title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Built in 1838 and first incorporated in 1911, Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. Development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed including the first at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the present-day Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: In addition to tourism, Fort Lauderdale has a diversified economy including marine, manufacturing, finance, insurance, real estate, high technology, avionics/aerospace, film, and television production. The city is a popular tourist destination with an average year-round temperature of and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale, encompassing all of Broward County, hosted more than 13 million overnight visitors in 2018. Each year nearly 4 million cruise passengers pass through its Port Everglades, making it the third largest cruise port in the world. With over 50,000 registered yachts and 100 marinas, Fort Lauderdale is also known as the yachting capital of the world."


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s, there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915, was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit U.S. critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major U.S. base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Until July 1961, only whites were allowed on Ft. Lauderdale beaches. There were no beaches for African-Americans in Broward County until 1954, when "the Colored Beach," today Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park, was opened in Dania Beach; however, no road was built to it until 1965. On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of wade-ins as protests at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach." On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches, and Broward County beaches were desegregated in 1962.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: After the war ended, service members returned to the area, spurring an enormous population explosion that dwarfed the 1920s boom. The 1960 census counted 83,648 people in the city, about 230% of the 1950 figure. A 1967 report estimated that the city was approximately 85% developed, and the 1970 population figure was 139,590.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: After 1970, as Fort Lauderdale became essentially built out, growth in the area shifted to suburbs to the west. As cities such as Coral Springs, Miramar, and Pembroke Pines experienced explosive growth, Fort Lauderdale's population stagnated, and the city actually shrank by almost 4,000 people between 1980, when the city had 153,279 people, and 1990, when the population was 149,377. A slight rebound brought the population back up to 152,397 at the 2000 census. Since 2000, Fort Lauderdale has gained slightly over 18,000 residents through annexation of seven neighborhoods in unincorporated Broward County.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and of which is water (9.87%). Fort Lauderdale is known for its extensive network of canals; there are of waterways within the city limits.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The city of Fort Lauderdale is adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, includes of beaches, and borders the following municipalities:


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The northwestern section of Fort Lauderdale is separate from the remainder of the city, connected only by the Cypress Creek Canal as it flows under I-95. This section of Fort Lauderdale borders the cities of Tamarac and Oakland Park on its south side. Oakland Park also borders Fort Lauderdale on the west side of its northeastern portion. The greater portion of Fort Lauderdale in the south is bordered, along its north side by Wilton Manors.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Off the coast of Fort Lauderdale is the Osborne Reef, an artificial reef made of discarded tires that has proven to be an ecological disaster. The dumping began in the 1960s, with the intent of providing habitat for fish, while disposing of trash from the land. However, in the rugged and corrosive environment of the ocean, nylon straps used to secure the tires wore out, cables rusted, and tires broke free. The tires posed a particular threat after breaking free from their restraints. The tires then migrated shoreward, and ran into a living reef tract, washed up on its slope, and killed many things in their path. In recent years, thousands of tires have also washed up on nearby beaches, especially during hurricanes. Local authorities are now working to remove the 700,000 tires, in cooperation with the U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale has a program for designating and recognizing neighborhoods. Under the Neighborhood Organization Recognition Program, more than 60 distinct neighborhoods have received official recognition from the city. An additional 25–30 neighborhoods exist without official recognition, although the city's neighborhood map displays them as well.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: According to the Köppen climate classification, Fort Lauderdale has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen "Af"), landing just above a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen "Am") in terms of precipitation. While the city does not have a true dry season, much of the seasonal rainfall comes between May and October. Winters are frequently dry and sunny, and drought can be a concern in some years.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The wet season runs from May through October, and weather is typically hot, humid, and wet with average high temperatures of and lows of . During this period, more than half of summer days may bring brief afternoon or evening thunderstorms with lightning and bursts of intense rainfall. The record high temperature of was recorded on June 22, 2009 and August 4, 1944.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The dry season often arrives some time in November, and lasts through early to mid April. Seasonable weather is often warm, dry, and sunny. Average high temperatures of and lows of are typical in the dry season. On rare occasions, cool fronts may make it all the way south to Fort Lauderdale, and the city will see a day or two of highs in the 60s °F (16–21 °C) and lows in the 40s °F (4–10 °C). Rare frosts occur every few decades, and only once in recorded history have snow flurries been reported in the air, which occurred on January 19, 1977. During the dry season (winter), brush fires can be a concern in many years.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Annual average precipitation is , with most of it occurring during the wet season from May through October. However, rainfall occurs in all months, even during the drier months from November through April. Fort Lauderdale has an average of 131 precipitation days annually. The hurricane season is between June 1 and November 30, with major hurricanes most likely to affect the city or state in September and October. The most recent storms to directly affect the city were Hurricane Irma in 2017, in addition to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Wilma, both of which struck the city in 2005. Other direct hits were Hurricane Cleo in 1964, Hurricane King in 1950, and the 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 182,760 people, 76,348 households, and 37,859 families residing in the city.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: , those of (non-Hispanic white) European ancestry accounted for 52.5% of Fort Lauderdale's population. Out of the 52.5%, 10.3% were Irish, 10.1% German, 8.1% Italian, 7.1% English, 3.0% Polish, 2.1% French, 1.9% Russian, 1.7% Scottish, 1.2% Scotch-Irish, 1.0% Dutch, 1.0% Swedish, 0.6% Greek, 0.6% Hungarian, 0.5% Norwegian, and 0.5% were French Canadian.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: , those of African ancestry accounted for 31.0% of Fort Lauderdale's population, which includes African Americans. Out of the 31.0%, 10.0% were West Indian or Afro-Caribbean American (6.4% Haitian, 2.5% Jamaican, 0.4% Bahamian, 0.2% Other or Unspecified West Indian, 0.2% British West Indian, 0.1% Trinidadian and Tobagonian, 0.1% Barbadian), 0.6% were Black Hispanics, and 0.5% were Subsaharan African.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: , those of Hispanic or Latino ancestry accounted for 13.7% of Fort Lauderdale's population. Out of the 13.7%, 2.5% were Cuban, 2.3% Puerto Rican, 1.7% Mexican, 1.1% Colombian, 0.9% Guatemalan, 0.8% Salvadoran, 0.6% Honduran, and 0.6% were Peruvian.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: , those of Asian ancestry accounted for 1.5% of Fort Lauderdale's population. Out of the 1.5%, 0.4% were Indian, 0.3% Filipino, 0.3% Other Asian, 0.2% Chinese, 0.1% Vietnamese, 0.1% Japanese, and 0.1% were Korean.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: In 2010, 7.1% of the population considered themselves to be of only American ancestry (regardless of race or ethnicity).


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: , there were 74,786 occupied households, while 19.7% were vacant. 17.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 30.4% were married couples living together, 12.3% have a female head of household with no husband present, and 52.4% were non-families. 39.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older (4.8% male and 6.3% female.) The average household size was 2.17 and the average family size was 3.00.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: In 2010, the city population was spread out, with 17.6% under the age of 18, 8.1% from 18 to 24, 28.4% from 25 to 44, 30.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.2 years. For every 100 females, there were 111.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 113.1 males.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: , the median income for a household in the city was $49,818, and the median income for a family was $59,238. Males had a median income of $46,706 versus $37,324 for females. The per capita income for the city was $35,828. About 13.1% of families and 18.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 30.3% of those under age 18 and 12.5% of those aged 65 or over.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: In 2010, 21.3% of the city's population was foreign-born. Of foreign-born residents, 69.6% were born in Latin America and 15.3% were born in Europe, with smaller percentages from North America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: In 2000, Fort Lauderdale had the twenty-sixth highest percentage of Haitian residents in the US, at 6.9% of the city's population, and the 127th highest percentage of Cuban residents, at 1.7% of the city's residents.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Like South Florida in general, Fort Lauderdale has many residents who can speak languages other than English, although its proportion is lower than the county average. , 75.63% of the population spoke only English at home, while 24.37% spoke other first languages. Speakers of Spanish were 9.43%, French Creole (mostly Haitian Creole) 7.52%, French 2.04%, Portuguese 1.02%, Italian 0.82%, and German at 0.80%.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The city, along with adjacent small cities Oakland Park and Wilton Manors, is known for its notably large LGBT community, and has one of the highest ratios of gay men and lesbians, with gay men being more largely present. The city is also known as a popular vacation spot for gays and lesbians, with many LGBT or LGBT-friendly hotels and guesthouses. Fort Lauderdale hosts the Stonewall Library & Archives, and in neighboring Wilton Manors, there is the Pride Center, a large LGBT community center, in addition to the World AIDS Museum and Educational Center. The current Mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Dean Trantalis, is the first openly gay person to hold this office.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale's economy has diversified over time. From the 1940s through the 1980s, the city was known as a spring break destination for college students. The college crowd has since dwindled, however, with the city now attracting wealthier tourists. Cruise ships and nautical recreation provide the basis for much of the revenue raised by tourism. There is a convention center west of the beach and southeast of downtown, with of space, including a main exhibit hall. Approximately 30% of the city's 10 million annual visitors attend conventions at the center.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The downtown area, especially around Las Olas Boulevard, first underwent redevelopment starting in 2002, and now hosts many new hotels and high-rise condominium developments. The city's central business district is the largest downtown in Broward County, although there are other cities in the county with commercial centers. Office buildings and high-rises include: Las Olas River House, Las Olas Grand, 110 Tower (formerly AutoNation Tower), Bank of America Plaza, One Financial Plaza, Broward Financial Center, One East Broward Boulevard, Barnett Bank Plaza, PNC Center, New River Center, One Corporate Center, SunTrust Centre, 101 Tower, and SouthTrust Tower.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale is a major manufacturing and maintenance center for yachts. The boating industry is responsible for over 109,000 jobs in the county. With its many canals, and proximity to the Bahamas and Caribbean, it is also a popular yachting vacation stop, and home port for 42,000 boats, and approximately 100 marinas and boatyards. Additionally, the annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, the world's largest boat show, brings over 125,000 people to the city each year.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Companies based in the Fort Lauderdale and Broward County area include, but not limited to: AutoNation, Citrix Systems, Commcare Pharmacy, DHL Express, KEMET Corporation, SEACOR Holdings, Spirit Airlines, and National Beverage Corporation. The largest employers in the county are Tenet Healthcare, which employs 5,000 people; American Express, which employs 4,200; FirstService Residential, which employs 3,900; Motorola, which employs 3,000; and Maxim Integrated Products, which employs 2,000.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale was recently listed as 2017's third best city out of 150 U.S. cities by WalletHub for summer jobs, and the 24th best city to start a career in.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Like many parts of Florida, the city's population has a strong seasonal variation, as "snowbirds" from the northern United States, Canada, and Europe spend the winter and spring in Florida. The city is known for its beaches, bars, nightclubs, and history as a spring break location, back in the 1960s and 1970s, for tens of thousands of college students. The city has discouraged college students from visiting the area since the mid-1980s, however, by passing strict laws aimed at preventing the mayhem that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. The city had an estimated 350,000 college visitors for spring break 1985; by 1989, that number had declined to about 20,000. Since the 1990s, Fort Lauderdale has increasingly catered to those seeking the resort lifestyle seasonally or year-round, and is often a host city to many professional venues, concerts, and art shows.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale's arts and entertainment district, otherwise known as the Riverwalk Arts & Entertainment District, runs east–west along Las Olas Boulevard, from the beach to the heart of downtown. The district is anchored in the West by the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, and runs through the city to the intersection of Las Olas and A1A. This intersection is the "ground zero" of Fort Lauderdale Beach, and is the site of the Elbo Room bar featured in the 1960 film "Where the Boys Are", which led in large measure to the city's former reputation as a spring break mecca. The city and its suburbs host over 4,100 restaurants and over 120 nightclubs, many of them in the arts and entertainment district. The city is also the setting for the 1986 movie "Flight of the Navigator", and host of Langerado, an annual music festival. In 2013, the county welcomed about 1.3 million LGBT travelers who spent about $1.5 billion in area restaurants, hotels, attractions, and shops, according to the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Hugh Taylor Birch State Park is a park along the beach, with nature trails, camping and picnicking areas, canoeing, and features the Terramar Visitor Center, with exhibits about the ecosystem of the park. Hugh Taylor Birch came to Florida in 1893. He purchased ocean-front property for about a dollar per acre, he eventually owned a 3.5-mile stretch of beachfront. The Bonnet House is a historic home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. Bonnet House's modern history began when Birch gave the Bonnet House property as a wedding gift to his daughter, Helen, and her husband, Chicago artist Frederic Clay Bartlett in 1919. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic places in 1984, and declared a historic landmark by the City of Fort Lauderdale in 2002.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Henry E. Kinney Tunnel on U.S. Route 1 is the only tunnel on a state road in the state of Florida. It was constructed in 1960, and its length travels underneath the New River and Las Olas Boulevard.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Just minutes from the beach is the Riverwalk Arts and Entertainment District in downtown Fort Lauderdale, home to cultural attractions, shops, parks, and restaurants. Along the Riverwalk’s brick-lined meandering promenade, visitors can enjoy many attractions, such as: the Broward Center for the Performing Arts; Museum of Discovery and Science ,with its AutoNation 3D IMAX Theater; Florida Grand Opera; Fort Lauderdale Historical Center; Stranahan House; and the Museum of Art.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Las Olas Boulevard is a popular thoroughfare in downtown Fort Lauderdale that runs from Andrews Avenue in the Central Business District to A1A and Fort Lauderdale Beach. The boulevard is a popular attraction for locals and visitors, being ideally situated close to Fort Lauderdale beach, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, and Port Everglades. It is considered to be South Florida's most architecturally unique, authentic, and eclectic shopping and dining district.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: In addition to its museums, beaches, and nightlife, Fort Lauderdale is home to: the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop, a large indoor/outdoor flea market, and the site of the world's largest drive-in movie theater, with 13 screens; North Woodlawn Cemetery, an African-American cemetery east of Interstate 95 near Sunrise Boulevard, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017; Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale, an evangelical megachurch in Fort Lauderdale; and the annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, where almost 500 boats, yachts, and mega-yachts are on display.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The following are images of some of the remaining historical structures in Fort Lauderdale. Some are listed in the National Register of Historic Places:


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale was the home of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, which played in the most recent incarnation of the North American Soccer League. It was the home of the original Fort Lauderdale Strikers, which played in the previous version of the North American Soccer League. The Miami Fusion of Major League Soccer played home games at this stadium from 1998 to 2001. The Florida Atlantic University Owls football team played its home games at Lockhart Stadium from 2003 through 2010.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, and Kansas City Royals used to conduct spring training in the city at Fort Lauderdale Stadium.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale is also home to the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex, which is at the International Swimming Hall of Fame. It contains two by 50-meter competition pools, as well as one 20 by diving well. The complex is open to Fort Lauderdale residents, and has also been used in many different national and international competitions since its opening in 1965. Ten world records have been set there, from Catie Ball's 100 m breaststroke in 1966, to Michael Phelps' 400 m individual medley in 2002.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: DRV PNK Stadium was opened in 2020 as the home of Inter Miami CF II (then Fort Lauderdale CF) which played in USL League One from 2020 to 2021 and plays in MLS Next Pro from 2022, and the temporary home of 2020 MLS expansion team Inter Miami CF, until the completion of Miami Freedom Park in Miami.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The War Memorial Auditorium has hosted professional wrestling, boxing, and mixed martial arts shows since its opening in 1950. In 2019, the Florida Panthers signed a 50-year lease with the venue, with plans to renovate it and add hockey facilities.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale has a Commission-Manager form of government. City policy is set by a city commission of five elected members: the mayor and four district commission members. In 1998, the municipal code was amended to limit the mayoral term. The mayor of Fort Lauderdale now serves a three-year term, and cannot serve more than three consecutive terms. The current mayor is Dean Trantalis, who succeeded Jack Seiler in 2018. The longest-serving mayor is Jim Naugle, who served from 1991 to 2009. Administrative functions are performed by a city manager, who is appointed by the city commission. Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue Department provides Fire and Emergency Medical Services.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: According to 2000 census data, 79.0% of the city's population aged 25 or older were high school graduates, slightly below the national figure of 80.4%. Additionally, 27.9% held at least a baccalaureate, slightly higher than the national figure of 24.4%. Broward County Public Schools operates 23 public schools in Fort Lauderdale. The 2007 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) results for Fort Lauderdale's public schools were mixed; while 10 (of 16) elementary schools and one (of four) middle schools received "A" or "B" grades, Sunland Park Elementary School and Arthur Ashe Middle School received failing grades. Boyd Anderson High School, which is in Lauderdale Lakes but whose attendance zone includes part of Fort Lauderdale, also received a failing grade. None of the three failing schools have failed twice in a four-year period, thus triggering the "Opportunity Scholarship Program" school choice provisions of the Florida's education plan.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Additionally, the Davenport, Iowa-based Kaplan University's Corporate headquarters and an academic support center are in the city.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale is served by English-language newspapers "South Florida-Sun Sentinel" and "The Miami Herald", Spanish-language newspapers "El Sentinel", "El Nuevo Herald," and an alternative newspaper "New Times Broward-Palm Beach".


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Broward County Transit (BCT), the county bus system, provides local bus transportation. BCT provides for connections with the bus systems in other parts of the metropolitan area: Metrobus in Dade County, and Palm Tran in Palm Beach County. Tri-Rail, a commuter rail system, connects south Florida's major cities and airports. In November 2006, Broward County voters rejected a one-cent-per-hundred sales tax increase intended to fund transportation projects, such as light rail and bus system expansion.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: The Wave (streetcar), a new electric streetcar system costing $125 million, was being planned for the downtown. Most of the construction funding would have come from federal ($62.5 million), state ($37 million), and city taxpayers ($10.5 million), with approximately $15 million from assessments on properties within the Downtown Development Authority. Broward County (BCT) had committed to operating the system for the first 10 years at an expected annual cost of $2 million, and had guaranteed funding to cover any shortfall in ridership revenues. The construction cost of $50 million per mile was considerably higher than other recently built streetcar projects, in part due to the challenges of building an electric transit system over the 3rd Avenue drawbridge. The project was canceled in 2018 by the City and the County.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Brightline has a station in Fort Lauderdale, which connects to Miami and West Palm Beach with multiple trains daily. Construction is underway to extend the line beyond West Palm Beach to Orlando by 2023. Tri-Rail also provides daily commuter service between Palm Beach County, Broward County (including two stations in Fort Lauderdale), and Miami-Dade County with dozens of local stations. Amtrak provides long-distance passenger service daily on the "Silver Meteor" and "Silver Star" lines connecting to cities on the Atlantic coast via the Fort Lauderdale station.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, near Dania Beach, Florida, is the city's main airport and is the fastest-growing major airport in the country. This is, in part, attributable to service by low-cost carriers, such as Spirit Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines and Silver Airways, resulting in lower airfares than nearby Miami International Airport. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood is an emerging international gateway for the Caribbean and Latin America. Miami International Airport and Palm Beach International Airport also serve the city.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale is home to Port Everglades, the nation's third busiest cruise port. It is Florida's deepest port, and is an integral petroleum receiving point. Fort Lauderdale is served by a regular international passenger ferry service to Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas operated by Baleària Bahamas Express.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Broward County is served by three major Interstate Highways (I-75, I-95, I-595) and U.S. Highways, such as U.S. 1, US 27 and US 441. The interchange between I-95 and I-595/SR 862 is known as the Rainbow Interchange. It is also served by Florida's Turnpike and State Highway 869, also known as the Sawgrass Expressway.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale is served by Broward General Medical Center and Imperial Point Medical Center, which are operated by Broward Health, the third largest hospital consortium in the United States. Broward General is a 716-bed acute care facility that is designated as a Level I trauma center. It is also home to Chris Evert Children's Hospital and a Heart Center of Excellence. The hospital serves as a major training site for medical students from Nova Southeastern University's College of Osteopathic Medicine, as well as nursing and paramedic programs from throughout the area. Imperial Point Medical Center is a 204-bed facility with a hyperbaric medicine program. Holy Cross Hospital, a 571-bed hospital operated by the Sisters of Mercy, was named by HealthGrades as one of the 50 best hospitals in the country for 2007.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (, ; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latvian-American abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular regions of color, which he produced from 1949 to 1970.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Although Rothko did not personally subscribe to any one school, he is associated with the American Abstract Expressionist movement of modern art. Originally emigrating to Portland, Oregon from Russia with his family, Rothko later moved to New York City where his youthful period of artistic production dealt primarily with urban scenery. In response to World War II, Rothko's art entered a transitional phase during the 1940s, where he experimented with mythological themes and Surrealism to express tragedy. Toward the end of the decade Rothko painted canvases with regions of pure color which he further abstracted into rectangular color forms, the idiom he would use for the rest of his life.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In his later career, Rothko executed several canvases for three different mural projects. The Seagram murals were to have decorated the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building, but Rothko eventually grew disgusted with the idea that his paintings would be decorative objects for wealthy diners and refunded the lucrative commission, donating the paintings to museums including the Tate Modern. The Harvard Mural series was gifted to a dining room in Harvard's Holyoke Center (now Smith Campus Center); their colors faded badly over time due to Rothko's use of the pigment Lithol Red together with regular sunlight exposure. The Harvard series has since been restored using a special lighting technique. Rothko contributed 14 canvases to a permanent installation at the Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Although Rothko lived modestly for much of his life, the resale value of his paintings grew tremendously in the decades following his suicide in 1970.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Mark Rothko was born in Daugavpils, Latvia (then in the Russian Empire). His father, Jacob (Yakov) Rothkowitz, was a pharmacist and intellectual who initially provided his children with a secular and political, rather than religious, upbringing. According to Rothko, his Marxist father was "violently anti-religious". In an environment where Jews were often blamed for many of the evils that befell Russia, Rothko's early childhood was plagued by fear.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Despite Jacob Rothkowitz's modest income, the family was highly educated ("We were a reading family", Rothko's sister recalled), and Rothko spoke Lithuanian Yiddish (Litvish), Hebrew and Russian. Following his father's return to the Orthodox Judaism of his own youth, Rothko, the youngest of four siblings, was sent to the cheder at age five, where he studied the Talmud, although his elder siblings had been educated in the public school system.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Fearing that his elder sons were about to be drafted into the Imperial Russian Army, Jacob Rothkowitz emigrated from Russia to the United States. Markus remained in Russia with his mother and elder sister Sonia. They arrived as immigrants, at Ellis Island, in late 1913. From there, they crossed the country, to join Jacob and the elder brothers, in Portland, Oregon. Jacob's death, a few months later, of colon cancer, left the family without economic support. Sonia operated a cash register, while Markus worked in one of his uncle's warehouses, selling newspapers to employees. His father's death also led Rothko to sever his ties with religion. After he had mourned his father's death for almost a year at a local synagogue, he vowed never to set foot in one again.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko started school in the United States in 1913, quickly accelerating from third to fifth grade. In June 1921, he completed the secondary level, with honors, at Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon, at age 17.


title: Mark Rothko

text: He learned his fourth language, English, and became an active member of the Jewish community center, where he proved adept at political discussions. Like his father, Rothko was passionate about issues such as workers' rights and contraception. At the time, Portland was a center of revolutionary activity in the U.S. and the region where the revolutionary syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was active.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Having grown up around radical workers' meetings, Rothko attended meetings of the IWW, including such speakers as the radical socialist Bill Haywood and the anarchist Emma Goldman, where he developed strong oratorical skills he later used in defense of Surrealism. With the onset of the Russian Revolution, Rothko organized debates about it. Despite the repressive political atmosphere, he wished to become a labor union organizer.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko received a scholarship to Yale. At the end of his freshman year in 1922, the scholarship was not renewed, and he worked as a waiter and delivery boy to support his studies. He found Yale elitist and racist. Rothko and a friend, Aaron Director, started a satirical magazine, "The Yale Saturday Evening Pest", that lampooned the school's stuffy, bourgeois tone. Rothko was more an autodidact than a diligent pupil: One of his fellow students remembers that he hardly seemed to study, but that he was a voracious reader. At the end of his sophomore year, Rothko dropped out, and he did not return until he was awarded an honorary degree 46 years later.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In the autumn of 1923, Rothko found work in New York's garment district. While visiting a friend at the Art Students League of New York, he saw students sketching a model. According to Rothko, this was the beginning of his life as an artist. He later enrolled in the Parsons The New School for Design, where one of his instructors was Arshile Gorky. Rothko characterized Gorky's leadership of the class as "overcharged with supervision." That same autumn, he took courses at the Art Students League taught by Cubist artist Max Weber, who had been a part of the French avant-garde movement. To his students eager to know about Modernism, Weber was seen as "a living repository of modern art history". Under Weber's tutelage, Rothko began to view art as a tool of emotional and religious expression. Rothko's paintings from this era reveal the influence of his instructor. Years later, when Weber attended a show of his former student's work and expressed his admiration, Rothko was immensely pleased.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's move to New York landed him in a fertile artistic atmosphere. Modernist painters regularly exhibited in New York galleries, and the city's museums were an invaluable resource for a budding artist's knowledge and skills. Among the important early influences on him were the works of the German Expressionists, the surrealist art of Paul Klee, and the paintings of Georges Rouault.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1928, with a group of other young artists, Rothko exhibited works at the Opportunity Gallery. His paintings, including dark, moody, expressionist interiors and urban scenes, were generally well accepted among critics and peers. To supplement his income, in 1929 Rothko began instructing schoolchildren in drawing, painting, and clay sculpture at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, where he remained active for over twenty years.


title: Mark Rothko

text: During the early 1930s, Rothko met Adolph Gottlieb, who, along with Barnett Newman, Joseph Solman, Louis Schanker, and John Graham, was part of a group of young artists surrounding the painter Milton Avery. According to Elaine de Kooning, it was Avery who "gave Rothko the idea that [the life of a professional artist] was a possibility." Avery's abstract nature paintings, utilizing a rich knowledge of form and color, had a tremendous influence on him. Soon, Rothko's paintings took on subject matter and color similar to Avery's, as seen in "Bathers, or Beach Scene" of 1933–1934.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko, Gottlieb, Newman, Solman, Graham, and their mentor, Avery, spent considerable time together, vacationing at Lake George, New York, and Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the daytime they painted, then discussed art in the evenings. During a 1932 visit to Lake George, Rothko met Edith Sachar, a jewelry designer, whom he married later that year. The following summer, his first one-person show was held at the Portland Art Museum, consisting mostly of drawings and aquarelles. For this exhibition, Rothko took the very unusual step of displaying works done by his pre-adolescent students from the Center Academy, alongside his own. His family was unable to understand Rothko's decision to be an artist, especially considering the dire economic situation of the Depression. Having suffered serious financial setbacks, the Rothkowitzes were mystified by Rothko's seeming indifference to financial necessity. They felt he was doing his mother a disservice by not finding a more lucrative and realistic career.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Returning to New York, Rothko had his first East Coast one-person show at the Contemporary Arts Gallery. He showed fifteen oil paintings, mostly portraits, along with some aquarelles and drawings. Among these works, the oil paintings especially captured the art critics' eyes. Rothko's use of rich fields of colors moved beyond Avery's influence. In late 1935, Rothko joined with Ilya Bolotowsky, Ben-Zion, Adolph Gottlieb, Louis Harris, Ralph Rosenborg, Louis Schanker and Joseph Solman to form "The Ten". According to a gallery show catalog, the mission of the group was "to protest against the reputed equivalence of American painting and literal painting."


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko was earning a growing reputation among his peers, particularly among the group that formed the Artists' Union. The Artists' Union, including Gottlieb and Solman, hoped to create a municipal art gallery, to show self-organized group exhibitions. In 1936, the group exhibited at the Galerie Bonaparte in France, which resulted in some positive critical attention. One reviewer remarked that Rothko's paintings "display authentic coloristic values." Later, in 1938, a show was held at the Mercury Gallery in New York, intended as a protest against the Whitney Museum of American Art, which the group regarded as having a provincial, regionalist agenda. Also during this period, Rothko, like Avery, Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, and many others, found employment with the Works Progress Administration.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's work has been described in eras. His early period (1924-1939) saw representational art inflected by impressionism, usually depicting urban scenes. His middle, "transitional" years (1940-1950) involved phases of figurative mythological abstraction, "biomorphic" abstraction, and "multiforms", the latter being canvases with large regions of color. Rothko's transitional decade was influenced by World War II, which prompted him to seek novel expression of tragedy in art. During this time Rothko was influenced by ancient Greek tragedians such as Aeschylus and his reading of Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy". In Rothko's mature or "classic" period (1951-1970), he consistently painted rectangular regions of color, intended as "dramas" to elicit an emotional response from the viewer.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1936, Rothko began writing a book, never completed, about similarities in the art of children and the work of modern painters. According to Rothko, the work of modernists, influenced by primitive art, could be compared to that of children in that "child art transforms itself into primitivism, which is only the child producing a mimicry of himself." In this manuscript, he observed: "Tradition of starting with drawing in academic notion. We may start with color." Rothko was using fields of color in his aquarelles and city scenes. His style was already evolving in the direction of his renowned later works. Despite this newfound exploration of color, Rothko turned his attention to other formal and stylistic innovations, inaugurating a period of surrealist paintings influenced by mythological fables and symbols.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko separated temporarily from his wife Edith in mid-1937. They reconciled several months later, but their relationship remained tense and they would divorce in 1944. On February 21, 1938, Rothko finally became a citizen of the United States, prompted by fears that the growing Nazi influence in Europe might provoke sudden deportation of American Jews. Concerned about antisemitism in America and Europe, Rothko in 1940 abbreviated his name from "Markus Rothkowitz" to "Mark Rothko". The name "Roth", a common abbreviation, was still identifiably Jewish, so he settled upon "Rothko."


title: Mark Rothko

text: Fearing that modern American painting had reached a conceptual dead end, Rothko was intent upon exploring subjects other than urban and nature scenes. He sought subjects that would complement his growing interest with form, space, and color. The world crisis of war gave this search a sense of immediacy. He insisted that the new subject matter have a social impact, yet be able to transcend the confines of current political symbols and values. In his essay "The Romantics Were Prompted," published in 1948, Rothko argued that the "archaic artist ... found it necessary to create a group of intermediaries, monsters, hybrids, gods and demigods," in much the same way that modern man found intermediaries in Fascism and the Communist Party. For Rothko, "without monsters and gods, art cannot enact a drama".


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's use of mythology as a commentary on current history was not novel. Rothko, Gottlieb, and Newman read and discussed the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. In particular, they took interest in psychoanalytical theories concerning dreams, and archetypes of a collective unconscious. They understood mythological symbols as images, operating in a space of human consciousness, which transcends specific history and culture. Rothko later said that his artistic approach was "reformed" by his study of the "dramatic themes of myth". He allegedly stopped painting altogether in 1940, to immerse himself in reading Sir James Frazer's study of mythology "The Golden Bough", and Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams".


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's new vision attempted to address modern man's spiritual and creative mythological requirements. The most crucial philosophical influence on Rothko in this period was Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy". Nietzsche claimed that Greek tragedy served to redeem man from the terrors of mortal life. The exploration of novel topics in modern art ceased to be Rothko's goal. From this time on, his art had the goal of relieving modern man's spiritual emptiness. He believed that this emptiness resulted partly from lack of a mythology, which, according to Nietzsche, "The images of the myth have to be the unnoticed omnipresent demonic guardians, under whose care the young soul grows to maturity and whose signs help the man to interpret his life and struggles." Rothko believed his art could free unconscious energies, previously bound by mythological images, symbols, and rituals. He considered himself a "mythmaker", and proclaimed that "the exhilarated tragic experience is for me the only source of art".


title: Mark Rothko

text: Many of his paintings in this period contrast barbaric scenes of violence with civilized passivity, using imagery drawn primarily from Aeschylus's "Oresteia" trilogy. A list of Rothko's paintings from this period illustrates his use of myth: "Antigone", "Oedipus", "The Sacrifice of Iphigenia", "Leda", "The Furies", "Altar of Orpheus". Rothko evokes Judeo-Christian imagery in "Gethsemane", "The Last Supper", and "Rites of Lilith". He also invokes Egyptian ("Room in Karnak") and Syrian ("The Syrian Bull") myth. Soon after World War II, Rothko believed his titles limited the larger, transcendent aims of his paintings. To allow maximum interpretation by the viewer, he stopped naming and framing his paintings, referring to them only by numbers.


title: Mark Rothko

text: At the root of Rothko and Gottlieb's presentation of archaic forms and symbols, illuminating modern existence, had been the influence of Surrealism, Cubism, and abstract art. In 1936, Rothko attended two exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, "Cubism and Abstract Art", and "Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism".


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1942, following the success of shows by Ernst, Miró, Wolfgang Paalen, Tanguy, and Salvador Dalí, artists who had immigrated to the United States because of the war, Surrealism took New York by storm. Rothko and his peers, Gottlieb and Newman, met and discussed the art and ideas of these European pioneers, as well as those of Mondrian.


title: Mark Rothko

text: New paintings were unveiled at a 1942 show at Macy's department store in New York City. In response to a negative review by "The New York Times", Rothko and Gottlieb issued a manifesto, written mainly by Rothko. Addressing the "Times" critic's self-professed "befuddlement" over the new work, they stated "We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth." On a more strident note, they criticised those who wanted to live surrounded by less challenging art, noting that their work necessarily "must insult anyone who is spiritually attuned to interior decoration".


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's viewed myth as a replenishing resource for an era of spiritual void. This belief had begun decades earlier, through his reading of Carl Jung, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce and Thomas Mann, among other authors.


title: Mark Rothko

text: On June 13, 1943, Rothko and Sachar separated again. Rothko suffered a depression following their divorce. Thinking that a change of scenery might help, Rothko returned to Portland. From there, he traveled to Berkeley, where he met artist Clyfford Still, and the two began a close friendship. Still's deeply abstract paintings would be of considerable influence on Rothko's later works. In the autumn of 1943, Rothko returned to New York. He met with noted collector and art dealer Peggy Guggenheim, but she was initially reluctant to take on his artworks. Rothko's one-person show at Guggenheim's The Art of This Century Gallery, in late 1945, resulted in few sales, with prices ranging from $150 to $750. The exhibit also attracted less-than-favorable reviews from critics. During this period, Rothko had been stimulated by Still's abstract landscapes of color, and his style shifted away from surrealism. Rothko's experiments in interpreting the unconscious symbolism of everyday forms had run their course. His future lay with abstraction:


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's masterpiece "Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea" (1945) illustrates his newfound propensity towards abstraction. It has been interpreted as a meditation on Rothko's courtship of his second wife, Mary Alice "Mell" Beistle, whom he met in 1944 and married in early 1945. Other readings have noted echoes of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", which Rothko saw at an "Italian Masters" loan exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1940. The painting presents, in subtle grays and browns, two human-like forms embraced in a swirling, floating atmosphere of shapes and colors. The rigid rectangular background foreshadows Rothko's later experiments in pure color. The painting was completed, not coincidentally, in the year the Second World War ended.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Despite the abandonment of his "Mythomorphic Abstractionism", Rothko would still be recognized by the public primarily for his surrealist works, for the remainder of the 1940s. The Whitney Museum included them in their annual exhibit of contemporary art from 1943 to 1950.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1946, Rothko created what art critics have since termed his transitional "multiform" paintings. Although Rothko never used the term multiform himself, it is nonetheless an accurate description of these paintings. Several of them, including "No. 18" and "Untitled" (both 1948), are less transitional than fully realized. Rothko himself described these paintings as possessing a more organic structure, and as self-contained units of human expression. For him, these blurred blocks of various colors, devoid of landscape or the human figure, let alone myth and symbol, possessed their own life force. They contained a "breath of life" he found lacking in most figurative painting of the era. They were filled with possibility, whereas his experimentation with mythological symbolism had become a tired formula. The "multiforms" brought Rothko to a realization of his signature style of rectangular regions of color, which he continued to produce for the rest of his life.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In the middle of this crucial period of transition, Rothko had been impressed by Clyfford Still's abstract fields of color, which were influenced in part by the landscapes of Still's native North Dakota.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1947, during a summer semester teaching at the California School of Fine Art, Rothko and Still flirted with the idea of founding their own curriculum. In 1948, Rothko, Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Barnett Newman, and David Hare founded the Subjects of the Artist School at 35 East 8th Street. Well attended lectures there were open to the public, with speakers such as Jean Arp, John Cage and Ad Reinhardt, but the school failed financially and closed in the spring of 1949. Although the group separated later in the same year, the school was the center of a flurry of activity in contemporary art. In addition to his teaching experience, Rothko began to contribute articles to two new art publications, "Tiger's Eye" and "Possibilities". Using the forums as an opportunity to assess the current art scene, Rothko also discussed in detail his own work and philosophy of art. These articles reflect the elimination of figurative elements from his painting, and a specific interest in the new contingency debate launched by Wolfgang Paalen's "Form and Sense" publication of 1945.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko described his new method as "unknown adventures in an unknown space", free from "direct association with any particular, and the passion of organism". Breslin described this change of attitude as "both self and painting are now fields of possibilities – an effect conveyed ... by the creation of protean, indeterminate shapes whose multiplicity is let be."


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1949, Rothko became fascinated by Henri Matisse's "Red Studio", acquired by the Museum of Modern Art that year. He later credited it as another key source of inspiration for his later abstract paintings.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Soon, the "multiforms" developed into the signature style; by early 1949 Rothko exhibited these new works at the Betty Parsons Gallery. For critic Harold Rosenberg, the paintings were nothing short of a revelation. After painting his first "multiform", Rothko had secluded himself to his home in East Hampton on Long Island. He invited only a select few, including Rosenberg, to view the new paintings. The discovery of his definitive form came at a period of great distress to the artist; his mother Kate had died in October 1948. Rothko happened upon the use of symmetrical rectangular blocks of two to three opposing or contrasting, yet complementary, colors, in which, for example, "the rectangles sometimes seem barely to coalesce out of the ground, concentrations of its substance. The green bar in "Magenta, Black, Green on Orange", on the other hand, appears to vibrate against the orange around it, creating an optical flicker." Additionally, for the next seven years, Rothko painted in oil only on large canvases with vertical formats. Very large-scale designs were used in order to overwhelm the viewer, or, in Rothko's words, to make the viewer feel "enveloped within" the painting. For some critics, the large size was an attempt to make up for a lack of substance. In retaliation, Rothko stated:


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko even went so far as to recommend that viewers position themselves as little as eighteen inches away from the canvas so that they might experience a sense of intimacy, as well as awe, a transcendence of the individual, and a sense of the unknown.


title: Mark Rothko

text: As Rothko achieved success, he became increasingly protective of his works, turning down several potentially important sales and exhibition opportunities:


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's aims, in the estimation of some critics and viewers, exceeded his methods. Many of the abstract expressionists discussed their art as aiming toward a spiritual experience, or at least an experience that exceeded the boundaries of the purely aesthetic. In later years, Rothko emphasized more emphatically the spiritual aspect of his artwork, a sentiment that would culminate in the construction of the Rothko Chapel.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Many of the "multiforms" and early signature paintings are composed of bright, vibrant colors, particularly reds and yellows, expressing energy and ecstasy. By the mid-1950s, however, close to a decade after the completion of the first "multiforms," Rothko began to employ dark blues and greens; for many critics of his work this shift in colors was representative of a growing darkness within Rothko's personal life.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's method was to apply a thin layer of binder mixed with pigment directly onto uncoated and untreated canvas and to paint significantly thinned oils directly onto this layer, creating a dense mixture of overlapping colors and shapes. His brushstrokes were fast and light, a method he would continue to use until his death. His increasing adeptness at this method is apparent in the paintings completed for the Chapel. With an absence of figurative representation, what drama there is to be found in a late Rothko is in the contrast of colors, radiating against one another. His paintings can then be likened to a sort of fugue-like arrangement: each variation counterpoised against one another, yet all existing within one architectonic structure.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko used several original techniques that he tried to keep secret even from his assistants. Electron microscopy and ultraviolet analysis conducted by the MOLAB showed that he employed natural substances such as egg and glue, as well as artificial materials including acrylic resins, phenol formaldehyde, modified alkyd, and others. One of his objectives was to make the various layers of the painting dry quickly, without mixing of colors, so that he could soon create new layers on top of the earlier ones.


title: Mark Rothko

text: From 1968 Rothko, in declining health, began painting most of his large works in acrylic paint instead of oils.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko and his wife visited Europe for five months in early 1950. The last time he had been in Europe was during his childhood in Latvia, at that time part of Russia. Yet he did not return to his homeland, preferring to visit the important painting collections in the major museums of England, France and Italy. The frescoes of Fra Angelico in the monastery of San Marco, Florence, most impressed him. Fra Angelico's spirituality and concentration on light appealed to Rothko's sensibilities, as did the economic adversities the artist faced, which Rothko saw as similar to his own.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko had one-man shows at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950 and 1951 and at other galleries across the world, including in Japan, São Paulo and Amsterdam. The 1952 "Fifteen Americans" show curated by Dorothy Canning Miller at the Museum of Modern Art formally heralded the abstract artists and included works by Jackson Pollock and William Baziotes. It also created a dispute between Rothko and Barnett Newman, after Newman accused Rothko of having attempted to exclude him from the show. Growing success as a group was leading to infighting and claims to supremacy and leadership. When "Fortune" magazine named a Rothko painting in 1955 as a good investment, Newman and Clyfford Still branded him a sell-out with bourgeois aspirations. Still wrote to Rothko to ask that the paintings he had given him over the years be returned. Rothko was deeply depressed by his former friends' jealousy.


title: Mark Rothko

text: During the 1950 Europe trip, Rothko's wife, Mell, became pregnant. On December 30, when they were back in New York, she gave birth to a daughter, Kathy Lynn, called "Kate" in honor of Rothko's mother, Kate Goldin.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Shortly thereafter, due to the "Fortune" magazine plug and further purchases by clients, Rothko's financial situation began to improve. In addition to sales of paintings, he also had money from his teaching position at Brooklyn College. In 1954, he exhibited in a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he met art dealer Sidney Janis, who represented Pollock and Franz Kline. Their relationship proved mutually beneficial.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Despite his fame, Rothko felt a growing personal seclusion and a sense of being misunderstood as an artist. He feared that people purchased his paintings simply out of fashion and that the true purpose of his work was not being grasped by collectors, critics, or audiences. He wanted his paintings to move beyond abstraction, as well as beyond classical art. For Rothko, the paintings were objects that possessed their own form and potential, and therefore, must be encountered as such. Sensing the futility of words in describing this decidedly non-verbal aspect of his work, Rothko abandoned all attempts at responding to those who inquired after its meaning and purpose, stating finally that silence is "so accurate": "My paintings' surfaces are expansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles, you can find everything I want to say."


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko began to insist that he was not an abstractionist and that such a description was as inaccurate as labeling him a great colorist. His interest was:


title: Mark Rothko

text: For Rothko, color is "merely an instrument". The multiforms and the signature paintings are, in essence, the same expression of basic human emotions as his surrealistic mythological paintings, albeit in a purer form. What is common among these stylistic innovations is a concern for "tragedy, ecstasy and doom". It was Rothko's comment on viewers breaking down in tears before his paintings that may have convinced the de Menils to construct the Rothko Chapel. Whatever Rothko's feeling about interpretations of his work, it is apparent that, by 1958, the spiritual expression he meant to portray on canvas was growing increasingly dark. His bright reds, yellows and oranges were subtly transformed into dark blues, greens, grays and blacks.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's friend, the art critic Dore Ashton, points to the artist's acquaintance with poet Stanley Kunitz as a significant bond in this period ("conversations between painter and poet fed into Rothko's enterprise"). Kunitz saw Rothko as "a primitive, a shaman who finds the magic formula and leads people to it". Great poetry and painting, Kunitz believed, both had "roots in magic, incantation, and spell-casting" and were, at their core, ethical and spiritual. Kunitz instinctively understood the purpose of Rothko's quest.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In November 1958, Rothko gave an address to the Pratt Institute. In a tenor unusual for him, he discussed art as a trade and offered the "recipe of a work of art—its ingredients—how to make it—the formula


title: Mark Rothko

text: I measure these ingredients very carefully when I paint a picture. It is always the form that follows these elements and the picture results from the proportions of these elements."


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1958, Rothko was awarded the first of two major mural commissions, which proved both rewarding and frustrating. The beverage company Joseph Seagram and Sons had recently completed the new Seagram Building skyscraper on Park Avenue, designed by architects Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Rothko agreed to provide paintings for the building's new luxury restaurant, the Four Seasons. This was, as art historian Simon Schama put it, "bring[ing] his monumental dramas right into the belly of the beast".


title: Mark Rothko

text: For Rothko, this Seagram murals commission presented a new challenge, since it was the first time he was required not only to design a coordinated series of paintings, but to produce an artwork space concept for a large, specific interior. Over the following three months, Rothko completed forty paintings, comprising three full series in dark red and brown. He altered his horizontal format to vertical, to complement the restaurant's vertical features: columns, walls, doors and windows.


title: Mark Rothko

text: The following June, Rothko and his family again traveled to Europe. While on the SS "Independence" he disclosed to journalist John Fischer, who was publisher of "Harper's Magazine", that his true intention for the Seagram murals was to paint "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room". He hoped, he told Fischer, that his painting would make the restaurant's patrons "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall".


title: Mark Rothko

text: While in Europe, the Rothkos traveled to Rome, Florence, Venice and Pompeii. In Florence, he visited Michelangelo's Laurentian Library, to see first-hand the library's vestibule, from which he drew further inspiration for the murals. He remarked that "the room had exactly the feeling that I wanted ... it gives the visitor the feeling of being caught in a room with the doors and windows walled-in shut." He was further influenced by the somber colors of the murals in the Pompeiian Villa of the Mysteries. Following the trip to Italy, the Rothkos voyaged to Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam, before going to London where Rothko spent time in the British Museum studying the Turner watercolors. They then traveled to Somerset and stayed with the artist William Scott who was just starting a large mural project and they discussed the respective issues of public and private sponsorship.  After the visit the Rothkos continued to St. Ives in the West of England and met up with Patrick Heron and other Cornish painters before returning to London and then the United States.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Once back in New York, Rothko and wife Mell visited the nearly-completed Four Seasons restaurant. Upset with the restaurant's dining atmosphere, which he considered pretentious and inappropriate for the display of his works, Rothko refused to continue the project, and returned his cash advance to the Seagram and Sons Company. Seagram had intended to honor Rothko's emergence to prominence through his selection, and his breach of contract and public expression of outrage were unexpected.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko kept the commissioned paintings in storage until 1968. Given that Rothko had known in advance about the luxury decor of the restaurant, and the social class of its future patrons, the motives for his abrupt repudiation remain mysterious, although he did write to his friend William Scott in England, “Since we had discussed our respective murals I thought you might be interested to know that mine are still with me. When I returned, I looked again at my paintings and then visited the premises for which they were destined, it seemed clear to me at once that the two were not for each other.” A temperamental personality, Rothko never fully explained his conflicted emotions over the incident. One reading is offered by his biographer, James E.B. Breslin: the Seagram project could be seen as an acting-out of a familiar, in this case self-created "drama of trust and betrayal, of advancing into the world, then withdrawing, angrily, from it ... He was an Isaac who at the last moment refused to yield to Abraham." The final series of "Seagram Murals" was dispersed, and now hangs in three locations: London's Tate Britain, Japan's Kawamura Memorial Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. This episode was the main basis for John Logan's 2009 play "Red".


title: Mark Rothko

text: In October 2012, "Black on Maroon", one of the paintings in the Seagram series, was defaced with writing in black ink, while on display at Tate Modern. Restoration of the painting took eighteen months to complete. The BBC's Arts Editor Will Gompertz explained that the ink from the vandal's marker pen had bled all the way through the canvas, causing "a deep wound, not a superficial graze", and that the vandal had caused "significant damage".


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's first completed space was created in the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., following the purchase of four paintings by collector Duncan Phillips. Rothko's fame and wealth had substantially increased; his paintings began to sell to notable collectors, including the Rockefeller family. In January 1961, Rothko sat next to Joseph Kennedy at John F. Kennedy's inaugural ball. Later that year, a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art, to considerable commercial and critical success. In spite of this newfound fame, the art world had already turned its attention from the now passé abstract expressionists to the "next big thing", pop art, particularly the work of Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Rosenquist.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko labeled pop-art artists "charlatans and young opportunists", and wondered aloud during a 1962 exhibition of pop art, "Are the young artists plotting to kill us all?" On viewing Jasper Johns's flags, Rothko said, "We worked for years to get rid of all that." It was not that Rothko could not accept being replaced, but that he could not accept what was replacing him: he found pop art vapid.


title: Mark Rothko

text: On August 31, 1963, Mell gave birth to a second child, Christopher. That autumn, Rothko signed with the Marlborough Gallery for sales of his work outside the United States. In New York, he continued to sell the artwork directly from his studio. Bernard Reis, Rothko's financial advisor, was also, unbeknownst to the artist, the gallery's accountant and, together with his co-workers, was later responsible for one of art history's largest scandals.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko received a second mural commission project, this time for a room of paintings for the penthouse of Harvard University's Holyoke Center. He made twenty-two sketches, from which ten wall-sized paintings on canvas were painted, six were brought to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and only five were hung: a triptych on one wall and opposite two individual panels. His aim was to create an environment for a public place. Harvard President Nathan Pusey, following an explanation of the religious symbology of the Triptych, had the paintings hung in January 1963, and later shown at the Guggenheim. During installation, Rothko found the paintings to be compromised by the room's lighting. Despite the installation of fiberglass shades, the paintings were all removed by 1979 and, due to the fugitive nature of some of the red pigments, in particular lithol red, were placed in dark storage and displayed only periodically. The murals were on display from November 16, 2014, to July 26, 2015, in the newly renovated Harvard Art Museums, for which the fading of the pigments has been compensated by using an innovative color projection system to illuminate the paintings.


title: Mark Rothko

text: The Rothko Chapel is located adjacent to the Menil Collection and The University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. The building is small and windowless. It is a geometric, "postmodern" structure, located in a turn-of-the-century middle-class Houston neighborhood. The Chapel, the Menil Collection, and the nearby Cy Twombly gallery were funded by Texas oil millionaires John and Dominique de Menil.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 1964, Rothko moved into his last New York studio at 157 East 69th Street, equipping the studio with pulleys carrying large walls of canvas material to regulate light from a central cupola, to simulate lighting he planned for the Rothko Chapel. Despite warnings about the difference in light between New York and Texas, Rothko persisted with the experiment, setting to work on the canvases. Rothko told friends he intended the chapel to be his single most important artistic statement. He became considerably involved in the layout of the building, insisting that it feature a central cupola like that of his studio. Architect Philip Johnson, unable to compromise with Rothko's vision about the kind of light he wanted in the space, left the project in 1967, and was replaced with Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubry. The architects frequently flew to New York to consult and on one occasion brought with them a miniature of the building for Rothko's approval.


title: Mark Rothko

text: For Rothko, the chapel was to be a destination, a place of pilgrimage far from the center of art (in this case, New York) where seekers of Rothko's newly "religious" artwork could journey. Initially, the chapel, now non-denominational, was to be specifically Roman Catholic, and during the first three years of the project (1964–67) Rothko believed it would remain so. Thus, Rothko's design of the building and the religious implications of the paintings were inspired by Roman Catholic art and architecture. Its octagonal shape is based on a Byzantine church of St. Maria Assunta, and the format of the triptychs is based on paintings of the Crucifixion. The de Menils believed the universal "spiritual" aspect of Rothko's work would complement the elements of Roman Catholicism.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's painting technique required considerable physical stamina that the ailing artist was no longer able to muster. To create the paintings he envisioned, Rothko was forced to hire two assistants, to apply the chestnut-brown paint in quick strokes of several layers: "brick reds, deep reds, black mauves". On half of the works, Rothko applied none of the paint himself, and was for the most part content to supervise the slow, arduous process. He felt the completion of the paintings to be "torment", and the inevitable result was to create "something you don't want to look at".


title: Mark Rothko

text: The chapel is the culmination of six years of Rothko's life, and represents his gradually growing concern for the transcendent. For some, to witness these paintings is to submit one's self to a spiritual experience, which, through its transcendence of subject matter, approximates that of consciousness itself. It forces one to approach the limits of experience, and awakens one to the awareness of one's own existence. For others, the chapel houses fourteen large paintings whose dark, nearly impenetrable surfaces represent hermeticism and contemplation.


title: Mark Rothko

text: The chapel paintings consist of a monochrome triptych in soft brown, on the central wall, comprising three 5-by-15-foot panels, and a pair of triptychs on the left and right, made of opaque black rectangles. Between the triptychs are four individual paintings, measuring 11-by-15 feet each. One additional individual painting faces the central triptych, from the opposite wall. The effect is to surround the viewer with massive, imposing visions of darkness. Despite its basis in religious symbolism (the triptych) and less-than-subtle imagery (the crucifixion), the paintings are difficult to attach specifically to traditional Christian motifs, and may act on the viewers subliminally. Active spiritual or aesthetic inquiry may be elicited from the viewer, in the same way a religious icon with specific symbolism does. In this way, Rothko's erasure of symbols both removes and creates barriers to the work.


title: Mark Rothko

text: As it turned out, these works would be his final artistic statement to the world. They were finally unveiled at the chapel's opening in 1971. Rothko never saw the completed chapel, and never installed the paintings. On February 28, 1971, at the dedication, Dominique de Menil said, "We are cluttered with images and only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine", noting Rothko's courage in painting what might be called "impenetrable fortresses" of color. The drama for many critics of Rothko's work is the uneasy position of the paintings between, as Chase notes, "nothingness or vapidity" and "dignified 'mute icons' offering 'the only kind of beauty we find acceptable today'".


title: Mark Rothko

text: In early 1968, Rothko was diagnosed with a mild aortic aneurysm. Ignoring doctor's orders, Rothko continued to drink and smoke heavily, avoided exercise, and maintained an unhealthy diet. "Highly nervous, thin, restless", was his friend Dore Ashton's description of Rothko at this time. However, he did follow the medical advice given not to paint pictures larger than a yard in height, and turned his attention to smaller, less physically strenuous formats, including acrylics on paper. Meanwhile, Rothko's marriage had become increasingly troubled, and his poor health and impotence resulting from the aneurysm compounded his feeling of estrangement in the relationship. Rothko and his wife Mell, to whom he was married from 1944 to 1970, separated on New Year's Day 1969; he moved into his studio.


title: Mark Rothko

text: On February 25, 1970, Oliver Steindecker, Rothko's assistant, found the artist lying dead on the kitchen floor in front of the sink, covered in blood. He had overdosed on barbiturates and cut an artery in his right arm with a razor blade. There was no suicide note. He was 66. The Seagram Murals arrived in London for display at the Tate Gallery on the day of his suicide.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Near the end of his life Rothko painted a series known as the "Black on Grays", uniformly featuring a black rectangle above a gray rectangle. These canvases and Rothko's later work in general have been associated with his depression and suicide, although the association has been criticized. Rothko's suicide has been studied in the medical literature where his later paintings have been interpreted as "pictorial suicide notes" due to their somber palettes and especially in contrast with the brighter colors Rothko employed more frequently during the 1950s. Although art critic David Anfam acknowledged that the Black and Grays are interpreted as premonitions of suicide or as "moonscapes" (the first Apollo Moon landings were contemporaneous with their execution), he rejected the interpretations as "naive", arguing instead that the paintings were a continuation of his lifelong artistic themes and not symptoms of a depression. Susan Grange also observed that, following his aneurysm, Rothko executed several smaller works on paper using lighter hues, which are less well-known. Throughout his life Rothko consistently intended his works to evoke a serious dramatic content, regardless of the colors used in an individual painting. When a woman visited his studio asking to buy a "happy" painting featuring warm colors, Rothko retorted, "Red, yellow, orange-aren’t those the colors of an inferno?"


title: Mark Rothko

text: Shortly before his death, Rothko and his financial advisor, Bernard Reis, had created a foundation, intended to fund "research and education", that would receive the bulk of Rothko's work following his death. Reis later sold the paintings to the Marlborough Gallery, at substantially reduced values, and then split the profits from sales with Gallery representatives. In 1971, Rothko's children filed a lawsuit against Reis, Morton Levine, and Theodore Stamos, the executors of his estate, over the sham sales. The lawsuit continued for more than 10 years, and became known as the Rothko Case. In 1975, the defendants were found liable for negligence and conflict of interest, were removed as executors of the Rothko estate by court order, and, along with Marlborough Gallery, were required to pay a $9.2 million damages judgment to the estate. This amount represents only a small fraction of the eventual vast financial value, since achieved, by numerous Rothko works produced in his lifetime.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's estranged wife Mell, also a heavy drinker, died six months after him at the age of 48. The cause of death was listed as "hypertension due to cardiovascular disease".


title: Mark Rothko

text: Rothko's complete works on canvas, 836 paintings, have been catalogued by art historian David Anfam, in his "Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas: Catalogue Raisonné" (1998), published by Yale University Press.


title: Mark Rothko

text: A previously unpublished manuscript by Rothko, "The Artist's Reality" (2004), about his philosophies on art, edited by his son Christopher, was published by Yale University Press.


title: Mark Rothko

text: "Red", a play by John Logan based on Rothko's life, opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London, on December 3, 2009. The play, starring Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, centered on the period of the Seagram Murals. This drama received excellent reviews, and usually played to full houses. In 2010 "Red" opened on Broadway, where it won six Tony Awards, including Best Play. Molina played Rothko in both London and New York. A recording of "Red" was produced in 2018 for Great Performances with Molina playing Rothko and Alfred Enoch playing his assistant.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In Rothko's birthplace, the Latvian city of Daugavpils, a monument to him, designed by sculptor Romualds Gibovskis, was unveiled on the bank of the Daugava River in 2003. In 2013 the Mark Rothko Art Centre opened in Daugavpils, after the Rothko family had donated a small collection of his original works.


title: Mark Rothko

text: A number of Rothko's works are held by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, both in Madrid. The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY includes both Rothko's late painting, "Untitled" (1967) and a large mural by Al Held entitled "Rothko's Canvas" (1969–70).


title: Mark Rothko

text: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton's first date was to a Rothko exhibit at the Yale University Art Gallery in 1970.


title: Mark Rothko

text: Art collector Richard Feigen said that he sold a red Rothko painting to the National Gallery of Berlin for $22,000 in 1967.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In November 2005, Rothko's painting "Homage to Matisse" (1954) broke the record for any postwar painting at a public auction, selling for $22.5 million.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In May 2007, Rothko's painting "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)" (1950) broke this record again, selling at Sotheby's in New York for $72.8 million. The painting was sold by banker David Rockefeller, who attended the auction.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In November 2003, an untitled red and brown Rothko painting from 1963, measuring , sold for US$7,175,000.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In May 2011, Christie's sold a previously unknown Rothko painting, accounting for the work as #836. The work was added to the existing Rothko catalog of 835 works after expert authentication. The newly discovered painting, "Untitled, #17", created in 1961, came to light when a private collector put it up for sale, claiming he bought it directly from the artist. A seven-foot-tall oil on canvas in red and pink on an ochre background, the painting opened with a house bid of $13 million and sold for $30 million.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In May 2012, Rothko's painting "Orange, Red, Yellow" (1961; #693 in Anfam's "catalogue raisonné") was sold by Christie's in New York for $86,862,500, setting a new nominal value record for a postwar painting at a public auction and putting it on the list of most expensive paintings.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In November 2012, his 1954 painting "No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue)" was sold for $75.1 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In 2014, Rothko's "No. 21" (1953) sold for $44,965,000. The painting had been part of the Pierre and São Schlumberger collection.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In May 2014, "Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange)" (1955), which had been owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, sold for $56.2 million.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In November 2014, a smaller Rothko painting in two shades of brown sold for $3.5 million, within its estimated range of $3 million to 4$ million.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In May 2015, "Untitled (Yellow and Blue)" (1954) sold for $46.5 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York. The painting was owned by Rachel Mellon. That month, "No. 10" (1958) sold for $81.9 million at a Christies's auction in New York.


title: Mark Rothko

text: In November 2018, "Untitled (Rust, Blacks on Plum)" (1962) was offered at auction by Christie's with an estimated price of $35 million to $45 million; it sold for $35.7 million.


title: Mark Rothko

text: On November 15, 2021, "No. 7" (1951) was offered at auction by Sotheby's as part of the Macklowe collection. With an estimated price of $70 million to $90 million, it sold for $82.5 million to a buyer in Asia.


title: Cracker (term)

text: Cracker, sometimes white cracker or cracka, is a racial epithet directed towards white people, used especially with regard to poor rural whites in the Southern United States. Although commonly a pejorative, it is also used in a neutral context, particularly in reference to a native of Florida or Georgia (see Florida cracker and Georgia cracker).


title: Cracker (term)

text: The term is "probably an agent noun" from the word crack. The word was later adopted into Gaelic as the word craic meaning a "loud conversation, bragging talk" where this interpretation of the word is still in use in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern England today.


title: Cracker (term)

text: The historical derivative of the word craic and its meaning can be seen as far back as the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) where the term crack could be used to refer to "entertaining conversation" (one may be said to "crack" a joke or to be "cracking wise") The word "cracker" could be used to describe loud braggarts; An example of this can be seen in William Shakespeare's "King John (c. 1595)" "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?"


title: Cracker (term)

text: The word was later documented describing a group of "Celtic immigrants, Scotch-Irish people who came to America running from political circumstances in the old world". This usage is illustrated in a 1766 letter to the Earl of Dartmouth which reads:


title: Cracker (term)

text: The label followed the Scotch-Irish American immigrants, who were often seen by officials as "unruly and ill-mannered" The use of the word is further demonstrated in official documents, where the Governor of Florida said,


title: Cracker (term)

text: By the early 1800s, those immigrants "started to refer to themselves that way as a badge of honor" as is the case with other events of linguistical reappropriation.


title: Cracker (term)

text: The compound "corn-cracker" was used of poor white farmers (by 1808), especially from Georgia, but also extended to residents of northern Florida, from the cracked kernels of corn which formed a staple food of this class of people. This possibility is given in the 1911 edition of "Encyclopædia Britannica", but the "Oxford English Dictionary" says a derivation of the 18th-century simplex "cracker" from the 19th-century compound "corn-cracker" is doubtful.


title: Cracker (term)

text: It has been suggested that white slave foremen in the antebellum South were called "crackers" owing to their practice of "cracking the whip" to drive and punish slaves. Whips were also cracked over pack animals, so "cracker" may have referred to whip-cracking more generally. According to "An American Glossary" (1912):


title: Cracker (term)

text: Another possibility, which may be a modern folk etymology, supposes that the term derives from "soda cracker", a type of light wheat biscuit which dates in the Southern US to at least the Civil War. The idea has possibly been influenced by "whitebread", a similar term for white people. "Soda cracker" and even "white soda cracker" have become extended versions of "cracker" as an epithet.


title: Cracker (term)

text: "Cracker" has also been used as a proud or jocular self-description in the past. With the huge influx of new residents from the North, "cracker" is used informally by some white residents of Florida and Georgia ("Florida cracker" or "Georgia cracker") to indicate that their family has lived there for many generations.


title: Cracker (term)

text: Frederick Law Olmsted, a prominent landscape architect from Connecticut, visited the South as a journalist in the 1850s and wrote that "some crackers owned a good many Negroes, and were by no means so poor as their appearance indicated."


title: Cracker (term)

text: In "On the Origin of Species", Charles Darwin quotes a Professor Wyman as saying, "one of the 'crackers' (i.e. Virginia squatters) added, 'we select the black members of a litter [of pigs] for raising, as they alone have a good chance of living."


title: Cracker (term)

text: Late 19th century cattle drivers of the southeastern scrub land cracked whips to move cattle. Many slaves and free blacks joined the Seminoles and found work in the cattle business. Descendants of crackers are often proud of their heritage.


title: Cracker (term)

text: In 1947, the student body of Florida State University voted on the name of their athletic symbol. From a list of more than 100 choices, Seminoles was selected. The other finalists, in order of finish, were "Statesmen", "Rebels", "Tarpons", "Fighting Warriors", and "Crackers".


title: Cracker (term)

text: Before the Milwaukee Braves baseball team moved to Atlanta, the Atlanta minor league baseball team was known as the "Atlanta Crackers". The team existed under this name from 1901 until 1965. They were members of the Southern Association from their inception until 1961, and members of the International League from 1961 until they were moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1965.


title: Cracker (term)

text: Singer-songwriter Randy Newman, on his socio-politically themed album "Good Old Boys" (1974) uses the term "cracker" on the song "Kingfish" ("I'm a cracker, You one too, Gonna take good care of you"). The song's subject is Huey Long, populist Governor and then Senator for Louisiana (1928–1935). The term is also used in "Louisiana 1927" from the same album, where the line "Ain't it a shame what the river has done to this poor cracker's land" is attributed to President Coolidge.


title: Cracker (term)

text: In 2008, former President Bill Clinton used the term "cracker" on "Larry King Live" to describe white voters he was attempting to win over for Barack Obama: "You know, they think that because of who I am and where my politic[al] base has traditionally been, they may want me to go sort of hustle up what Lawton Chiles used to call the 'cracker vote' there."


title: Cracker (term)

text: The Florida Cracker Trail is a route which cuts across central Florida, following the historic trail of the old cattle drives.


title: Cracker (term)

text: On June 27, 2013, in the trial of George Zimmerman concerning the killing of Trayvon Martin, a witness under examination (Rachel Jeantel) testified that Martin, an African-American, had told her over the telephone that a "creepy ass cracker is following me" minutes before the altercation between the two occurred. Zimmerman's attorney then asked her if "creepy ass cracker" was an offensive term, to which she responded "no". The testimony and response brought about both media and public debate about the use of the word "cracker". A CNN report referenced the regional nature of the term, noting both that "some in Florida use the term in a non-derogatory, colloquial sense" and that it is sometimes regarded as a "sharp racial insult that resonates with white southerners even if white northerners don't get it".


title: Cracker (term)

text: A 1783 pejorative use of "crackers" specified men who "descended from convicts that were transported from Great Britain to Virginia at different times, and inherit so much profligacy from their ancestors, that they are the most abandoned set of men on earth".


title: Cracker (term)

text: Benjamin Franklin, in his memoirs (1790), referred to "a race of runnagates and crackers, equally wild and savage as the Indians" who inhabit the "desert[ed] woods and mountains".


title: Cracker (term)

text: In his 1964 speech "The Ballot or the Bullet", Malcolm X used the term "cracker" in reference to white people in a pejorative context. In one passage, he remarked, "It's time for you and me to stop sitting in this country, letting some cracker senators, Northern crackers and Southern crackers, sit there in Washington, D.C., and come to a conclusion in their mind that you and I are supposed to have civil rights. There's no white man going to tell me anything about my rights."


title: Cracker (term)

text: On November 29, 1993, in a speech given at Kean College in New Jersey, Nation of Islam spokesman Khalid Abdul Muhammad called Pope John Paul II "a no good cracker".


title: Cracker (term)

text: In 2012, in Jacksonville, Florida, Michael Dunn murdered Jordan Davis in an argument over loud music coming from a car. Dunn alleged that he had heard the word "cracker" coming from the vehicle occupied by high school aged teenagers. This claim, along with other details in Dunn's testimony, was not substantiated by other witnesses in the criminal proceedings.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Sparks is an American pop and rock duo formed by brothers Ron (keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals) in Los Angeles. The duo is noted for their quirky approach to songwriting; their music is often accompanied by sophisticated and acerbic lyrics—often about women, and sometimes containing literary or cinematic references-- and an idiosyncratic, theatrical stage presence, typified by the contrast between Russell's animated, hyperactive frontman antics and Ron's deadpan scowling. Russell Mael has a distinctive wide-ranging voice, while Ron Mael plays keyboards in an intricate and rhythmic style. They have been much more successful in Europe than in their native U.S., though they maintain a loyal cult following in the States.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Career highlights include "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", which reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart in 1974; the disco hit "The Number One Song in Heaven" in 1979, resulting from a collaboration with Giorgio Moroder and marking a stylistic shift towards new wave/synth-pop; "When I'm With You", which made the Australian and French Singles Charts in 1980; the single "I Predict", which provided Sparks' first appearance on the "Billboard" Hot 100, reaching No. 60 in May 1982; the 1983 single "Cool Places" with the Go-Go's rhythm guitarist and vocalist Jane Wiedlin, and "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way', which was the top airplay record in Germany for 1994.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Their frequently changing styles and visual presentations have kept the band at the forefront of modern, artful pop music. The 2002 release of "Lil' Beethoven", the duo's self-proclaimed "genre-defining opus", fused repetitive song structures with orchestral arrangements, and brought them renewed critical success. In 2015, the band released an album with Scottish indie rock band Franz Ferdinand, as the supergroup FFS, titled "FFS". In 2017, returning to a rock-group format, Sparks released "Hippopotamus", which entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 7, as did their next album, "A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip", released in 2020, bringing their tally of UK Top 10 albums to four. In 2021, Sparks were involved in two films: the Leos Carax musical film "Annette" for which they wrote all songs (winning the César Award for Best Original Music), and the Edgar Wright documentary "The Sparks Brothers" recounting the history of the band.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Brothers Ron and Russell Mael grew up in Pacific Palisades, in west Los Angeles County, California, during the "Golden Age" of the LA club scene, when the Doors, the Standells, and Love played the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Strip and the Beach Boys played in the late afternoon at "Teen-Age Fair" at "Pickwick Recreation Center" in Burbank, California.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Both Ron and Russell Mael are seen in the audience during the Ronettes' section of the concert film "The Big T.N.T. Show", filmed in 1966. Both attended UCLA, Ron studying cinema and graphic art and Russell, theatre arts and filmmaking. Detesting the folk music scene, which they considered "cerebral and sedate and we had no time for that", they developed a particular taste in English bands of the time such as the Who, Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, the Kinks and the Move, which led to their description of themselves as "Anglophiles".


title: Sparks (band)

text: Their very first recordings were made under the name of "Urban Renewal Project", on January 14, 1967, at the Fidelity Recording Studios in Hollywood. Four tracks were recorded with married couple Fred and Ronna Frank, who were close friends of the Maels at the time. The songs were pressed on two acetates and have never been released, apart from the track "Computer Girl", which was featured on a CD included with the Japanese semi-biography from 2006 and more widely released on the "Past Tense" greatest hits album in 2019. The other three tracks were entitled "The Windmill", "A Quick Thought" and "As You Like It". Of all four songs, "Computer Girl" was the least traditional.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Forming "Halfnelson", named after a wrestling hold, in 1968, they soon came to the attention of producer Todd Rundgren, at whose urging Albert Grossman signed the band to his Bearsville record label. Their debut album was released on Bearsville Records in 1971 with the line-up consisting of college friend Earle Mankey on guitar, Mankey's brother James on bass, Harley Feinstein on drums and Rundgren producing. It sold poorly. "The Whole Burbank Catalog", a 1972 Warner Brothers $2, 2-LP loss leader sampler included, "Biology II". After renaming themselves Sparks in 1972, a play on the Marx Brothers, the album was then re-released by Bearsville Records in 1972 as Sparks. The re-issued debut spawned the minor regional hit "Wonder Girl".


title: Sparks (band)

text: Their follow-up album, "A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing", led to a tour of the United Kingdom, including a residency at the Marquee Club in London, These London appearances helped them to secure a significant cult following.