document_title: Ash Wednesday

question_text: what's with the ashes on ash wednesday

question_tokens: what 's with the ashes on ash wednesday

text: Ash Wednesday

text: Observances[edit]

text: Fasting and abstinence[edit]

text: Many Christian denominations emphasize fasting, as well as abstinence during the season of Lent and in particular, on its first day, Ash Wednesday. The First Council of Nicæa spoke of Lent as a period of fasting for forty days, in preparation for Eastertide.[6] In many places, Christians historically abstained from food for a whole day until the evening, and at sunset, Western Christians traditionally broke the Lenten fast, which is often known as the Black Fast.[7][8] In India and Pakistan, many Christians continue this practice of fasting until sunset on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, with some fasting in this manner throughout the whole season of Lent.[9]

text: In the Roman Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance – a day of contemplating one's transgressions. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Roman Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 (whose health enables them to do so) are permitted to consume only one full meal, which may be supplemented by two smaller meals, which together should not equal the full meal. Some Catholics will go beyond the minimum obligations demanded by the Church and undertake a complete fast or a bread and water fast until sunset. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are also days of abstinence from meat (mammals and fowl), as are all Fridays during Lent.[10] Some Roman Catholics continue fasting throughout Lent, as was the Church's traditional requirement,[11] concluding only after the celebration of the Easter Vigil. Where the Ambrosian Rite is observed, the day of fasting and abstinence is postponed to the first Friday in the Ambrosian Lent, nine days later.[12]

text: Many Lutheran parishes teach communicants to fast on Ash Wednesday, with some people choosing to continue doing so throughout the entire season of Lent, especially on Good Friday.[13][14][15][16] A Handbook for the Discipline of Lent recommends the Lutheran guideline to "Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday with only one simple meal during the day, usually without meat".[17]

text: In the Anglican Communion, the entire forty days of Lent are designated days of fasting and abstinence in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer,[18] with the Traditional Saint Augustine's Prayer Book: A Book of Devotion for Members of the Anglican Communion defining "Fasting, usually meaning not more than a light breakfast, one full meal, and one half meal, on the forty days of Lent."[19] The same text defines abstinence as refraining from flesh meat on all Fridays of the Church Year, except for those during Christmastide.[19]

text: The historic Methodist homilies regarding the Sermon on the Mount stress the importance of the Lenten fast, which begins on Ash Wednesday.[20] The United Methodist Church therefore states that:

text: There is a strong biblical base for fasting, particularly during the 40 days of Lent leading to the celebration of Easter. Jesus, as part of his spiritual preparation, went into the wilderness and fasted 40 days and 40 nights, according to the Gospels.[21]

text: Rev. Jacqui King, the minister of Nu Faith Community United Methodist Church in Houston explained the philosophy of fasting during Lent as "I'm not skipping a meal because in place of that meal I'm actually dining with God".[22]

text: The Reformed Church in America describes Ash Wednesday as a day "focused on prayer, fasting, and repentance."[1] The liturgy for Ash Wednesday thus contains the following "Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline" read by the presider:[23]

text: We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ. I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent, by self-examination and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by practicing works of love, and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word.[23]

text: Many of the Churches in the Reformed tradition retained the Lenten fast in its entirety, although it was made voluntary, rather than obligatory.[24]

text: Ashes[edit]

text: Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash Wednesday, either by being sprinkled over their heads or, in English-speaking countries, more often by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross. The words (based on Genesis 3:19) used traditionally to accompany this gesture are, "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris." ("Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.") This custom is credited to Pope Gregory I the Great (c. 540–604).[26] In the 1969 revision of the Roman Rite, an alternative formula (based on Mark 1:15) was introduced and given first place "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" and the older formula was translated as "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The old formula, based on the words spoken to Adam and Eve after their sin,[27] reminds worshippers of their sinfulness and mortality and thus, implicitly, of their need to repent in time.[28] The newer formula makes explicit what was only implicit in the old.

text: Various manners of placing the ashes on worshippers' heads are in use within the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the two most common being to use the ashes to make a cross on the forehead and sprinkling the ashes over the crown of the head. Originally, the ashes were strewn over men's heads, but, probably because women had their heads covered in church, were placed on the foreheads of women.[29] In the Catholic Church the manner of imposing ashes depends largely on local custom, since no fixed rule has been laid down.[25] Although the account of Ælfric of Eynsham shows that in about the year 1000 the ashes were "strewn" on the head,[30] the marking of the forehead is the method that now prevails in English-speaking countries and is the only one envisaged in the Occasional Offices of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea, a publication described as "noticeably Anglo-Catholic in character".[31] In its ritual of "Blessing of Ashes", this states that "the ashes are blessed at the beginning of the Eucharist; and after they have been blessed they are placed on the forehead of the clergy and people."[31] The Ash Wednesday ritual of the Church of England, Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, contains "The Imposition of Ashes" in its Ash Wednesday liturgy.[32] On Ash Wednesday, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, traditionally takes part in a penitential procession from the Church of Saint Anselm to the Basilica of Santa Sabina, where, in accordance with the custom in Italy and many other countries, ashes are sprinkled on his head, not smudged on his forehead, and he places ashes on the heads of others in the same way.[33]

text: The Anglican ritual, used in Papua New Guinea states that, after the blessing of the ashes, "the priest marks his own forehead and then the foreheads of the servers and congregation who come and kneel, or stand, where they normally receive the Blessed Sacrament."[31] The corresponding Catholic ritual in the Roman Missal for celebration within Mass merely states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the head of those present who come to him, and says to each one ..."[34] Pre-1970 editions had much more elaborate instructions about the order in which the participants were to receive the ashes, but again without any indication of the form of placing the ashes on the head.[35] The 1969 revision of the Roman Rite inserted into the Mass the solemn ceremony of blessing ashes and placing them on heads, but also explicitly envisaged a similar solemn ceremony outside of Mass.[34] The Book of Blessings contains a simple rite.[25] While the solemn rite would normally be carried out within a church building, the simple rite could appropriately be used almost anywhere. While only a priest or deacon may bless the ashes, laypeople may do the placing of the ashes on a person's head. Even in the solemn rite, lay men or women may assist the priest in distributing the ashes. In addition, laypeople take blessed ashes left over after the collective ceremony and place them on the head of the sick or of others who are unable to attend the blessing.[25][36] (In 2014, Anglican Liverpool Cathedral likewise offered to impose ashes within the church without a solemn ceremony.)[37]

text: In addition, those who attend such Catholic services, whether in a church or elsewhere, traditionally take blessed ashes home with them to place on the heads of other members of the family,[38] and it is recommended to have envelopes available to facilitate this practice.[39] At home the ashes are then placed with little or no ceremony.

text: Unlike its discipline regarding sacraments, the Catholic Church does not exclude from receiving sacramentals, such as the placing of ashes on the head, those who are not Catholics and perhaps not even baptized.[36] Even those who have been excommunicated and are therefore forbidden to celebrate sacramentals are not forbidden to receive them.[40] After describing the blessing, the rite of Blessing and Distribution of Ashes (within Mass) states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the heads of all those present who come to him."[34] The Catholic Church does not limit distribution of blessed ashes to within church buildings and has suggested the holding of celebrations in shopping centres, nursing homes, and factories.[39] Such celebrations presume preparation of an appropriate area and include readings from Scripture (at least one) and prayers, and are somewhat shorter if the ashes are already blessed.[41]

text: The Catholic Church and the Methodist Church say that the ashes should be those of palm branches blessed at the previous year's Palm Sunday service,[34][42] while a Church of England publication says they "may be made" from the burnt palm crosses of the previous year.[31][32] These sources do not speak of adding anything to the ashes other than, for the Catholic liturgy, a sprinkling with holy water when blessing them. An Anglican website speaks of mixing the ashes with a small amount of holy water or olive oil as a fixative.[43]

text: Where ashes are placed on the head by smudging the forehead with a sign of the cross, many Christians choose to keep the mark visible throughout the day. The churches have not imposed this as an obligatory rule, and the ashes may even be wiped off immediately after receiving them;[44][45] but some Christian leaders, such as Lutheran pastor Richard P. Bucher and Catholic bishop Kieran Conry, recommend it as a public profession of faith.[46][47] Morgan Guyton, a Methodist pastor and leader in the Red-Letter Christian movement, encourages Christians to wear their ashed cross throughout the day as an exercise of religious freedom.[48]

text: Ashes to Go[edit]

text: Since 2007, some members of major Christian Churches, including Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists, have participated in the Ashes to Go program, in which clergy go outside of their churches to public places, such as downtowns, sidewalks and train stations, to distribute ashes to passersby,[49][50][51] even to people waiting in their cars for a stoplight to change.[52] The Anglican priest Emily Mellott of Calvary Church in Lombard took up the idea and turned it into a movement, stated that the practice was also an act of evangelism.[53][54] Anglicans and Catholics in parts of the United Kingdom such as Sunderland, are offering Ashes to Go together: Marc Lyden-Smith, the priest of Saint Mary's Church, stated that the ecumenical effort is a "tremendous witness in our city, with Catholics and Anglicans working together to start the season of Lent, perhaps reminding those who have fallen away from the Church, or have never been before, that the Christian faith is alive and active in Sunderland."[49] The Catholic Student Association of Kent State University, based at the University Parish Newman Center, offered ashes to university students who were going through the Student Center of that institution in 2012,[55] and Douglas Clark of St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church in Statesboro, among others, have participated in Ashes to Go.[56][57] On Ash Wednesday 2017, Father Paddy Mooney, the priest of St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in the Irish town of Glenamaddy, set up an Ashes to Go station through which commuters could drive and receive ashes from their car; the parish church also had "drive-through prayers during Lent with people submitting requests into a box left in the church grounds without having to leave their car".[58] Reverend Trey Hall, pastor of Urban Village United Methodist Church, stated that when his local church offered ashes in Chicago "nearly 300 people received ashes – including two people who were waiting in their car for a stoplight to change."[52] In 2013, churches not only in the United States, but also at least one church each in the United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa, participated in Ashes to Go.[59] Outside of their church building, Saint Stephen Martyr Lutheran Church in Canton offered Ashes to Go for "believers whose schedules make it difficult to attend a traditional service" in 2016.[60] In the United States itself 34 states and the District of Columbia had at least one church taking part. Most of these churches (parishes) were Episcopal, but there were also several Methodist churches, as well as Presbyterian and Catholic churches.[61]

text: Commination Office[edit]

text: Robin Knowles Wallace states that the traditional Ash Wednesday church service includes Psalm 51 (the Miserere), prayers of confession and the sign of ashes.[62] No single one of the traditional services contains all of these elements. The Anglican church's traditional Ash Wednesday service, titled A Commination,[63] contains the first two elements, but not the third. On the other hand, the Catholic Church's traditional service has the blessing and distribution of ashes but, while prayers of confession and recitation of Psalm 51 (the first psalm at Lauds on all penitential days, including Ash Wednesday) are a part of its general traditional Ash Wednesday liturgy,[64] they are not associated specifically with the rite of blessing the ashes. The rite of blessing has acquired an untraditional weak association with that particular psalm only since 1970, when it was inserted into the celebration of Mass, at which a few verses of Psalm 51 are used as a responsorial psalm. Coincidentally, it was only about the same time that in some areas Anglicanism resumed the rite of ashes.

text: In the mid-16th century, the first Book of Common Prayer removed the ceremony of the ashes from the liturgy of the Church of England and replaced it with what would later be called the Commination Office.[65] In that 1549 edition, the rite was headed: "The First Day of Lent: Commonly Called Ash-Wednesday".[66] The ashes ceremony was not forbidden, but was not included in the church's official liturgy.[67] Its place was taken by reading biblical curses of God against sinners, to each of which the people were directed to respond with Amen.[68][69] The text of the "Commination or Denouncing of God's Anger and Judgments against Sinners" begins: "In the primitive Church there was a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend. Instead whereof, until the said discipline may be restored again, (which is much to be wished,) it is thought good that at this time (in the presence of you all) should be read the general sentences of God's cursing against impenitent sinners".[70] In line with this, Joseph Hooper Maude wrote that the establishment of The Commination was due to a desire of the reformers "to restore the primitive practice of public penance in church". He further stated that "the sentences of the greater excommunication" within The Commination corresponded to those used in the ancient Church.[71] The Anglican Church's Ash Wednesday liturgy, he wrote, also traditionally included the Miserere, which, along with "what follows" in the rest of the service (lesser Litany, Lord's Prayer, three prayers for pardon and final blessing), "was taken from the Sarum services for Ash Wednesday".[71] From the Sarum Rite practice in England the service took Psalm 51 and some prayers that in the Sarum Missal accompanied the blessing and distribution of ashes.[64][72] In the Sarum Rite, the Miserere psalm was one of the seven penitential psalms that were recited at the beginning of the ceremony.[73] In the 20th century, the Episcopal Church introduced three prayers from the Sarum Rite and omitted the Commination Office from its liturgy.[67]

text: Low church ceremonies[edit]

text: In some of the low church traditions, other practices are sometimes added or substituted, as other ways of symbolizing the confession and penitence of the day. For example, in one common variation, small cards are distributed to the congregation on which people are invited to write a sin they wish to confess. These small cards are brought forth to the altar table where they are burned.[74]

text: Regional customs[edit]

text: In Victorian era, theatres refrained from presenting costumed shows on Ash Wednesday, so they provided other entertainment, as mandated by the Church of England (Anglican Church).[75] Also, "in Iceland, on Ash Wednesday children pin small bags of ashes on the back of some unsuspecting person".[76]

text: Biblical significance of ashes[edit]

text: Ashes were used in ancient times to express grief. When Tamar was raped by her half-brother, "she sprinkled ashes on her head, tore her robe, and with her face buried in her hands went away crying" (2 Samuel 13:19). The gesture was also used to express sorrow for sins and faults. In Job 42:3–6, Job says to God: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." The prophet Jeremiah calls for repentance by saying: "O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes" (Jer 6:26). The prophet Daniel recounted pleading to God: "I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes" (Daniel 9:3). Just prior to the New Testament period, the rebels fighting for Jewish independence, the Maccabees, prepared for battle using ashes: "That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their clothes" (1 Maccabees 3:47; see also 4:39).

text: Examples of the practice among Jews are found in several other books of the Bible, including Numbers 19:9, 19:17, Jonah 3:6, Book of Esther 4:1, and Hebrews 9:13. Jesus is quoted as speaking of the practice in Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13: "If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago (sitting) in sackcloth and ashes."

text: Christian use of ashes[edit]

text: Christians continued the practice of using ashes as an external sign of repentance. Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225) said that confession of sin should be accompanied by lying in sackcloth and ashes.[77] The historian Eusebius (c. 260/265 – 339/340) recounts how a repentant apostate covered himself with ashes when begging Pope Zephyrinus to readmit him to communion.[78]

text: John W. Fenton writes that "by the end of the 10th century, it was customary in Western Europe (but not yet in Rome) for all the faithful to receive ashes on the first day of the Lenten fast. In 1091, this custom was then ordered by Pope Urban II at the council of Benevento to be extended to the church in Rome. Not long after that, the name of the day was referred to in the liturgical books as "Feria Quarta Cinerum" (i.e., Ash Wednesday)."[79]

text: The public penance that grave sinners underwent before being admitted to Holy Communion just before Easter lasted throughout Lent, on the first day of which they were sprinkled with ashes and dressed in sackcloth. When, towards the end of the first millennium, the discipline of public penance was dropped, the beginning of Lent, seen as a general penitential season, was marked by sprinkling ashes on the heads of all.[80] This practice is found in the Gregorian Sacramentary of the late 8th century.[28][81] About two centuries later, Ælfric of Eynsham, an Anglo-Saxon abbot, wrote of the rite of strewing ashes on heads at the start of Lent.[30][82]

text: The article on Ash Wednesday in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says that, after the Protestant Reformation, the ashes ceremony was not forbidden in the Church of England, a statement that may explain the research by Blair Meeks that the Anglican tradition "never lapsed in this observance".[83] It was even prescribed under King Henry VIII in 1538 and under King Edward VI in 1550, but it fell out of use in many areas after 1600.[67] In 1536, the Ten Articles issued by authority of Henry VIII commended "the observance of various rites and ceremonies as good and laudable, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling of holy water, bearing of candles on Candlemas-day, giving of ashes on Ash-Wednesday".[84] After Henry's death in January 1547, Thomas Cranmer, within the same year, "procured an order from the Council to forbid the carrying of candles on Candlemas-day, and the use of ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and of palms on Palm-Sunday, as superstitious ceremonies", an order that was issued only for the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, of which Cranmer was archbishop.[85][86][87] The Church Cyclopædia states that the "English office had adapted the very old Salisbury service for Ash-Wednesday, prefacing it with an address and a recital of the curses of Mount Ebal, and then with an exhortation uses the older service very nearly as it stood."[71][88] The new Commination Office had no blessing of ashes and therefore, in England as a whole, "soon after the Reformation, the use of ashes was discontinued as a 'vain show' and Ash Wednesday then became only a day of marked solemnity, with a memorial of its original character in a reading of the curses denounced against impenitent sinners".[89] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in the 19th century, observed Ash Wednesday: "as a day of fasting and humiliation, wherein we are publicly to confess our sins, meekly to implore God's mercy and forgiveness, and humbly to intercede for the continuance of his favour".[90] In the 20th century, the Book of Common Prayer provided prayers for the imposition of ashes.[91]

text: Monte Canfield and Blair Meeks state that after the Protestant Reformation, Anglicans and Lutherans kept the rite of blessing and distributing ashes to the faithful on Ash Wednesday, and that the Protestant denominations that did not keep it encouraged its use "during and after the ecumenical era that resulted in the Vatican II proclamations".[83][92] Jack Kingsbury and Russell F. Anderson likewise state that the practice was continued among some Anglicans and Lutherans.[93][94] On the other hand, Edward Traill Horn wrote: "The ceremony of the distribution of the ashes was not retained by the reformers, whether Lutheran, Anglican or Reformed", although these denominations honored Ash Wednesday as the first day of Lent.[95] Frank Senn, a liturgical scholar, has been quoted as saying: "How and why the use of ashes fell out of Lutheran use is difficult to discern from the sources… [C]hurch orders don't specifically say not to use ashes; they simply stopped giving direction for blessing and distributing them and eventually the pastors just stopped doing it."[96]

text: As part of the liturgical revival ushered in by the ecumenical movement, the practice was encouraged in Protestant churches,[92] including the Methodist Church.[97][98] It has also been adopted by Anabaptist and Reformed churches and some less liturgical denominations.[99]

text: The Eastern Orthodox churches generally do not observe Ash Wednesday,[100] although in recent times, the creation of the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate has led to the observance of Ash Wednesday among Western Orthodox parishes.[79] In this tradition, ashes "may be distributed outside of the mass or any liturgical service" although "commonly the faithful receive their ashes immediately before the Ash Wednesday mass".[79] In Orthodoxy, historically, "serious public sinners in the East also donned sackcloth, including those who made the Great Fast a major theme of their entire lives such as hermits and desert-dwellers."[101] Byzantine Catholics, although in the United States use "the same Gregorian calendar as the Roman Catholic rite", do not practice the distribution of ashes as it is "not part of their ancient tradition".[102]

text: In the Ambrosian Rite, ashes are blessed and placed on the heads of the faithful not on the day that elsewhere is called Ash Wednesday, but at the end of Mass on the following Sunday, which in that rite inaugurates Lent, with the fast traditionally beginning on Monday, the first weekday of the Ambrosian Lent.[103][12][104][105]

text: Lent[edit]

text: Ash Wednesday marks the start of a 40-day period which is an allusion to the separation of Jesus in the desert to fast and pray. During this time he was tempted. Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13.[106] While not specifically instituted in the Bible text, the 40-day period of repentance is also analogous to the 40 days during which Moses repented and fasted in response to the making of the Golden calf.(Exo. 34:27–28) (Jews today follow a 40-day period of repenting in preparation for and during the High Holy Days from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur.)

text: Dates[edit]

text: Ash Wednesday is exactly 46 days before Easter Sunday, a moveable feast based on the cycles of the moon. The earliest date Ash Wednesday can occur is 4 February (which is only possible during a common year with Easter on 22 March), which happened in 1598, 1693, 1761 and 1818 and will next occur in 2285.[107] The latest date Ash Wednesday can occur is 10 March (when Easter Day falls on 25 April) which occurred in 1666, 1734, 1886 and 1943 and will next occur in 2038. Ash Wednesday has never occurred on Leap Year Day (29 February), and it will not occur as such until 2096. The only other years of the third millennium that will have Ash Wednesday on 29 February are 2468, 2688, 2840 and 2992. (Ash Wednesday falls on 29 February only if Easter is on 15 April in a leap year starting on a Sunday.)

text: Observing churches[edit]

text: These Christian Churches are among those that mark Ash Wednesday with a particular liturgy or service.

text:
African Methodist Episcopal Church[108]
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church[108]
Anglican Communion[109]

Church of England[110]
Church of North India[109][111]
Church of South India[109][112]
Episcopal Church (United States)[113]

Anglican Continuum[114]

Traditional Anglican Communion
Anglican Catholic Church

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)[115]
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church[116]
Some congregations of the Church of the Nazarene[117]
Community of Christ[118]
Ecclesia Gnostica[119]
Evangelical Covenant Church[120]
Independent Catholic denominations

Liberal Catholic Church[121]
Old Catholic Church[122]

Lutheran Churches[122]

Church of Sweden[123]

Some Mennonite congregations[124][125]
Methodist Church in Great Britain[126]
Metropolitan Community Churches[127]
Moravian Church[128][129]
Reformed churches (Presbyterian[130], United Church of Christ, etc.)
Roman Catholic Church[131]
United Church of Christ Congregations[132]
United Methodist Church[116]
Wesleyan Church[133]

tag: ul

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church does not, in general, observe Ash Wednesday; instead, Orthodox Great Lent begins on Clean Monday. There are, however, a relatively small number of Orthodox Christians who follow the Western Rite; these do observe Ash Wednesday, although often on a different day from the previously mentioned denominations, as its date is determined from the Orthodox calculation of Pascha, which may be as much as a month later than the Western observance of Easter.

text: National No Smoking Day[edit]

text: In the Republic of Ireland, Ash Wednesday is National No Smoking Day.[134][135] The date was chosen because quitting smoking ties in with giving up luxury for Lent.[136][137] In the United Kingdom No Smoking Day was held for the first time on Ash Wednesday 1984[138] but is now fixed as the second Wednesday in March.[139]

text: Notes[edit]

text: Jump up ^ Not all Catholics observe Ash Wednesday. Eastern Catholic Churches, who do not count Holy Week as part of Lent, begin the penitential season on Clean Monday, the Monday before Ash Wednesday, and Catholics who follow the Ambrosian Rite begin it on the First Sunday in Lent. Ashes are blessed and ceremonially distributed at the start of Lent throughout the Latin Church and in the Maronite Catholic Church and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. In the Ambrosian Rite, this is done at the end of the Sunday Mass or on the following day (see Il Sussidiario, Giorno delle Ceneri: Cos'è il rito delle Ceneri Archived 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine. & Sapere, Perché il Carnevale ambrosiano si festeggia in ritardo rispetto al resto d’Italia? Archived 24 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine.)

tag: ol


document_title: Three-Fifths Compromise

question_text: where was the 3/5 compromise originally stated in the constitution

root

text: Three-Fifths Compromise

text: Enactment[edit]

text:
Part of a series on
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tag: table

text: The Convention had unanimously accepted the principle that representation in the House of Representatives would be in proportion to the relative state populations. However, since slaves could not vote, leaders in slave states would thus have the benefit of increased representation in the House and the Electoral College. Delegates opposed to slavery proposed that only free inhabitants of each state be counted for apportionment purposes, while delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, opposed the proposal, wanting slaves to count in their actual numbers. The compromise that was finally agreed upon—of counting "all other persons" as only three-fifths of their actual numbers—reduced the representation of the slave states relative to the original proposals, but improved it over the Northern position.[2] An inducement for slave states to accept the Compromise was its tie to taxation in the same ratio, so that the burden of taxation on the slave states was also reduced.

tag: p

text: The Three-Fifths Compromise is found in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, which reads:

text: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

text: The three-fifths ratio originated with a 1783 amendment proposed to the Articles of Confederation. The amendment was to have changed the basis for determining the wealth of each state, and hence its tax obligations, from real estate to population, as a measure of ability to produce wealth. The proposal by a committee of the Congress had suggested that taxes "shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes".[3][4] The South immediately objected to this formula since it would include slaves, who were viewed primarily as property, in calculating the amount of taxes to be paid. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in his notes on the debates, the southern states would be taxed "according to their numbers and their wealth conjunctly, while the northern would be taxed on numbers only".[5]

text: After proposed compromises of one-half by Benjamin Harrison of Virginia and three-fourths by several New Englanders failed to gain sufficient support, Congress finally settled on the three-fifths ratio proposed by James Madison.[6] But this amendment ultimately failed, falling two states short of the unanimous approval required for amending the Articles of Confederation (only New Hampshire and New York were opposed).

text: A contentious issue at the 1787 Constitutional Convention was whether slaves would be counted as part of the population in determining representation of the states in the Congress or would instead be considered property and, as such, not be considered for purposes of representation. Delegates from states with a large population of slaves argued that slaves should be considered persons in determining representation, but as property if the new government were to levy taxes on the states on the basis of population. Delegates from states where slavery had become rare argued that slaves should be included in taxation, but not in determining representation.

text: The proposed ratio was, however, a ready solution to the impasse that arose during the Constitutional Convention. In that situation, the alignment of the contending forces was the reverse of what had obtained under the Articles of Confederation. In amending the Articles, the North wanted slaves to count for more than the South did because the objective was to determine taxes paid by the states to the federal government. In the Constitutional Convention, the more important issue was representation in Congress, so the South wanted slaves to count for more than the North did.[citation needed]

text: Much has been said of the impropriety of representing men who have no will of their own.... They are men, though degraded to the condition of slavery. They are persons known to the municipal laws of the states which they inhabit, as well as to the laws of nature. But representation and taxation go together.... Would it be just to impose a singular burden, without conferring some adequate advantage?

text: Impact before the Civil War[edit]

text: The Three-Fifths Compromise gave a disproportionate representation of slave states in the House of Representatives relative to the voters in free states until the American Civil War. In 1793, for example, Southern slave states had 47 of the 105 members but would have had 33, had seats been assigned based on free populations. In 1812, slave states had 76 out of 143 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 out of 240 instead of 73. As a result, Southern states had disproportionate influence on the presidency, the speakership of the House, and the Supreme Court in the period prior to the Civil War.[8] Along with this must be considered the number of slave and free states, which remained mostly equal until 1850, safeguarding the Southern bloc in the Senate as well as Electoral College votes.

text: Historian Garry Wills has postulated that without the additional slave state votes, Jefferson would have lost the presidential election of 1800. Also, "slavery would have been excluded from Missouri ... Jackson's Indian removal policy would have failed ... the Wilmot Proviso would have banned slavery in territories won from Mexico ... the Kansas-Nebraska bill would have failed."[8] While the Three-Fifths Compromise could be seen to favor Southern states because of their large slave populations, for example, the Connecticut Compromise tended to favor the Northern states (which were generally smaller). Support for the new Constitution rested on the balance of these sectional interests.[9]

text: After the Civil War[edit]

text: Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) later superseded Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 and explicitly repealed the compromise. It provides that "representatives shall be apportioned ... counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." A later provision of the same clause reduced the Congressional representation of states who denied the right to vote to adult male citizens, but this provision was never effectively enforced.[10] (The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, had already eliminated almost all persons from the original clause's jurisdiction by banning slavery; the only remaining persons subject to it were those sentenced for a crime to penal servitude, which the amendment excluded from the ban.)

text: After the Reconstruction Era came to an end in 1877, however, the former slave states subverted the objective of these changes by using various strategies to disenfranchise their black citizens, while obtaining the benefit of apportionment of representatives on the basis of the total populations. These measures effectively gave white Southerners even greater voting power than they had in the antebellum era, inflating the number of Southern Democrats in the House of Representatives as well as the number of votes they could exercise in the Electoral College in the election of the president.

text: The disenfranchisement of black citizens eventually attracted the attention of Congress, and in 1900 some members proposed stripping the South of seats, related to the number of people who were barred from voting.[11] In the end, Congress did not act to change apportionment, largely because of the power of the Southern bloc. The Southern bloc comprised Southern Democrats voted into office by white voters and constituted a powerful voting bloc in Congress until the 1960s. Their representatives, re-elected repeatedly by one-party states, controlled numerous chairmanships of important committees in both houses on the basis of seniority, giving them control over rules, budgets and important patronage projects, among other issues. Their power allowed them to defeat federal legislation against racial violence and abuses in the South.[12][not in citation given]


document_title: It's a Wonderful Life

question_text: when does it's a wonderful life comes on

question_tokens: when does it 's a wonderful life comes on

text: It's a Wonderful Life

text: Plot[edit]

text: On Christmas Eve 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, George Bailey is suicidal. Prayers for him reach Heaven, where Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class, is assigned to save George, in return for which he will earn his angel wings. To prepare him for his mission, Clarence is shown flashbacks of George's life. The first is from 1919, when 12-year-old George saves his younger brother Harry from drowning at a frozen lake; George loses his hearing in one ear as a result. At his after-school job, George realizes that the druggist, Mr. Gower – distraught over his son's death from the flu – has accidentally added poison to a child's prescription, and intervenes to stop it from causing harm.

text: In 1928, George plans to leave on a world tour and then attend college. At Harry's high-school graduation party, he is reintroduced to Mary Hatch, who has had a crush on him from childhood. Their walk home is interrupted by news that George's father, Peter, has died of a stroke. George postpones his travel so he can sort out the family business, Bailey Brothers' Building and Loan. Henry F. Potter, the richest man in town, wishes to dissolve the Building and Loan to eliminate it as a competitor. The board of directors votes to keep the Building and Loan open, on condition that George stay to run it (along with his absent-minded uncle Billy). George gives his college tuition to Harry on the condition that Harry take over the Building and Loan when he returns.

text: Four years later, Harry returns from college with a job offer from his father-in-law. George tells Harry to take the job and he will keep running the Building and Loan. George and Mary get married. On their way to their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank and use their honeymoon savings to keep the Building and Loan solvent until the bank reopens.

text: Eventually, George establishes Bailey Park, a housing development with small houses financed by the Building and Loan, so that people can own their own homes rather than paying rent to live in Potter's overpriced slums. Potter attempts to lure George into becoming his assistant, offering him $20,000 (equivalent to $270,000 in 2017[8]) a year; George is momentarily tempted, but rebukes him.

text: During World War II, George is ineligible for service because of his bad ear. Harry becomes a Navy pilot and earns the Medal of Honor by shooting down a kamikaze plane headed for a troop transport. On Christmas Eve morning 1945, as the town prepares a hero's welcome for Harry, Uncle Billy manages to misplace $8000 of the Building and Loan's cash (equivalent to $110,000 in 2017[8]). When a bank examiner arrives to review the Building and Loan's records, George realizes that criminal charges are possible; he berates Uncle Billy, then goes home and takes out his frustration on his family. He soon apologizes to his wife and children, then leaves.

text: George desperately appeals to Potter for a loan. When George offers his life insurance policy as collateral, Potter says George is worth more dead than alive and phones the police to have him arrested. George gets drunk at a local bar and is involved in a fight before he leaves and goes to a nearby bridge, thinking of suicide. The film's narrative catches up to the time of the opening scene. Before he can jump, Clarence dives into the river just before George does, causing George to rescue Clarence rather than killing himself. George does not believe Clarence's subsequent claim that he is George's guardian angel.

text: When George says he wishes he had never been born, Clarence decides to grant his wish and show George an alternate timeline in which he never existed. Bedford Falls is named Pottersville and is a less congenial place. Mr. Gower has recently been released from prison for manslaughter, because George was not there to stop him from putting poison in the pills. The Building and Loan has closed down, as George never took over after Peter's passing.

text: George's mother does not recognize him; she reveals that Uncle Billy was institutionalized after the collapse of the Building and Loan. In the cemetery where Bailey Park would have been, George discovers the grave of his brother. Clarence tells him all the soldiers on the transport died, as Harry was never there to save them, because George had never saved Harry from drowning. Mary, who works at the library, never married; when George says he is her husband, she screams for the police, causing George to flee and the local policeman to give chase.

text: George, now convinced that Clarence is really his guardian angel, runs back to the bridge and begs for his life back; the alternate timeline changes back to the original reality. George runs home to await his arrest. Mary and Uncle Billy arrive, having rallied the townspeople, who donate more than enough to cover the missing $8,000 and for Potter's warrant to be torn up. Harry arrives and toasts George calling him "The richest man in town". A bell on the Christmas tree rings, and his daughter recalls a story that says the sound means that an angel has just earned his wings, signifying Clarence's promotion.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Credited cast

James Stewart as George Bailey
Donna Reed as Mary Hatch Bailey
Henry Travers as Clarence Odbody
Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Henry F. Potter
Thomas Mitchell as Uncle Billy Bailey
Beulah Bondi as Ma Bailey
Frank Faylen as Ernie Bishop, the cab driver
Ward Bond as Bert, the cop
Gloria Grahame as Violet Bick
H. B. Warner as Mr. Emil Gower
Todd Karns as Harry Bailey
Samuel S. Hinds as father Peter "Pop" Bailey
Lillian Randolph as Annie, maid
Frank Albertson as Sam Wainwright
Virginia Patton as Ruth Dakin Bailey, Harry's wife
Mary Treen as Cousin Tilly, employee
Charles Williams as Cousin Eustace, employee
Sarah Edwards as Mrs. Hatch, Mary's mother
William Edmunds as Mr. Giuseppe Martini
Argentina Brunetti as Mrs. Martini
Bobby Anderson as Little George Bailey
Ronnie Ralph as Little Sam Wainwright
Jean Gale as Little Mary Hatch
Ray Walker as Joe
Jeanine Ann Roose[9] as Little Violet Bick

George Nokes as Little Harry Bailey
Danny Mummert as Little Marty Hatch
Sheldon Leonard as Nick, the bartender
Frank Hagney as Potter's mute aide
Charles Lane as Potter's rent collector
Larry Simms as Pete Bailey
Carol Coomes (AKA Carol Coombs) as Janie Bailey
Jimmy Hawkins as Tommy Bailey
Karolyn Grimes as Zuzu Bailey

Uncredited cast

Charles Halton as Mr. Carter, bank examiner
J. Farrell MacDonald as the man whose great-grandfather planted the tree that George drives into
Harry Holman as Mr. Partridge, High School principal
Harold Landon as Marty Hatch, Mary's brother
Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer as Freddie (Mary's annoying high school suitor)
Mark Roberts as Mickey (student with the key to open up pool)
Max Wagner as Cashier/Bouncer at Nick's Bar
Dick Elliott as fat man on porch
Tom Fadden as Bridge Caretaker
Stanley Andrews as Mr. Welch, teacher's husband
Al Bridge as Sheriff with arrest warrant
Ellen Corby as Miss Davis
Marian Carr as Jane Wainwright, Sam's wife[10]
Adriana Caselotti as the singer in Martini's Bar[11][N 2]
Joseph Granby as Angel Joseph (voice)
Moroni Olsen as the Senior Angel (voice)

text: The contention that James Stewart is often referred to as Capra's only choice to play George Bailey is disputed by film historian Stephen Cox, who indicates that "Henry Fonda was in the running."[12][13] Cary Grant was also considered for the role when RKO still had the rights to the film, before they were sold to Capra.[14]

text: Although it was stated that Jean Arthur, Ann Dvorak and Ginger Rogers were all considered for the role of Mary before Donna Reed won the part, this list is also disputed by Cox as he indicates that Jean Arthur was first offered the part but had to turn it down for a prior commitment on Broadway before Capra turned to Olivia de Havilland, Martha Scott and Ann Dvorak. Ginger Rogers was offered the female lead, but turned it down because she considered it "too bland". In Chapter 26 of her autobiography Ginger: My Story, she questioned her decision by asking her readers: "Foolish, you say?"

text: A long list of actors were considered for the role of Potter (originally named Herbert Potter): Edward Arnold, Charles Bickford, Edgar Buchanan, Louis Calhern, Victor Jory, Raymond Massey, Vincent Price and even Thomas Mitchell.[13] However, Lionel Barrymore, who eventually won the role, was a famous Ebenezer Scrooge in radio dramatizations of A Christmas Carol at the time and was a natural choice for the role. Barrymore had also worked with Capra and Stewart on his 1938 Best Picture Oscar winner, You Can't Take It with You.

text: H.B. Warner, who was cast as the drugstore owner Mr. Gower, actually studied medicine before going into acting. He was also in some of Capra's other films, including Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.[15] In the silent era, he had played the role of Jesus Christ in Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings (1927). The name Gower came from Capra's employer Columbia Pictures, which had been located on Gower Street for many years. Also on Gower Street was a drugstore that was a favorite for the studio's employees.[16]

text: Charles Williams, who was cast as Eustace Bailey, and Mary Treen, who was cast as Matilda "Tilly" Bailey, were both B-list actors, as they both had appeared in 90 films each before filming It's a Wonderful Life.[17]

text: Jimmy the raven (Uncle Billy's pet) appeared in You Can't Take It with You and each subsequent Capra film.[12][18]

text: Production[edit]

text: Background[edit]

text: The original story "The Greatest Gift" was written by Philip Van Doren Stern in November 1939. After being unsuccessful in getting the story published, he decided to make it into a Christmas card, and mailed 200 copies to family and friends in December 1943.[19][N 3][21] The story came to the attention of RKO producer David Hempstead, who showed it to Cary Grant's Hollywood agent, and in April 1944, RKO Pictures bought the rights to the story for $10,000, hoping to turn the story into a vehicle for Grant.[22] RKO created three unsatisfactory scripts before shelving the planned movie, and Grant went on to make another Christmas movie staple, The Bishop's Wife.[N 4][24]

text: At the suggestion of RKO studio chief Charles Koerner, Frank Capra read "The Greatest Gift" and immediately saw its potential. RKO, anxious to unload the project, in 1945 sold the rights to Capra's production company, Liberty Films, which had a nine-film distribution agreement with RKO, for $10,000,[N 5] and threw in the three scripts for free.[19] Capra, along with writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, with Jo Swerling, Michael Wilson, and Dorothy Parker brought in to "polish" the script,[26] turned the story and what was worth using from the three scripts into a screenplay that Capra would rename It's a Wonderful Life.[19] The script underwent many revisions throughout pre-production and during filming.[27] Final screenplay credit went to Goodrich, Hackett and Capra, with "additional scenes" by Jo Swerling.

text: Seneca Falls, New York claims that when Frank Capra visited their town in 1945, he was inspired to model Bedford Falls after it. The town has an annual "It's a Wonderful Life festival"in December.[28] In mid-2009, The Hotel Clarence opened in Seneca Falls, named for George Bailey's guardian angel. On December 10, 2010, the "It's a Wonderful Life" Museum opened in Seneca Falls, with Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu in the movie, cutting the ribbon.[29] Philip Van Doren Stern said in a 1946 interview, "Incidentally, the movie takes place in Westchester County. Actually, the town I had in mind was Califon, N.J. " The historic iron bridge in Califon is similar to the bridge that George Bailey considered jumping from in the movie.[30]

text: Both James Stewart (from Indiana, Pennsylvania) and Donna Reed (from Denison, Iowa) came from small towns. Stewart's father ran a small hardware store where James worked for years. Reed demonstrated her rural roots by winning an impromptu bet with Lionel Barrymore when he challenged her to milk a cow on set.[31]

text: Filming[edit]

text: It's a Wonderful Life was shot at RKO Radio Pictures Studio in Culver City, California, and the 89 acre RKO movie ranch in Encino,[32] where "Bedford Falls" consisted of Art Director Max Ree's Oscar-winning sets originally designed for the 1931 epic film Cimarron that covered 4 acres (1.6 ha), assembled from three separate parts, with a main street stretching 300 yards (three city blocks), with 75 stores and buildings, and a residential neighborhood.[33] For It's a Wonderful Life Capra built a working bank set, added a tree-lined center parkway, and planted 20 full grown oak trees to existing sets.[34]

text: Pigeons, cats, and dogs were allowed to roam the mammoth set to give the "town" a lived-in feel.[18] Due to the requirement to film in an "alternate universe" setting as well as during different seasons, the set was extremely adaptable. RKO created "chemical snow" for the film to avoid the need for dubbed dialogue when actors walked across an earlier movie snow that was made of crushed cornflakes.[35] Filming started on April 15, 1946 and ended on July 27, 1946, exactly on deadline for the 90-day principal photography schedule.[23]

text: RKO's movie ranch in Encino, a filming location of Bedford Falls, was razed in 1954.[N 6] There are only two surviving locations from the film. The first is the swimming pool that was unveiled during the famous dance scene where George courts Mary. It is located in the gymnasium at Beverly Hills High School and is still in operation as of 2013. The second is the "Martini home" in La Cañada Flintridge, California.[37]

text: During filming, in the scene where Uncle Billy gets drunk at Harry and Ruth's welcome home/newlyweds' party, George points him in the right direction home. As the camera focuses on George, smiling at his uncle staggering away, a crash is heard in the distance and Uncle Billy yells, "I'm all right! I'm all right!" Equipment on the set had actually been accidentally knocked over; Capra left in Thomas Mitchell's impromptu ad lib (although the "crashing" noise was augmented with added sound effects).

text: Dimitri Tiomkin had written "Death Telegram" and "Gower's Deliverance" for the drugstore scenes, but in the editing room Capra elected to go with no music for those scenes. Those changes, along with others, led to a falling out between Tiomkin and Capra. Tiomkin had worked on a lot of Capra's previous films, and was saddened that Capra decided to have the music pared or toned down, moved, or cut entirely. He felt as though his work was being seen as a mere suggestion. In his autobiography Please Don't Hate Me, he said of the incident, "an all around scissors job".[38]

text: The products and advertisements featured in Mr. Gower's drugstore include Coca-Cola, Paterson tobacco pipes, La Unica cigars, Camel cigarettes, Lucky Strike cigarettes, Chesterfield cigarettes, Sweet Caporal cigarettes (with a sign that says "Ask Dad he knows" that plays a role in the plot), Vaseline hair tonic, Penetro cough syrup, Pepto-Bismol, Bayer Aspirin ("for colds and influenza"), and The Saturday Evening Post.[39]

text: In an earlier draft of the script, the scene where George saves his brother Harry as a child was different. The scene had the boys playing ice hockey on the river (which is on Potter's property) as Potter watches with disdain. George shoots the puck, but it goes astray and breaks the "No Trespassing" sign and lands in Potter's yard. Potter becomes irate, and the gardener releases the attack dogs, which causes the boys to flee. Harry falls in the ice, and George saves him with the same results.[40]

text: Another scene that was in an earlier version of the script had young George visiting his father at his work. After George tells off Mr. Potter and closes the door, he considers asking Uncle Billy about his drugstore dilemma. Billy is talking on the phone to the bank examiner, and lights his cigar and throws his match in the wastebasket. This scene explains that Tilly (short for Matilda) and Eustace are both his cousins (not Billy's kids though), and Tilly is on the phone with her friend Martha and says, "Potter's here, the bank examiner's coming. It's a day of judgment." As George is about to interrupt Tilly on the phone, Billy cries for help and Tilly runs in and puts the fire out with a pot of coffee. George decides he is probably better off dealing with the situation by himself.[38]

text: Capra had filmed a number of sequences that were subsequently cut, the only remnants remaining being rare stills that have been unearthed.[41] A number of alternative endings were considered, with Capra's first script having Bailey falling to his knees reciting "The Lord's Prayer" (the script also called for an opening scene with the townspeople in prayer). Feeling that an overly religious tone did not have the emotional impact of the family and friends rushing to rescue George Bailey, the closing scenes were rewritten.[42][43][44]

text: Reception[edit]

text: It's a Wonderful Life premiered at the Globe Theatre in New York on December 20, 1946, to mixed reviews.[23] While Capra thought the contemporary critical reviews were either universally negative, or at best dismissive,[45] Time said, "It's a Wonderful Life is a pretty wonderful movie. It has only one formidable rival (Goldwyn's The Best Years of Our Lives) as Hollywood's best picture of the year. Director Capra's inventiveness, humor and affection for human beings keep it glowing with life and excitement."[46]

text: Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, complimented some of the actors, including Stewart and Reed, but concluded that "the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer's point of view, is the sentimentality of it—its illusory concept of life. Mr. Capra's nice people are charming, his small town is a quite beguiling place and his pattern for solving problems is most optimistic and facile. But somehow they all resemble theatrical attitudes rather than average realities."[47]

text: The film, which went into general release on January 7, 1947, placed 26th ($3.3 million) in box office revenues for 1947[2] (out of more than 400 features released),[48] one place ahead of another Christmas film, Miracle on 34th Street. The film was supposed to be released in January 1947, but was moved up to December 1946 to make it eligible for the 1946 Academy Awards. This move was seen as worse for the film, as 1947 did not have quite the stiff competition as 1946. If it had entered the 1947 Awards, its biggest competition would have been Miracle on 34th Street. The number one grossing movie of 1947, The Best Years of Our Lives, made $11.5 million.[2]

text: The film recorded a loss of $525,000 at the box office for RKO.[49]

text: On May 26, 1947, the FBI issued a memo stating, "With regard to the picture 'It's a Wonderful Life,' [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a 'scrooge-type' so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists. [In] addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters."[50][51][52]

text: In 1990, It's a Wonderful Life was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.[53]

text: In 2002, Britain's Channel 4 ranked It's a Wonderful Life as the seventh greatest film ever made in its poll "The 100 Greatest Films".[54]

text: In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 Top 10, the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres, after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. It's a Wonderful Life was acknowledged as the third-best film in the fantasy genre.[55][56]

text: Somewhat more iconoclastic views of the film and its content are occasionally expressed. In 1947, film critic Manny Farber wrote, "To make his points [Capra] always takes an easy, simple-minded path that doesn't give much credit to the intelligence of the audience", and adds that there are only a "few unsentimental moments here and there."[57][N 7] Wendell Jamieson, in a 2008 article for The New York Times which was generally positive in its analysis of the film, noted that far from being simply a sweet sentimental story, it "is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife."[58]

text: In a 2010 Salon.com piece, Richard Cohen described It's a Wonderful Life as "the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made". In the "Pottersville" sequence, he wrote, George is not seeing the world that would exist had he never been born, but rather 'the world as it does exist, in his time and also in our own."[59] Nine years earlier, another Salon writer, Gary Kamiya, had expressed the opposing view that "Pottersville rocks!," adding, "The gauzy, Currier-and-Ives veil Capra drapes over Bedford Falls has prevented viewers from grasping what a tiresome and, frankly, toxic environment it is... We all live in Pottersville now."[60]

text: The film's elevation to the status of a beloved classic came decades after its initial release, when it became a television staple during Christmas season in the late 1970s. This came as a welcome surprise to Frank Capra and others involved with its production. "It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen," Capra told The Wall Street Journal in 1984. "The film has a life of its own now, and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I'm like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I'm proud... but it's the kid who did the work. I didn't even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea."[61] In a 1946 interview, Capra described the film's theme as "the individual's belief in himself" and that he made it "to combat a modern trend toward atheism".[61]

text: The film's positive reception has continued into the present, and review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes currently reports a 94% "Certified Fresh" approval rating. The website's critical consensus reads, "The holiday classic to define all holiday classics, It's a Wonderful Life is one of a handful of films worth an annual viewing."[62]

text: Awards and honors[edit]

text: Prior to the Los Angeles release of It's a Wonderful Life, Liberty Films mounted an extensive promotional campaign that included a daily advertisement highlighting one of the film's players, along with comments from reviewers. Jimmy Starr wrote, "If I were an Oscar, I'd elope with It's a Wonderful Life lock, stock and barrel on the night of the Academy Awards". The New York Daily Times published an editorial that declared the film and James Stewart's performance to be worthy of Academy Award consideration.[63]

text: It's a Wonderful Life received five Academy Award nominations:[64]

text:
Award
Result
Nominee / Winner

Best Picture
Nominated
Frank Capra
Winner was Samuel Goldwyn – The Best Years of Our Lives

Best Director
Nominated
Frank Capra
Winner was William Wyler – The Best Years of Our Lives

Best Actor
Nominated
James Stewart
Winner was Fredric March – The Best Years of Our Lives

Best Film Editing
Nominated
William Hornbeck
Winner was Daniel Mandell – The Best Years of Our Lives

Best Sound Recording
Nominated
John Aalberg
Winner was John P. Livadary – The Jolson Story

Technical Achievement Award
Won
Russell Shearman and RKO Radio Studio Special Effects Dept.
For the development of a new method of simulating falling snow on motion picture sets.

text: It's a Wonderful Life won just the one Academy Award, in the Technical Achievement category for developing a new method of creating artificial snow.[65] Before It's a Wonderful Life, fake movie snow was mostly made from cornflakes painted white. And it was so loud when stepped on that any snow-filled scenes with dialogue had to be re-dubbed afterwards. RKO studio's head of special effects, Russell Sherman, developed a new compound, utilizing water, soap flakes, foamite and sugar.[66]

text: The Best Years of Our Lives, a drama about servicemen attempting to return to their pre-World War II lives, won most of the awards that year, including four of the five for which It's a Wonderful Life was nominated. (The award for "Best Sound Recording" was won by The Jolson Story.) The Best Years of Our Lives was also an outstanding commercial success, ultimately becoming the highest-grossing film of the decade, in contrast to the more modest initial box office returns of It's a Wonderful Life.[67]

text: It's a Wonderful Life received a Golden Globe Award:

text:
Award
Result
Winner

Best Director
Won
Frank Capra

text: Capra won the "Best Motion Picture Director" award from the Golden Globes, and a "CEC Award" from the Cinema Writers Circle in Spain, for Mejor Película Extranjera (Best Foreign Film). Jimmy Hawkins won a "Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Young Artist Awards in 1994; the award recognized his role as Tommy Bailey as igniting his career, which lasted until the mid-1960s.[68]

text: American Film Institute lists

text:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – 11
AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – 8
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:

Mr. Potter – No. 6 Villain
George Bailey – No. 9 Hero

AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:

"Buffalo Gal (Won't You Come Out Tonight)" – Nominated[69]

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:

"What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word, and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down." – Nominated[70]
"To my big brother George, the richest man in town!" – Nominated[70]
"Look, Daddy. Teacher says, 'Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.'" – Nominated[70]

AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – No. 1
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 20
AFI's 10 Top 10 – No. 3 Fantasy Film

text: Release[edit]

text: Ownership and copyright issues[edit]

text: Ancillary rights[edit]

text: Liberty Films was purchased by Paramount Pictures, and remained a subsidiary until 1951. In 1955, M. & A. Alexander purchased the movie. This included key rights to the original television syndication, the original nitrate film elements, the music score, and the film rights to the story on which the film is based, "The Greatest Gift".[N 8] National Telefilm Associates (NTA) took over the rights to the film soon thereafter.

text: A clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974.[72][73] Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still had to pay royalties because—though the film's images had entered the public domain—the film's story was still protected as a derivative work of the published story The Greatest Gift, whose copyright Philip Van Doren Stern had properly renewed in 1971.[74][75][N 9] The film became a perennial holiday favorite in the 1980s, possibly due to its repeated showings each holiday season on hundreds of local television stations. It was mentioned during the deliberations on the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.[74][76]

text: In 1993, Republic Pictures, which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend (which involved another Stewart film, Rear Window) to enforce its claim to the copyright. While the film's copyright had not been renewed, Republic still owned the film rights to "The Greatest Gift"; thus the plaintiffs were able to argue its status as a derivative work of a work still under copyright.[74][77] NBC, since 1996, is licensed to show the film on U.S. network television, and traditionally shows it twice during the holidays, with one showing on Christmas Eve. Paramount (via parent company Viacom's 1998 acquisition of Republic's then-parent, Spelling Entertainment) once again has distribution rights for the first time since 1955.[74][78]

text: Due to all the above actions, this is one of the few RKO films not controlled by Turner Entertainment/Warner Bros. in the USA. It is also one of two Capra films Paramount owns despite not having originally released it—the other is Broadway Bill (originally from Columbia, remade by Paramount as Riding High in 1950).[74]

text: Colorization[edit]

text: Director Capra met with Wilson Markle about having Colorization, Inc., colorize It's a Wonderful Life based on an enthusiastic response to the colorization of Topper from actor Cary Grant.[79] The company's art director Brian Holmes prepared 10 minutes of colorized footage from It's a Wonderful Life for Capra to view, which resulted in Capra signing a contract with Colorization, Inc., and his "enthusiastic agree[ment] to pay half the $260,000 cost of colorizing the movie and to share any profits" and giving "preliminary approval to making similar color versions of two of his other black-and-white films, Meet John Doe (1941) and Lady for a Day (1933)".[79] However, the film was believed to be in the public domain at the time, and as a result Markle and Holmes responded by returning Capra's initial investment, eliminating his financial participation, and refusing outright to allow the director to exercise artistic control over the colorization of his films, leading Capra to join in the campaign against the process.[79]

text: Three colorized versions have been produced. The first was released by Hal Roach Studios in 1986. The second was authorized and produced by the film's permanent owner, Republic Pictures, in 1989. Both Capra and Stewart took a critical stand on the colorized editions.[80] The Hal Roach color version was re-released in 1989 to VHS through the cooperation of Video Treasures. A third colorized version was produced by Legend Films and released on DVD in 2007 with the approval of Capra's estate.[citation needed]

text: Home media[edit]

text: VHS[edit]

text: Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, when the film was still under public domain status, It's A Wonderful Life was released on VHS by a variety of home video companies. Among the companies that released the film on home video before Republic Pictures stepped in were Meda Video (which would later become Media Home Entertainment), Kartes Video Communications (under its Video Film Classics label), GoodTimes Home Video and Video Treasures (now Anchor Bay Entertainment). After Republic reclaimed the rights to the film, all unofficial VHS copies of the film in print were destroyed.[77] Artisan Entertainment (under license from Republic) took over home video rights in the mid-1990s. Artisan was later sold to Lions Gate Entertainment, which continued to hold US home video rights until late 2005 when they reverted to Paramount, who also owns video rights throughout Region 4 (Latin America and Australia) and in France. Video rights in the rest of the world are held by different companies; for example, the UK rights are with Universal Studios.

text: Technological first: CD-ROM[edit]

text: In 1993, due in part to the confusion of the ownership and copyright issues, Kinesoft Development, with the support of Republic Pictures, released It's a Wonderful Life as one of the first commercial feature-length films on CD-ROM for the Windows PC (Windows 3.1). Predating commercial DVDs by several years, it included such features as the ability to follow along with the complete shooting script as the film was playing.[81][82][N 10]

text: Given the state of video playback on the PC at the time of its release, It's a Wonderful Life for Windows represented another first, as the longest running video on a computer. Prior to its release, Windows could only play back approx. 32,000 frames of video, or about 35 minutes at 15 frames per second. Working with Microsoft, Kinesoft was able to enhance the video features of Windows to allow for the complete playback of the entire film — all of this on a PC with a 486SX processor and only 8 MB of RAM.[83]

text: Computer Gaming World said in April 1994 that, "The picture quality still has a way to go before it reaches television standards," but was "...a noble effort" that would "please fans of the film."[84]

text: DVD and Blu-ray[edit]

text: The film has seen multiple DVD releases since the availability of the DVD format. In the autumn of 2001, Republic issued the movie twice, once in August, and again with different packaging in September of that same year. On October 31, 2006, Paramount released a newly restored "60th Anniversary Edition". On November 13, 2007, Paramount released a two-disc "special edition" DVD of the film that contained both the original theatrical black-and-white version, and a new, third colorized version, produced by Legend Films using the latest colorization technology. On November 3, 2009, Paramount released a DVD version with a "Collector's Edition" ornament, and a Blu-ray edition.

text: Adaptations in other media[edit]

text: The film was twice adapted for radio in 1947, first on Lux Radio Theater (March 10) and then on The Screen Guild Theater (December 29), then again on the Screen Guild Theater broadcast of March 15, 1951. James Stewart and Donna Reed reprised their roles for all three radio productions. Stewart also starred in the May 8, 1949 radio adaptation presented on the Screen Director's Playhouse.

text: A musical stage adaptation of the film, titled A Wonderful Life, was written by Sheldon Harnick and Joe Raposo. This version was first performed at the University of Michigan in 1986, but a planned professional production was stalled by legal wrangling with the estate of Philip Van Doren Stern. It was eventually performed in Washington, D.C. by Arena Stage in 1991, and had revivals in the 21st century, including a staged concert version in New York City in 2005 and several productions by regional theatres.

text: Another musical stage adaptation of the film, titled It's a Wonderful Life – The Musical, was written by Bruce Greer and Keith Ferguson. This version premiered at the Majestic Theatre, Dallas, Texas in 1998. It was an annual Christmas show at the theatre for five years. It has since been performed at venues all around the United States.[85]

text: The film was also adapted into a play in two acts by James W. Rodgers. It was first performed on December 15, 1993 at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. The play opens with George Bailey contemplating suicide and then goes back through major moments in his life. Many of the scenes from the movie are only alluded to or mentioned in the play rather than actually dramatized. For example, in the opening scene Clarence just mentions George having saved his brother Harry after the latter had fallen through the ice.[86]

text: It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, a stage adaptation presented as a 1940s radio show, was adapted by Joe Landry and has been produced around the United States since 1997. The script is published by Playscripts, Inc.

text: In 1997, PBS aired Merry Christmas, George Bailey, taped from a live performance of the 1947 Lux Radio Theatre script at the Pasadena Playhouse. The presentation, which benefited the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, featured an all-star cast including Bill Pullman as George, Nathan Lane as Clarence, Martin Landau as Mr. Potter, Penelope Ann Miller as Mary, and Sally Field as Mother Bailey.[87]

text: Philip Grecian's 2006 radio play based on the film It's a Wonderful Life is a faithful adaptation, now in its third incarnation, that has been performed numerous times by local theatres in Canada.[88]

text: In a June 2011 interview, John McDaniel told Saint Louis Magazine, "I'm in the throes of writing a musical version ... right now, working with Kathie Lee Gifford, who's doing the lyrics. I find we're mostly writing to character: Is it George, or the old guy who runs the bank? What do they want, what are they trying to do, what is the mood of that — is it staccato, are they agitated, is it a ballad?"[89]

text: The Last Temptation of Clarence Odbody is a novel written by John Pierson. The novel imagines the future lives of various characters if George had not survived his jump into the river.[90]

text: Potential sequel[edit]

text: A purported sequel was in development for a 2015 release, and was to be called It's a Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story. It was to be written by Bob Farnsworth and Martha Bolton and follow the angel of George Bailey's daughter Zuzu (played once again by Karolyn Grimes), as she teaches Bailey's evil grandson how different the world would have been if he had never been born. Producers were considering directors and hoped to shoot the film with a $25–$35 million budget in Louisiana early in 2014.[91]

text: The film had been announced as being produced by Star Partners and Hummingbird Productions, neither of which are affiliated with Paramount, owners of the original film (Farnsworth claimed that It's a Wonderful Life was in the public domain). Later, a Paramount spokesperson claimed that they were not granting permission to make the film, "To date, these individuals have not obtained any of the necessary rights, and we would take all appropriate steps to protect those rights," the spokesperson said.[92] No further developmental plans have since arisen.

text: Popular culture[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: It's a Wonderful Life has been popularized in modern cultural references in many of the mainstream media. Due to the proliferation of these references, a few examples will suffice to illustrate the film's impact.

text:
The Sesame Street Muppets characters Bert and Ernie share their names with the cop and the taxicab driver in the film. Longtime Muppets writer and puppeteer Jerry Juhl said he believed there was no connection and that this was a coincidence.[93] The episode Elmo Saves Christmas (1996), which featured a clip from the film, pokes fun at the persistent reports of a connection, having them look at each other in disbelief as George calls Bert and Ernie by name.[93]
The film is parodied in the Season 6 Christmas Special of the MTV animated television series Beavis and Butt-Head. Entitled It's a Miserable Life, a guardian angel appears to Butt-Head and shows him what life in Highland would be like if he were never born.
Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History takes its main title from the film. The book proposes that the evolution of life, rewound and replayed multiple times, would yield a different world each time, just as life without George Bailey is Pottersville, not Bedford Falls.
In It's a Hopeful Life, the Christmas 2011 episode of Raising Hope, Jimmy dreams how life for his family would have been had his daughter Hope not been born, including separation for his parents, prostitution for Sabrina and accidental death for Maw Maw, the "Clarence" of this story. The episode's climax has Jimmy running down the main street, shouting "Merry Christmas, movie house!" In an odd coincidence, this is the second time Cloris Leachman has played the angel, having previously starred as Clara in the 1977 TV remake It Happened One Christmas.
In an episode of Mork & Mindy, after Mork disrupts one of Mindy's dates, he has Orson show what Mindy (and her family's) lives would have been had he not been a part of it. After seeing how their lives turned out, Mork begs Orson to return him to the real world. When Mindy recognizes him again, he exclaims, "Oh, it's a wonderful life!"
It's a Wonderful Life features prominently in the literature versions of the TV series of Red Dwarf by Grant Naylor, most notably the books Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better Than Life. In Infinity, during his five-week love affair with Kristine Kochanski, it is revealed that It's a Wonderful Life is the favorite film of Dave Lister. In the third and last part of the book, named Back to Earth (later used as the title for the Easter special return of Red Dwarf), under the influence of the Better Than Life game, Lister ends up living in an exact replica of 1940s Bedford Falls, eternally stuck on Christmas Eve, and is even known to the townsfolk as "George". He also encounters a selection of the more notable supporting characters from the film, and references to film events and locations. In the beginning of the second book, Better Than Life, Lister's Bedford Falls is destroyed by Arnold Rimmer, whose mental state has become erratic. Unable to cope with good things happening to him, his mind begins to destroy the life of everyone around him, resulting in Bedford Falls altering to more closely resemble Pottersville.

text: Antecedent[edit]

text: In a 1997 review, film historian James Berardinelli commented on the parallels between this film and the classic Charles Dickens tale A Christmas Carol. In both stories, a man revisits his life and potential death (or non-existence) with the help of supernatural agents, culminating in a joyous epiphany and a renewed view of his life.[94]

text: Spin-offs[edit]

text: The film was remade as the 1977 television movie It Happened One Christmas. Lionel Chetwynd based the screenplay on the original Van Doren Stern short story and the 1946 screenplay. This remake employed gender-reversal, with Marlo Thomas as the protagonist Mary Bailey, Wayne Rogers as George Hatch, and Cloris Leachman as the angel Clara Oddbody.[N 11] Leachman received her second Emmy nomination for this role. In a significant departure from his earlier roles, Orson Welles was cast as Mr. Potter.[N 12] Following initial positive reviews, the made-for-television film was rebroadcast twice in 1978 and 1979, but has not been shown since on national re-broadcasts, nor issued in home media.[N 13][95]

text: In 1991, another made-for-television film called Clarence starred Robert Carradine in a new tale of the helpful angel.[96][97]