retreats. From this we see, through the narrative view of Scout, his gentlemanly attitude and how it calms Miss Caroline down. Little Chuck may be even more intelligent than originally meets the eye, as he easily could have been bluffing about the aforementioned implied knife to scare Burris into retreating.

text: Mr. Dick Avery[edit]

text: Mr. Dick Avery is an overweight neighbor who tells Jem and Scout that dramatic changes in the weather are caused by disobedient and misbehaving children. After it snows, they build a snowman that resembles him. Mr. Avery can also be seen in the story pushing a mattress out of a window when Miss Maudie's house catches fire. The kids, including Jem and Scout, always waited for him to do something interesting. For instance, Jem claims that one night he urinated from his front porch in an impressive arc.

text: Miss Gates[edit]

text: Miss Gates is a third grade teacher at Scout's school who insists that America isn't prejudiced like Hitler's Germany. Despite this, Scout has heard her say that the blacks need to be taught a lesson after Tom's trial.

text: Eula May[edit]

text: Eula May is Maycomb's most prominent telephone operator. She sends out public announcements, invitations, and activates the fire alarm. She announced the closing of schools when it snowed and announced the rabid dog that entered Maycomb. Also, Eula May knows everybody in the town because of her unique job.

text: Cecil Jacobs[edit]

text: Cecil Jacobs teases Scout and Jem at school. Scout almost gets into a fight with Cecil over the trial of Tom Robinson. Scout beats up Cecil Jacobs because he says Atticus is a "Nigger Lover." He gives a current event on Adolf Hitler and later frightens Scout and Jem on their way to the Halloween pageant. He and Scout then pair up at the carnival. At the Halloween pageant afterwards, Cecil was a cow. He hints that black people are not as good as white people while talking about Hitler during current events. He also tends to take jokes too far. However importantly he shows how prejudice is passed on from parent to child.

text: Tim Johnson[edit]

text: Tim Johnson is a dog belonging to Harry Johnson (a character in the book who is mentioned once but is never seen). He is infected by rabies in chapter 10 and goes mad, putting everyone in the town at risk. Atticus is forced to shoot Tim Johnson before he reaches the Radley House or attacks anyone. When Atticus shoots the dog, his excellent marksmanship is revealed to Scout and Jem (his nickname used to be One-Shot Finch). The dog's body is collected by Zeebo.

text: Simon Finch[edit]

text: Simon Finch is the founder of Finch's Landing. He is referred to in the first chapter of the book, being a direct ancestor of Atticus. He is a Cornish Methodist, and emigrated from England to avoid religious persecution, landing in Philadelphia before settling in Alabama. He was married, with one son, six daughters. He is also an apothecary.

text: Maxwell Green[edit]

text: Maxwell Green is the new lawyer in town. He is normally the judicially-assigned defense attorney but Judge Taylor assigned Tom Robinson's case to Atticus to give Tom Robinson a better chance.

text: Mr. X Billups[edit]

text: Mr. X Billups who is seen only once in the book, going to the trial, is described as a "funny man". X is his name, and not his initial. He was asked repeated times what his name was until he signed it. X was the name he had been given when he was born because his parents marked his birth certificate with an X instead of a name.

text: The Barber Sisters (Miss "Tutti" and Miss "Frutti")[edit]

text: The Barber Sisters (Miss Sarah, nicknamed "Tutti" and Miss Frances, nicknamed "Frutti") are maiden sisters who live in the only house in Maycomb with a cellar. They were originally from Clanton, Alabama; and are rumored to be Republicans. Besides their Yankee ways, both sisters are deaf (Tutti completely deaf; Frutti uses an ear trumpet), and had a Halloween prank pulled on them by some "wicked" schoolchildren (Scout claims she was not included) who put all of their furniture in their cellar.

text: Mrs. Gertrude Farrow[edit]

text: Mrs. Farrow is a lady in the missionary society who visits the Finch house occasionally.

text: Mr. Conner[edit]

text: Mr. Conner is mentioned early on in the book. He was locked in an outhouse by "Boo" Radley and his friends. After taking the teenagers to court, Mr. Conner accused them of "disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, assault and battery, and using abusive and profane language in the presence and hearing of a female." He added the last charge after claiming that the teens had "cussed so loud he was sure every lady in Maycomb heard them."

text: Zeebo[edit]

text: Zeebo is Calpurnia's eldest son. He is one of just four people in First Purchase Church who can read, so he is the vocal leader, leading hymns in the Negro First Purchase Church by "lining," reading a line of verse and having the congregation repeat it. Calpurnia taught Zeebo how to read. He is also the garbage man of Maycomb, and took away the dead rabid dog, Tim Johnson. When a fellow church member, a woman named Lula, tries to make the children feel bad for attending church with his mother, Zeebo welcomes Scout and Jem with open arms. He is kind but very quiet.


document_title: Hollywood

question_text: when did hollywood become the centre of the film industry

root

text: Hollywood

text: History[edit]

text: Early history and development[edit]

text: In 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera (Nopal field), named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished. The area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north.

tag: p

text: According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the "Father of Hollywood," on his honeymoon in 1886 he stood at the top of the hill looking out over the valley. Along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed. The Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, "I holly-wood," meaning 'hauling wood.' H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood. "Holly" would represent England and "wood" would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States.[8][9]

text: Whitley arranged to buy the 480 acres (190 ha) E.C. Hurd ranch. They agreed on a price and shook hands on the deal. Whitley shared his plans for the new town with General Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and Ivar Weid, a prominent businessman in the area.

text: Daeida Wilcox learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon (now Lake Hollywood) and a prominent investor and friend of Whitley's.[10][11] She recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. H. Wilcox who had purchased 120 acres on February 1, 1887. It wasn't until August 1887 Wilcox decided to use that name and filed with the Los Angeles County Recorder's office on a deed and parcel map of the property. The early real-estate boom busted at the end of that year.

text: By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, and two markets. Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles (16 km) east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood.

text: The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard and Development Company. Having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, which, still a dusty, unpaved road, was regularly graded and graveled. The hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years.[12]

text: Whitley's company developed and sold one of the early residential areas, the Ocean View Tract.[13] Whitley did much to promote the area. He paid thousands of dollars for electric lighting, including bringing electricity and building a bank, as well as a road into the Cahuenga Pass. The lighting ran for several blocks down Prospect Avenue. Whitley's land was centered on Highland Avenue.[14][15] His 1918 development, Whitley Heights, was named for him.

text: Incorporation and merger[edit]

text: Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality on November 14, 1903, by a vote of 88 for and 77 against. On January 30, 1904, the voters in Hollywood decided, by a vote of 113 to 96, for the banishment of liquor in the city, except when it was being sold for medicinal purposes. Neither hotels nor restaurants were allowed to serve wine or liquor before or after meals.[16]

text: In 1910, the city voted for merger with Los Angeles in order to secure an adequate water supply and to gain access to the L.A. sewer system. With annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers were also changed.[17]

text: Motion picture industry[edit]

text: By 1912, major motion-picture companies had set up production near or in Los Angeles.[18] In the early 1900s, most motion picture patents were held by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey, and filmmakers were often sued to stop their productions. To escape this, filmmakers began moving out west, where Edison's patents could not be enforced.[19] Also, the weather was ideal and there was quick access to various settings. Los Angeles became the capital of the film industry.[20]

text: Director D. W. Griffith was the first to make a motion picture in Hollywood. His 17-minute short film In Old California (1910) was filmed for the Biograph Company.[21][22][23] Although Hollywood banned movie theaters—of which it had none—before annexation that year, Los Angeles had no such restriction.[24] The first film by a Hollywood studio, Nestor Motion Picture Company, was shot on October 26, 1911.[25] The H. J. Whitley home was used as its set, and the unnamed movie was filmed in the middle of their groves at the corner of Whitley Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.[26][27]

text: The first studio in Hollywood, the Nestor Company, was established by the New Jersey–based Centaur Company in a roadhouse at 6121 Sunset Boulevard (the corner of Gower), in October 1911.[28]

text: Four major film companies – Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, and Columbia – had studios in Hollywood, as did several minor companies and rental studios. In the 1920s, Hollywood was the fifth-largest industry in the nation.[20]

text: Hollywood became known as Tinseltown[2] because of the glittering image of the movie industry. Hollywood has since become a major center for film study in the United States.

text: Development[edit]

text: In 1923, a large sign, reading HOLLYWOODLAND, was erected in the Hollywood Hills. Its purpose was to advertise a housing development. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce entered a contract with the City of Los Angeles to repair and rebuild the sign. The agreement stipulated that "LAND" be removed to spell "HOLLYWOOD" so the sign would now refer to the district, rather than the housing development.[29]

text: During the early 1950s, the Hollywood Freeway was constructed through the northeast corner of Hollywood.

text: The Capitol Records Building on Vine Street, just north of Hollywood Boulevard, was built in 1956, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame was created in 1958 as a tribute to artists and other significant contributors to the entertainment industry. The official opening was on February 8, 1960.[30][31][32]

text: The Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

text: In June 1999, the Hollywood extension of the Los Angeles County Metro Rail Red Line subway opened from Downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, with stops along Hollywood Boulevard at Western Avenue (Hollywood/Western Metro station), Vine Street (Hollywood/Vine Metro station), and Highland Avenue (Hollywood/Highland Metro station).

text: The Dolby Theatre, which opened in 2001 as the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center mall, is the home of the Oscars. The mall is located where the historic Hollywood Hotel once stood.

text: Revitalization[edit]

text: After years of serious decline in the 1980s, many Hollywood landmarks were threatened with demolition.[33] Columbia Square, at the northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street, is part of the ongoing rebirth of Hollywood. The Art Deco-style studio complex completed in 1938, which was once the Hollywood headquarters for CBS, became home to a new generation of broadcasters when cable television networks MTV, Comedy Central, BET and Spike TV consolidated their offices here in 2014 as part of a $420-million office, residential and retail complex.[34] Since 2000, Hollywood has been increasingly gentrified due to revitalization by private enterprise and public planners.[35][36][37]

text: Secession movement[edit]

text: In 2002, some Hollywood voters began a campaign for the area to secede from Los Angeles and become a separate municipality. In June of that year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors placed secession referendums for both Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley on the ballot. To pass, they required the approval of a majority of voters in the proposed new municipality as well as a majority of voters in all of Los Angeles. In the November election, both measures failed by wide margins in the citywide vote.[38]

text: Geography[edit]

text: According to the Mapping L.A. project of the Los Angeles Times, Hollywood is flanked by Hollywood Hills to the north, Los Feliz to the northeast, East Hollywood or Virgil Village to the east, Larchmont and Hancock Park to the south, Fairfax to the southwest, West Hollywood to the west and Hollywood Hills West to the northwest.[39]

text: Street limits of the Hollywood neighborhood are: north, Hollywood Boulevard from La Brea Avenue to the east boundary of Wattles Garden Park and Franklin Avenue between Bonita and Western avenues; east, Western Avenue; south, Melrose Avenue, and west, La Brea Avenue or the West Hollywood city line.[40][41]

text: In 1918, H. J. Whitley commissioned architect A. S. Barnes to design Whitley Heights as a Mediterranean-style village on the hills above Hollywood Boulevard, and it became the first celebrity community.[42][43][44]

text: Other areas within Hollywood are Franklin Village, Little Armenia, Spaulding Square, Thai Town,[40] and Yucca Corridor.[45][46]

text: Climate[edit]

text:
[hide]Climate data for Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

Month
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Year

Record high °F (°C)
91
(33)
91
(33)
94
(34)
103
(39)
97
(36)
108
(42)
103
(39)
98
(37)
108
(42)
103
(39)
99
(37)
94
(34)
108
(42)

Average high °F (°C)
66.5
(19.2)
66.9
(19.4)
67.4
(19.7)
70.2
(21.2)
70.6
(21.4)
72.8
(22.7)
77.2
(25.1)
79.4
(26.3)
77.9
(25.5)
74.8
(23.8)
71.3
(21.8)
66.7
(19.3)
71.81
(22.12)

Average low °F (°C)
50.5
(10.3)
50.8
(10.4)
51.3
(10.7)
53.2
(11.8)
55.8
(13.2)
57.5
(14.2)
61.5
(16.4)
62.4
(16.9)
61.7
(16.5)
58.8
(14.9)
55.2
(12.9)
50.7
(10.4)
55.78
(13.22)

Record low °F (°C)
30
(−1)
36
(2)
37
(3)
40
(4)
45
(7)
44
(7)
52
(11)
51
(11)
48
(9)
40
(4)
33
(1)
33
(1)
30
(−1)

Average precipitation inches (mm)
3.99
(101.3)
5.23
(132.8)
2.84
(72.1)
0.97
(24.6)
0.31
(7.9)
0.11
(2.8)
0.02
(0.5)
0.05
(1.3)
0.25
(6.4)
0.91
(23.1)
1.36
(34.5)
2.75
(69.9)
18.79
(477.2)

Source: The Weather Channel[47]

tag: table

text: Adjacent neighborhoods[edit]

text: Relation of Hollywood to nearby communities:[39][41]

text:
[show]
Places adjacent to Hollywood

Hollywood Hills West
Hollywood Hills
Los Feliz

West Hollywood

Hollywood

East Hollywood

Fairfax
Larchmont and Hancock Park
East Hollywood

text: The Hollywood Sign on Mount Lee is not actually in Hollywood but is instead to the north in the Hollywood Hills.[40]

text: Demographics[edit]

text: The 2000 U.S. census counted 77,818 residents in the 3.51-square-mile (9.1 km2) Hollywood neighborhood—an average of 22,193 people per square mile (8,569 per km2), the seventh-densest neighborhood in all of Los Angeles County. In 2008 the city estimated that the population had increased to 85,489. The median age for residents was 31, about the city's average.[40]

text: Hollywood was said to be "highly diverse" when compared to the city at large. The ethnic breakdown in 2000 was: Latino or Hispanic, 42.2%, Non-Hispanic Whites, 41%; Asian, 7.1%; blacks, 5.2%, and others, 4.5%.[40] Mexico (21.3%) and Guatemala (13%) were the most common places of birth for the 53.8% of the residents who were born abroad, a figure that was considered high for the city as a whole.[40]

text: The median household income in 2008 dollars was $33,694, considered low for Los Angeles. The average household size of 2.1 people was also lower than the city norm. Renters occupied 92.4% of the housing units, and home- or apartment owners the rest.[40]

text: The percentages of never-married men (55.1%), never-married women (39.8%) and widows (9.6%) were among the county's highest. There were 2,640 families headed by single parents, about average for Los Angeles.[40]

text: In 2000, there were 2,828 military veterans, or 4.5%, a low rate for the city as a whole.[40] These were the ten neighborhoods or cities in Los Angeles County with the highest population densities, according to the 2000 census, with the population per square mile:[48]

text:
Koreatown, Los Angeles, 42,611
Westlake, Los Angeles, 38,214
East Hollywood, Los Angeles, 31,095
Pico-Union, Los Angeles, 25,352
Maywood, California, 23,638
Harvard Heights, Los Angeles, 23,473
Hollywood, Los Angeles, 22,193
Walnut Park, California, 22,028
Palms, Los Angeles, 21,870
Adams-Normandie, Los Angeles, 21,848

tag: ol

text: Radio and television[edit]

text: KNX was the last radio station to broadcast from Hollywood before it left CBS Columbia Square for a studio in the Miracle Mile in 2005.[49]

text: On January 22, 1947, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, began operating in Hollywood. In December of that year, The Public Prosecutor became the first network television series to be filmed in Hollywood.Television stations KTLA and KCET, both on Sunset Boulevard, are the last broadcasters (television or radio) with Hollywood addresses, but KCET has since sold its studios on Sunset and plans to move to another location. KNBC moved in 1962 from the former NBC Radio City Studios at the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street to NBC Studios in Burbank. KTTV moved in 1996 from its former home at Metromedia Square on Sunset Boulevard to West Los Angeles, and KCOP left its home on La Brea Avenue to join KTTV on the Fox lot. KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV moved from their longtime home at CBS Columbia Square on Sunset Boulevard to a new facility at CBS Studio Center in Studio City.

text: Government[edit]

text: As a neighborhood within the Los Angeles city limits, Hollywood does not have its own municipal government. There was an official, appointed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who served as an honorary "Mayor of Hollywood" for ceremonial purposes only. Johnny Grant held this position from 1980 until his death on January 9, 2008.[50]

text: Emergency service[edit]

text: The Los Angeles Police Department is responsible for police services. The Hollywood police station is at 1358 N. Wilcox Ave.

text: Los Angeles Fire Department operates four fire stations – Station 27, 41, 52, and 82 – in the area.

text: The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Hollywood-Wilshire Health Center in Hollywood.[51]

text: Post office[edit]

text: The United States Postal Service operates the Hollywood Post Office,[52] the Hollywood Pavilion Post Office,[53] and the Sunset Post Office.[54]

text: Neighborhood councils[edit]

text: Hollywood is included within the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council (HUNC)[55] Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council[56][57] and the Hollywood Studio District Neighborhood Council.[58][59] Neighborhood Councils cast advisory votes on such issues as zoning, planning, and other community issues. The council members are voted in by stakeholders, generally defined as anyone living, working, owning property, or belonging to an organization within the boundaries of the council.[60]

text: Education[edit]

text: Hollywood residents aged 25 and older holding a four-year degree amounted to 28% of the population in 2000, about the same as in the county at large.[40]

text: Schools[edit]

text: Public schools are operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

text: Schools in Hollywood include:

text:
Temple Israel of Hollywood Day School, private, 7300 Hollywood Boulevard
Gardner Street Elementary School, LAUSD, 7450 Hawthorne Avenue
Selma Avenue Elementary School, LAUSD, 6611 Selma Avenue
Grant Elementary School, 1530 North Wilton Place
Young Hollywood, private elementary, 1547 North McCadden Place
Hollywood High School, LAUSD, 1521 North Highland Avenue[61]
Hollywood Community Adult School, LAUSD, 1521 North Highland Avenue
Blessed Sacrament School, private elementary, 6641 Sunset Boulevard

Helen Bernstein High School, LAUSD, 1309 North Wilton Place
Richard A. Alonzo Community Day School, LAUSD, 5755 Fountain Avenue
Beverly Hills RC School, private elementary, 6550 Fountain Avenue
Hollywood Schoolhouse, private elementary, 1233 North McCadden Place
Joseph LeConte Middle School, LAUSD, 1316 North Bronson Avenue
T.C.A. Arshag Dickranian School, private K-12, 1200 North Cahuenga Boulevard
Hollywood Primary Center, LAUSD elementary, 1115 Tamarind Avenue
Santa Monica Boulevard Community Charter School, 1022 North Van Ness Avenue
Vine Street Elementary School, LAUSD, 955 North Vine Street
Hubert Howe Bancroft Middle School, LAUSD, 929 North Las Palmas Avenue
Larchmont Charter School, elementary, 815 North El Centro Avenue
Cheder Menachem, private elementary, 1606 South La Cienega Boulevard

text: Public libraries[edit]

text: The Will and Ariel Durant Branch and the Frances Howard Goldwyn – Hollywood Regional Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library are in Hollywood.

text: Notable places[edit]

text:
CBS Columbia Square
Charlie Chaplin Studios
Cinerama Dome
Crossroads of the World
Dolby Theatre
Earl Carroll Theatre (currently Nickelodeon on Sunset)
El Capitan Theatre
Frederick's of Hollywood
Gower Gulch
Grauman's Chinese Theatre
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
Hollywood & Western Building
Hollywood and Highland Center
Hollywood and Vine
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Heritage Museum
Hollywood Palladium
Hollywood Masonic Temple
Hollywood Museum
Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Wax Museum
Knickerbocker Hotel
Madame Tussauds Hollywood
Musso & Frank Grill
Pantages Theatre
Roosevelt Hotel
Sunset Gower Studios

tag: ul

text: Special events[edit]

text:
The Academy Awards are held in late February/early March (since 2004) of each year, honoring the preceding year in film. Prior to 2004, they were held in late March/early April. Since 2002, the Oscars have been held at their new home at the Dolby (formerly Kodak) Theater at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
The annual Hollywood Christmas Parade: The 2006 parade on Nov 26 was the 75th edition of the Christmas Parade. The parade goes down Hollywood Boulevard and is broadcast in the Los Angeles area on KTLA, and around the United States on Tribune-owned stations and the WGN superstation.[62]
The Hollywood Half Marathon takes place in April (since 2012) of each year, to raise funds and awareness for local youth homeless shelters. The event includes a Half Marathon, 10K, 5K, and Kids Fun Run along Hollywood Blvd.


document_title: Vasomotor center

question_text: where are the cardiac and vasomotor centers found

text: Vasomotor center

text:
Vasomotor center

Details

Part of
Medulla

Identifiers

Acronym(s)
VMC

Anatomical terminology
[edit on Wikidata]

text: The vasomotor center (VMC) is a portion of the medulla oblongata that, together with the cardiovascular center and respiratory center, regulates blood pressure and other homeostatic processes. Vasomotor center is a fairly archaic term since this function relies not on a single brain structure ("center") but rather represents a presympathetic network of interacting neurons.[1] Upon increase in carbon dioxide level at central chemoreceptors, it stimulates the sympathetic system to constrict vessels. This is opposite to carbon dioxide in tissues causing vasodilatation, especially in the brain.[2] Cranial nerves IX (Glossopharyngeal nerve) and X Vagus nerve both feed into the vasomotor centre and are themselves involved in the regulation of blood pressure. The localization of VMC was determined by Filipp Ovsyannikov in 1871.[3]


document_title: A Christmas Story: The Musical

question_text: who wrote the music for christmas story live

text: A Christmas Story: The Musical

text: Production history[edit]

text: The musical premiered at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Missouri in December 2009. The music and lyrics for that version were written by Scott Davenport Richards; the musical was directed by Eric Rosen with the book by Joseph Robinette, and featured John Bolton as "The Old Man" and Anne L. Nathan as Mother.[1] Zachary Sayle appeared as Ralphie Parker and Jake Siegfried as younger brother, Randy Parker. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul were hired to re-do the score after the Kansas City engagement.[2]

text: A Christmas Story: The Musical opened at the 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle, Washington, on December 9, 2010[3] and ran through December 30, 2010. The director was Eric Rosen with choreography by Kelly Devine, and a cast that featured John Bolton and Anne Allgood as The Old Man and Mother.[4] A national tour in 2011 followed, ending at the Chicago Theatre.[5]

text: New York City[edit]

text: The musical had a limited run in Manhattan in 2012 and 2013. It opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 19, 2012 (after previews beginning November 7), and closed on December 30, 2012. The musical was directed by John Rando with choreography by Warren Carlyle. The cast featured Dan Lauria as Jean Shepherd, John Bolton as The Old Man, Caroline O'Connor as Miss Shields, Erin Dilly as Mother, Zac Ballard as Randy, and with Johnny Rabe and Joe West both alternating as lead character Ralphie, played in the 1983 film by Peter Billingsley, one of the show's producers.[6][7] The Broadway producers were Gerald Goehring, Roy Miller, Michael F. Mitri, Pat Flicker Addiss, Peter Billingsley, Timothy Laczynski, Mariano Tolentino, Jr., Louise H. Beard, Michael Filerman, Scott Hart, Alison Eckert, Bob Bartner, Michael Jenkins, Angela Milonas and Bradford W. Smith.

text: The production returned to New York for a limited engagement at The Theater at Madison Square Garden that ran from December 11, 2013 to December 29, 2013. The principals included Dan Lauria, John Bolton, Erin Dilly and Caroline O'Conner reprising their roles. The character of "Ralphie" was played by Jake Lucas with Eli Tokash at some performances. The role of 'Randy' was played by Noah Baird.[8]

text: National Tour[edit]

text: A seasonal national tour of the show has run yearly since 2014. Directed by Matt Lenz the tour is based on the original staging by John Rando with choreography by Warren Carlyle. Sets are by Michael Carnahan, Lighting design by Charlie Morrison and Costumes by Lisa Zinni.

text: Regional productions[edit]

text: The musical has had several regional productions, including the more recent productions running at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, both productions running from November 2015 through January 2016.[9][10]

text: The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle had once served as a regional venue for the musical, hosting it from November to December 2014.[11] Additionally, the musical ran during the 2013 season in at the Wang Theatre in Boston, the Woodlawn Theatre in San Antonio, Texas and the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut. [12]

text: Characters[edit]

text:
Ralphie: A little boy who wants a Red Ryder Carbine Action Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing that tells time.
Jean Sheperd: Old Ralphie who tells the story.
The Old Man: The gruff father of Ralphie.
Mother: The glue who holds the family together.
Randy: Ralphie's kid brother. Sweet and annoying.
Miss Shields: Ralphie's teacher.
Schwartz: Ralphie's foul mouthed friend.
Flick: Ralphie's dim friend who sticks his tongue on a flag pole.
Scut Farkus: The class bully who gets beaten up by Ralphie.
Grover Dill: Scut's right hand man.
Esther Jane: Ralphie's love interest.
Mary Beth: Esther Jane's best friend.
Santa: A mean old mall Santa.

text: Musical numbers[edit]

text:
"Overture" - Orchestra
"It All Comes Down to Christmas" - Ralphie, the Parkers, and Ensemble
"Red Ryder Carbine Action BB Gun" - Ralphie and Jean
"It All Comes Down to Christmas (Reprise)" - Ralphie and Company
"The Genius on Cleveland Street" - The Old Man and Mother
"When You're a Wimp" - Kids
"Ralphie to the Rescue!" - Ralphie, Miss Shields, the Old Man, Mother, Randy, and Ensemble
"What a Mother Does" - Mother
"A Major Award" - The Old Man, Mother, and Neighbors
"Parker Family Singalong" - The Parkers
"Act One Finale" - Ralphie and Ensemble

text:
"Entr’acte" - Orchestra
"Sticky Situation" - Ralphie, Flick, Schwartz, Kids, Miss Shields, Nurse, Flick's Mom, Fireman, Policeman, and Doctor
"You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" - Miss Shields and Kids
"Just Like That" - Mother
"At Higbee's" - Elves
"Up on Santa's Lap" - Santa, Elves, Ralphie, Randy, and Kids
"Before the Old Man Comes Home" - The Parkers
"Somewhere Hovering Over Indiana" - Ralphie, Randy, and Kids
"Ralphie to the Rescue! (Reprise)" - Ralphie and Ensemble
"A Christmas Story" - The Parkers and Full Company

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: The reviewer of the Seattle production wrote:

text: Just about every nostalgic, humorous vignette, celebrating a kind of quirky childhood innocence enshrined in America's past, gets an up-tempo romp in the polished, very busy score.... performed with vigor by an admirable cast of 33.... But overall, 'A Christmas Story' looks spiffy, with Walt Spangler's snow-cave design brightened by giant Christmas packages and trees and Howell Binkley's twinkly-tastic lighting. If it's too long a haul, there's a lot here to please kids.[13]

text: Charles Isherwood, in his review of the Broadway production for The New York Times, wrote:

text: [T]he stage version lightens up a little on the cute, smart-alecky asides ... making room for the music and allowing the story mostly to speak for itself.... Mr. Pasek and Mr. Paul have provided a likable, perky score that duly translates all of the major episodes in the story into appropriate musical numbers.[14]

text: Nominated awards[edit]

text: The production received two Outer Critics Circle Award nominations but did not win: Outstanding New Broadway Musical and Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical (Lauria).[15]

text: The musical received six Drama Desk Award nominations (58th Drama Desk Awards).[16] as well as three Tony Award nominations (Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre) for the 67th Tony Awards,[17] however it did not win any.

text: Original Broadway production[edit]

text:
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result

2013
Outer Critics Circle Award
Outstanding New Broadway Musical
Nominated

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Dan Lauria
Nominated

Drama Desk Award
Outstanding Musical
Nominated

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
John Bolton
Nominated

Outstanding Choreography
Warren Carlyle
Nominated

Outstanding Music
Pasek & Paul
Nominated

Outstanding Book of a Musical
Joseph Robinette
Nominated

Outstanding Orchestrations
Larry Blank
Nominated

Tony Award
(67th)
Best Musical
Nominated

Best Book of a Musical
Joseph Robinette
Nominated

Best Original Score
Pasek & Paul
Nominated

text: TV special[edit]

text: In May 2017, the Fox Broadcasting Company announced that it will air a live television event based on the Broadway musical version titled, A Christmas Story Live!, with Pasek and Paul composing several new songs for the live television musical. The live musical was televised on December 17, 2017, with the cast that starred Maya Rudolph as Ralphie's mother,[18] Matthew Broderick as The Narrator/Older Ralphie,[19] 11-year-old Andy Walken in the lead role of Ralphie Parker, Jane Krakowski as Miss Shields, Chris Diamantopoulos as Ralphie's father,[20] and Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Schwartz, the mother of one of Ralphie's friends.


document_title: El Dorado (1966 film)

question_text: who played maudie in the movie el dorado

text: El Dorado (1966 film)

text: Plot[edit]

text: Cole Thornton, a gunslinger-for-hire, is hired by wealthy rancher Bart Jason to help him in a range war with the McDonald family in the Texas town of El Dorado. The local sheriff, an old friend of Thornton, J. P. Harrah gives Cole more details that Jason had deliberately left out, including the possibility of having to side against Harrah. Unwilling to fight his friend, Thornton quits, to the relief of saloon owner Maudie, who is in love with Thornton (and was for a time a romantic interest of Harrah's).

text: The McDonald's learn of Thornton's presence in town. Fearing that he might come for them, Kevin McDonald puts his youngest son, Luke, on guard. When Thornton passes by on his way back from rejecting Jason's offer, Luke, who has fallen asleep, wakes and fires a wild warning shot whereupon Thornton reflexively shoots him. Luke is still alive when Thornton finds him, but he refuses treatment based upon the belief that a gut-shot man wouldn't have a chance anyway and commits suicide when Thornton turns his back on him.

text: Thornton subsequently brings the boy's body to the McDonald ranch and offers an explanation. The only McDonald daughter, Joey, impulsively rides off before Thornton can finish his story and ambushes him shortly thereafter. Her shot is not fatal, but the bullet lodges next to Thornton's spine and in time begins to trouble him by occasionally pressing against the spinal cord, causing temporary paralysis of his right side. The local doctor, Dr. Miller, does not have the skill to remove the bullet and Thornton soon departs El Dorado for a new job.

text: Several months later, Thornton runs into another gunslinger-for-hire named Nelson McLeod and a young greenhorn named Mississippi, who has come for revenge against one of McLeod's men for the murder of his old friend and mentor, Johnny Diamond. McLeod has been hired by Jason for the same job Thornton turned down and Thornton hears from McLeod about how Harrah has turned into a drunk after an unhappy love affair. Thornton decides to return to El Dorado, hoping to save Harrah from being gunned down by McLeod and his men. He is followed by Mississippi who also wishes to help, despite his lack of experience and terrible aim with a gun.

text: Once Thornton and Mississippi arrive in El Dorado, they hear more of the story behind Harrah's change. The two men then join with Deputy Sheriff Bull in order to get Harrah sober and cleaned up. Mississippi contributes an old folk recipe for a hangover that he learned from Johnny Diamond, promising it will make any man unable to drink liquor for a while. The concoction proves to be violently effective, and leaves Harrah sober and furious. Within a day of their arrival, McLeod and his men also come to El Dorado and are hired on by Bart Jason. When one of them shoots one of the McDonald's, Thornton, Harrah, Bull and Mississippi chase the shooter and his friends into an old church and then into Jason's saloon. Harrah arrests Jason and takes him to the jail for his part in the shooting of the McDonald. Later that night, Thornton and Mississippi decide to patrol the town in the hope of keeping the peace and are deputized by Bull. There is another shoot-out with McLeod and his men, which results in a minor leg injury for Harrah.

text: The next day, Maudie sends a message to Thornton and his friends, stating that McLeod's men are frightening her and her patrons. When Thornton and Mississippi go to help her, they are ambushed and Thornton has an attack that leaves him partially paralyzed and captured by McLeod. Subsequently, McLeod trades the injured Thornton for Bart Jason, a trade to which Harrah agrees, despite knowing that doing so will mean that nothing will stand in the way of McLeod going after the McDonald's.

text: Sure enough, McLeod and his men shortly thereafter kidnap one of the McDonald's in order to force Kevin McDonald to sign over his water rights to Jason. Thornton and the others are forced to quickly come up with a plan to rescue Kevin McDonald's son and neutralize Jason and McLeod. Despite Thornton's paralysis and Harrah's leg injury, the two of them, along with Bull and Mississippi, return to town on wagons. While Thornton distracts Jason and McLeod outside of the front of the saloon, Mississippi, Harrah and Bull attack from the rear. The kidnapped McDonald is rescued, with a little help from Joey McDonald. Jason, McLeod and his men are killed, and order is restored to El Dorado. Thornton also begins to imply that he may discontinue his wandering ways in order to stay in the town with Maudie.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
John Wayne as Cole Thornton
Robert Mitchum as Sheriff J.P. Harrah
James Caan as Alan Bourdillion Traherne, nicknamed "Mississippi"
Charlene Holt as Maudie
Paul Fix as Dr. Miller
Arthur Hunnicutt as Bull Harris
Michele Carey as Josephine "Joey" MacDonald
R. G. Armstrong as Kevin MacDonald
Ed Asner as Bart Jason
Christopher George as Nelson McLeod
Marina Ghane as Maria
Robert Donner as Milt (McLeod gang)
John Gabriel as Pedro
Johnny Crawford as Luke MacDonald
Jim Davis as Jim Purvis (Bart Jason's foreman)
Adam Roarke as Matt MacDonald
John Mitchum as Elmer (Jason's bartender)
Chuck Roberson as Jason's gunman
Don Collier as Deputy Joe Braddock
Olaf Wieghorst as Swede Larsen

text: Production[edit]

text: Leigh Brackett wrote the original script which she described as "the best script I had ever done in my life. It wasn't tragic, but it was one of those things where Wayne died at the end." However she says the closer they got to production "the more we got into doing Rio Bravo over again the sicker I got, because I hate doing things over again. And I kept saying to Howard I did that, and he'd say it was okay, we could do it over again."[6]

text: Mitchum later said, "When Howard called me, I said, 'What's the story?' and he said, 'No story, just characters' and that's the way it was. Did one scene, put it away, did another, put it away."[7]

text: Shot at Old Tucson Studios just west of Tucson, Arizona, as well as in and around Kanab, Utah, from October 1965 to January 1966, the film was Wayne's 138th picture and was actually filmed before The War Wagon, but its release was delayed so that Paramount's Nevada Smith with Steve McQueen would not have to compete with a John Wayne film at the box office. El Dorado finally reached the theatres in June 1967, a month after The War Wagon had opened.[8]

text: Film footage from El Dorado was later incorporated into the opening montage of Wayne's final film, The Shootist, to illustrate the backstory of Wayne's character. Director Don Siegel used no scenes from any film shot before 1948 in The Shootist's frontispiece even though Wayne's career as a leading man began in 1930 with The Big Trail and had continued throughout the following two decades.[citation needed]

text: Cinematographer Harold Rosson had retired in 1958, but Hawks persuaded him to come back to work. In a 1970 interview with Leonard Maltin, Rosson said, "I was out of my mind I'd ever quit," but went back into retirement—for good—afterwards, citing his age as a reason (75 at the time of the interview).

text: Caan apparently had difficulty pronouncing "boldly" as he recited, "Ride boldly ride" during the course of the film, leaving audience members unfamiliar with Poe's poem to wonder what or whom "bodie" was.

text: In the film, Mississippi gives Sheriff Harrah a concoction meant to deter him from further drinking. The ingredients include (among others) Cayenne pepper, ipecac (an emetic), mustard, croton oil (which induces diarrhea), asafoetida (often misspelled acifedida) and gunpowder.[citation needed]

text: Poem[edit]

text: The poem repeated in the film and paraphrased in the theme song is "Eldorado", a ballad poem by Edgar Allan Poe.

text: Reception[edit]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: The film maintains a high critical praise, earning a 100 percent perfect rating on review compiler Rotten Tomatoes, based on 14 reviews.[9] Popular critic Roger Ebert gave the film a near-perfect rating at 3 1/2 out of four stars,[10] stating "El Dorado is a tightly directed, humorous, altogether successful Western, turned out almost effortlessly, it would seem, by three old pros: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and director Howard Hawks". Praised film poll, They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? ranked the film 799 out of 1,000 for the list of greatest films of all time.[11]

text: Comic book adaption[edit]

text: Dell Movie Classic: El Dorado (October 1967)[12][13]


document_title: Abacus

question_text: when was the abacus invented in ancient china

text: Abacus

text: Etymology[edit]

text: The use of the word abacus dates before 1387 AD, when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin to describe a sandboard abacus. The Latin word came from Greek ἄβαξ abax which means something without base, and improperly, any piece of rectangular board or plank.[2][3][4] Alternatively, without reference to ancient texts on etymology, it has been suggested that it means "a square tablet strewn with dust",[5] or "drawing-board covered with dust (for the use of mathematics)"[6] (the exact shape of the Latin perhaps reflects the genitive form of the Greek word, ἄβακoς abakos). Whereas the table strewn with dust definition is popular, there are those that do not place credence in this at all and in fact state that it is not proven.[7][nb 1] Greek ἄβαξ itself is probably a borrowing of a Northwest Semitic, perhaps Phoenician, word akin to Hebrew ʾābāq (אבק), "dust" (or in post-Biblical sense meaning "sand used as a writing surface").[8]

text: The preferred plural of abacus is a subject of disagreement, with both abacuses[9] and abaci[9] in use. The user of an abacus is called an abacist.[10]

text: History[edit]

text: Mesopotamian[edit]

text: The period 2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the Sumerian abacus, a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.[11]

text: Some scholars point to a character from the Babylonian cuneiform which may have been derived from a representation of the abacus.[12] It is the belief of Old Babylonian[13] scholars such as Carruccio that Old Babylonians "may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations".[14]

text: Egyptian[edit]

text: The use of the abacus in Ancient Egypt is mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus, who writes that the Egyptians manipulated the pebbles from right to left, opposite in direction to the Greek left-to-right method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument have not been discovered.[15]

text: Persian[edit]

text: During the Achaemenid Empire, around 600 BC the Persians first began to use the abacus.[16] Under the Parthian, Sassanian and Iranian empires, scholars concentrated on exchanging knowledge and inventions with the countries around them – India, China, and the Roman Empire, when it is thought to have been exported to other countries.

text: Greek[edit]

text: The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC.[17] Also Demosthenes (384 BC–322 BC) talked of the need to use pebbles for calculations too difficult for your head.[18][19] A play by Alexis from the 4th century BC mentions an abacus and pebbles for accounting, and both Diogenes and Polybius mention men that sometimes stood for more and sometimes for less, like the pebbles on an abacus.[19] The Greek abacus was a table of wood or marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. This Greek abacus saw use in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome and, until the French Revolution, the Western Christian world.

text: A tablet found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD (the Salamis Tablet), dates back to 300 BC, making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble 149 cm (59 in) long, 75 cm (30 in) wide, and 4.5 cm (2 in) thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the center of the tablet is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semicircle at the top of the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the vertical line.[20] Also from this time frame the Darius Vase was unearthed in 1851. It was covered with pictures including a "treasurer" holding a wax tablet in one hand while manipulating counters on a table with the other.[18]

text: Chinese[edit]

text:
Abacus

Chinese
算盤

Literal meaning
"calculating tray"

[show]Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin

Hanyu Pinyin
suànpán

IPA
[swân.pʰǎn]

Yue: Cantonese

Yale Romanization
syun-pùhn

IPA
[sȳːnpʰǔːn]

Jyutping
syun3-pun4

Southern Min

Hokkien POJ
sǹg-pôaⁿ

Tâi-lô
sǹg-puânn

text: The earliest known written documentation of the Chinese abacus dates to the 2nd century BC.[21]

text: The Chinese abacus, known as the suanpan (算盤, lit. "counting tray"), is typically 20 cm (8 in) tall and comes in various widths depending on the operator. It usually has more than seven rods. There are two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom. The beads are usually rounded and made of a hardwood. The beads are counted by moving them up or down towards the beam; beads moved toward the beam are counted, while those moved away from it are not.[22] The suanpan can be reset to the starting position instantly by a quick movement along the horizontal axis to spin all the beads away from the horizontal beam at the center.

text: Suanpan can be used for functions other than counting. Unlike the simple counting board used in elementary schools, very efficient suanpan techniques have been developed to do multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, square root and cube root operations at high speed. There are currently schools teaching students how to use it.

text: In the long scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival painted by Zhang Zeduan during the Song dynasty (960–1297), a suanpan is clearly visible beside an account book and doctor's prescriptions on the counter of an apothecary's (Feibao).

text: The similarity of the Roman abacus to the Chinese one suggests that one could have inspired the other, as there is some evidence of a trade relationship between the Roman Empire and China. However, no direct connection can be demonstrated, and the similarity of the abaci may be coincidental, both ultimately arising from counting with five fingers per hand. Where the Roman model (like most modern Korean and Japanese) has 4 plus 1 bead per decimal place, the standard suanpan has 5 plus 2. (Incidentally, this allows use with a hexadecimal numeral system, which was used for traditional Chinese measures of weight.) Instead of running on wires as in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese models, the beads of Roman model run in grooves, presumably making arithmetic calculations much slower.

text: Another possible source of the suanpan is Chinese counting rods, which operated with a decimal system but lacked the concept of zero as a place holder. The zero was probably introduced to the Chinese in the Tang dynasty (618–907) when travel in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East would have provided direct contact with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal point from Indian merchants and mathematicians.

text: Roman[edit]

text: The normal method of calculation in ancient Rome, as in Greece, was by moving counters on a smooth table. Originally pebbles (calculi) were used. Later, and in medieval Europe, jetons were manufactured. Marked lines indicated units, fives, tens etc. as in the Roman numeral system. This system of 'counter casting' continued into the late Roman empire and in medieval Europe, and persisted in limited use into the nineteenth century.[23] Due to Pope Sylvester II's reintroduction of the abacus with very useful modifications, it became widely used in Europe once again during the 11th century[24][25] This abacus used beads on wires, unlike the traditional Roman counting boards, which meant the abacus could be used much faster.[26]

text: Writing in the 1st century BC, Horace refers to the wax abacus, a board covered with a thin layer of black wax on which columns and figures were inscribed using a stylus.[27]

text: One example of archaeological evidence of the Roman abacus, shown here in reconstruction, dates to the 1st century AD. It has eight long grooves containing up to five beads in each and eight shorter grooves having either one or no beads in each. The groove marked I indicates units, X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads in the shorter grooves denote fives –five units, five tens etc., essentially in a bi-quinary coded decimal system, obviously related to the Roman numerals. The short grooves on the right may have been used for marking Roman "ounces" (i.e. fractions).

text: Indian[edit]

text: There is no clear evidence for use of the abacus in India. The decimal number system invented in India replaced the abacus in Western Europe.[28]

text: The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of Vasubandhu (316-396), a Sanskrit work on Buddhist philosophy, says that the second-century CE philosopher Vasumitra said that "placing a wick (Sanskrit vartikā) on the number one (ekāṅka) means it is a one, while placing the wick on the number hundred means it is called a hundred, and on the number one thousand means it is a thousand". It is unclear exactly what this arrangement may have been. Around the 5th century, Indian clerks were already finding new ways of recording the contents of the Abacus.[29] Hindu texts used the term śūnya (zero) to indicate the empty column on the abacus.[30]

text: Japanese[edit]

text: In Japanese, the abacus is called soroban (算盤, そろばん, lit. "Counting tray"), imported from China in the 14th century.[31] It was probably in use by the working class a century or more before the ruling class started, as the class structure did not allow for devices used by the lower class to be adopted or used by the ruling class.[32] The 1/4 abacus, which is suited to decimal calculation, appeared circa 1930, and became widespread as the Japanese abandoned hexadecimal weight calculation which was still common in China. The abacus is still manufactured in Japan today even with the proliferation, practicality, and affordability of pocket electronic calculators. The use of the soroban is still taught in Japanese primary schools as part of mathematics, primarily as an aid to faster mental calculation. Using visual imagery of a soroban, one can arrive at the answer in the same time as, or even faster than, is possible with a physical instrument.[33]

text: Korean[edit]

text: The Chinese abacus migrated from China to Korea around 1400 AD.[18][34][35] Koreans call it jupan (주판), supan (수판) or jusan (주산).[36]

text: Native American[edit]

text: Some sources mention the use of an abacus called a nepohualtzintzin in ancient Aztec culture.[37] This Mesoamerican abacus used a 5-digit base-20 system.[38] The word Nepōhualtzintzin [nepoːwaɬˈt͡sint͡sin] comes from Nahuatl and it is formed by the roots; Ne – personal -; pōhual or pōhualli [ˈpoːwalːi] – the account -; and tzintzin [ˈt͡sint͡sin] – small similar elements. Its complete meaning was taken as: counting with small similar elements by somebody. Its use was taught in the Calmecac to the temalpouhqueh [temaɬˈpoʍkeʔ], who were students dedicated to take the accounts of skies, from childhood.

text: The Nepōhualtzintzin was divided in two main parts separated by a bar or intermediate cord. In the left part there were four beads, which in the first row have unitary values (1, 2, 3, and 4), and in the right side there are three beads with values of 5, 10, and 15 respectively. In order to know the value of the respective beads of the upper rows, it is enough to multiply by 20 (by each row), the value of the corresponding account in the first row.

text: Altogether, there were 13 rows with 7 beads in each one, which made up 91 beads in each Nepōhualtzintzin. This was a basic number to understand, 7 times 13, a close relation conceived between natural phenomena, the underworld and the cycles of the heavens. One Nepōhualtzintzin (91) represented the number of days that a season of the year lasts, two Nepōhualtzitzin (182) is the number of days of the corn's cycle, from its sowing to its harvest, three Nepōhualtzintzin (273) is the number of days of a baby's gestation, and four Nepōhualtzintzin (364) completed a cycle and approximate a year (11/4 days short). When translated into modern computer arithmetic, the Nepōhualtzintzin amounted to the rank from 10 to the 18 in floating point, which calculated stellar as well as infinitesimal amounts with absolute precision, meant that no round off was allowed.

text: The rediscovery of the Nepōhualtzintzin was due to the Mexican engineer David Esparza Hidalgo,[39] who in his wanderings throughout Mexico found diverse engravings and paintings of this instrument and reconstructed several of them made in gold, jade, encrustations of shell, etc.[40] There have also been found very old Nepōhualtzintzin attributed to the Olmec culture, and even some bracelets of Mayan origin, as well as a diversity of forms and materials in other cultures.

text: George I. Sanchez, "Arithmetic in Maya", Austin-Texas, 1961 found another base 5, base 4 abacus in the Yucatán Peninsula that also computed calendar data. This was a finger abacus, on one hand 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 were used; and on the other hand 0, 1, 2 and 3 were used. Note the use of zero at the beginning and end of the two cycles. Sanchez worked with Sylvanus Morley, a noted Mayanist.

text: The quipu of the Incas was a system of colored knotted cords used to record numerical data,[41] like advanced tally sticks – but not used to perform calculations. Calculations were carried out using a yupana (Quechua for "counting tool"; see figure) which was still in use after the conquest of Peru. The working principle of a yupana is unknown, but in 2001 an explanation of the mathematical basis of these instruments was proposed by Italian mathematician Nicolino De Pasquale. By comparing the form of several yupanas, researchers found that calculations were based using the Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and powers of 10, 20 and 40 as place values for the different fields in the instrument. Using the Fibonacci sequence would keep the number of grains within any one field at a minimum.[42]

text: Russian[edit]

text: The Russian abacus, the schoty (счёты), usually has a single slanted deck, with ten beads on each wire (except one wire, usually positioned near the user, with four beads for quarter-ruble fractions). Older models have another 4-bead wire for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916. The Russian abacus is often used vertically, with wires from left to right in the manner of a book. The wires are usually bowed to bulge upward in the center, to keep the beads pinned to either of the two sides. It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right. During manipulation, beads are moved to the left. For easy viewing, the middle 2 beads on each wire (the 5th and 6th bead) usually are of a different color from the other eight beads. Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire (and the million wire, if present) may have a different color.

text: As a simple, cheap and reliable device, the Russian abacus was in use in all shops and markets throughout the former Soviet Union, and the usage of it was taught in most schools until the 1990s.[43][44] Even the 1874 invention of mechanical calculator, Odhner arithmometer, had not replaced them in Russia and likewise the mass production of Felix arithmometers since 1924 did not significantly reduce their use in the Soviet Union.[45] The Russian abacus began to lose popularity only after the mass production of microcalculators had started in the Soviet Union in 1974. Today it is regarded as an archaism and replaced by the handheld calculator.

text: The Russian abacus was brought to France around 1820 by the mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet, who served in Napoleon's army and had been a prisoner of war in Russia.[46] The abacus had fallen out of use in western Europe in the 16th century with the rise of decimal notation and algorismic methods. To Poncelet's French contemporaries, it was something new. Poncelet used it, not for any applied purpose, but as a teaching and demonstration aid.[47] The Turks and the Armenian people also used abaci similar to the Russian schoty. It was named a coulba by the Turks and a choreb by the Armenians.[48]

text: School abacus[edit]

text: Around the world, abaci have been used in pre-schools and elementary schools as an aid in teaching the numeral system and arithmetic.

text: In Western countries, a bead frame similar to the Russian abacus but with straight wires and a vertical frame has been common (see image). It is still often seen as a plastic or wooden toy.

text: The wire frame may be used either with positional notation like other abaci (thus the 10-wire version may represent numbers up to 9,999,999,999), or each bead may represent one unit (so that e.g. 74 can be represented by shifting all beads on 7 wires and 4 beads on the 8th wire, so numbers up to 100 may be represented). In the bead frame shown, the gap between the 5th and 6th wire, corresponding to the color change between the 5th and the 6th bead on each wire, suggests the latter use.

text: The red-and-white abacus is used in contemporary primary schools for a wide range of number-related lessons. The twenty bead version, referred to by its Dutch name rekenrek ("calculating frame"), is often used, sometimes on a string of beads, sometimes on a rigid framework.[49]

text: Renaissance abaci gallery[edit]

text: Uses by the blind[edit]

text: An adapted abacus, invented by Tim Cranmer, called a Cranmer abacus is still commonly used by individuals who are blind. A piece of soft fabric or rubber is placed behind the beads so that they do not move inadvertently. This keeps the beads in place while the users feel or manipulate them. They use an abacus to perform the mathematical functions multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, square root and cube root.[50]

text: Although blind students have benefited from talking calculators, the abacus is still very often taught to these students in early grades, both in public schools and state schools for the blind. The abacus teaches mathematical skills that can never be replaced with talking calculators and is an important learning tool for blind students.[51] Blind students also complete mathematical assignments using a braille-writer and Nemeth code (a type of braille code for mathematics) but large multiplication and long division problems can be long and difficult. The abacus gives blind and visually impaired students a tool to compute mathematical problems that equals the speed and mathematical knowledge required by their sighted peers using pencil and paper. Many blind people find this number machine a very useful tool throughout life.[50]

text: Binary abacus[edit]

text: The binary abacus is used to explain how computers manipulate numbers.[52] The abacus shows how numbers, letters, and signs can be stored in a binary system on a computer, or via ASCII. The device consists of a series of beads on parallel wires arranged in three separate rows. The beads represent a switch on the computer in either an "on" or "off" position.