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Great Ohio People

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Taosman

Taosman

Your Cousin In New Mexxico
I thought it would be worthwhile to do a series on "Great Ohio People".
People from the Buckeye state that have made contributions to America.
Anyone wishing to add to this thread please do so!
So, my first subject is.................

James Thurber :biggrin: My interest in Thurber started in grade school when I first learned about his humor and writings like
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". He was a fine cartoonist, too! His cartoons appeared numerous times in The New Yorker , where he was employed and contributed for many years and became a favorite among New Yorkers.
[SIZE=+1]James (Grover) Thurber (1894-1961)[/SIZE]

American writer and cartoonist, who dealt with the frustrations of modern world. Thurber's best-known characters are Walter Mitty, his snarling wife, and silently observing animals. His stories have influenced later writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. Thurber is generally acknowledged as the greatest American humorist since Mark Twain (1835-1910).

James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles L. Thurber, was a clerk and minor politician, who went through many periods of unemployment. Mary Thurber, his mother, was a strong-minded woman and a practical joker. Once she surprised her guests by explaining that she was kept in the attic because of her love for the postman. On another occasion she pretended to be a cripple and attended a faith healer's revival, jumping up suddenly and proclaiming herself cured. Thurber described her as "a born comedienne" and "one of the finest comic talents I think I've ever known." Thurber's father, who had dreams of being an actor or lawyer, was said to have been the basis of the typical small, slight man of Thurber's stories. Later Thurber portrayed his family in MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES (1933). "I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father," Thurber wrote in the book.
 
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James Thurber, Writer / Cartoonist

  • Born: 8 December 1894
  • Birthplace: Columbus, Ohio
  • Died: 2 November 1961 (complications from a stroke)
  • Best Known As: Author of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
James Thurber's witty short stories and lumpy cartoons were a popular mainstay of The New Yorker magazine in the 1930s and 1940s. A Midwestern boy with an urbane twist, Thurber mixed comical reminiscences of his Ohio childhood with wry observations on modern times and the battle of the sexes. (His best-known story is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the tale of a henpecked husband who escapes into heroic daydreams.) Thurber's funny, loopy, absurdist cartoons featured men, women, dogs and other strange animals. He was by turns hilarious and melancholy, and his darker nature seemed to come out in stories and cartoons about husbands and wives: the wives often domineering and sarcastic, the husbands harried or bitterly triumphant. Like Mark Twain, Thurber became increasingly morose in his last decade, although he continued to write until his death. His books include the spoof Is Sex Necessary? (1929, with E.B. White), the fanciful "autobiography" My Life and Hard Times (1933), the New Yorker memoir The Years With Ross (1959), and the short story collections The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) and The Thurber Carnival (1933). He also wrote the 1950 children's book The Thirteen Clocks. With Elliot Nugent he wrote the play The Male Animal (published 1940).
 
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Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and novelist, Her Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential as well in Britain. It made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the North. It angered and embittered the South. The impact was summed up by Abraham Lincoln when he met Stowe, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great great war!"[1]


Another decent book:

Ohio: The History of a People by Andrew Cayton (prof at Miami U.)

http://www.amazon.com/Ohio-Andrew-R...7151214?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175736428&sr=8-2

(shameless plug: I copyedited the book :p)
 
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Traci Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma on May 7, 1968), also known as Traci Elizabeth Lords and Tracy Lords, is an American film actress and singer. She first achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic films and Penthouse magazine (she was 16[1] years old in her first film), later becoming a television and B-movie actress.

Traci's Wiki page
 
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Thurber cartoons from The New Yorker.........
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Thurber was a dog lover and his dog cartoons were famous.
 
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William Tecumseh Sherman (February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the United States Army during the American Civil War (1861–65), receiving both recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy, and criticism for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies he implemented in conducting total war against the enemy. Military historian Basil Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general."[1]

General Sherman's Wiki Page
 
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[SIZE=-2][FONT=ARIAL, HELVETICA]It is believed that the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, was born in northwest Ohio about 1720. His mother was a Chippewa and his father was an Ottawa. He was raised as an Ottawa in his father?s village. As an Ottawa, he no doubt traded with French fur-traders in the Great Lakes region. Little else is known about his early years. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-2][FONT=ARIAL, HELVETICA]By 1755, Pontiac had become a chief. He fought with the French against the British in the French and Indian War. When the French were defeated they were forced to leave the Great Lakes area. Pontiac hoped that the Indians could start trading with the British who moved into the French trading posts. He soon learned, however, that the British were less generous than the French had been. They also showed less respect for the Indians. Worse yet, many of the British were more interested in land than trade. Pontiac decided that the British needed to be driven back to the East. He formed a plan to unite all Indian tribes west of the Appalachian Mountains into one military force strong enough to defeat the British. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-2][FONT=ARIAL, HELVETICA]Pontiac sent messages and traveled throughout Indian country to gain support for his idea. He found that many tribes including the Delawares, Hurons, Illinois, Kickapoos, Miamis, Potawatomies, Senecas and Shawnees, in addition to his own Ottawas and Chippewas, liked his idea. Following a final council in April of 1763, warfare began. Across the frontier the Indians were highly successful. They captured a large number of British forts and killed many of their enemies. However, Pontiac had planned on French aid. The French broke their promises and never gave Pontiac the help he needed. As a result, the Indians were never able to capture the two major British strongholds in the west, Fort Pitt and Fort Detroit. As winter neared, the warriors became concerned about feeding their families. When Pontiac received word from the French in October that they were sending no aid, the siege of Fort Detroit ended. Fighting continued on a smaller scale for several years, but in 1766 Pontiac signed a peace treaty at Oswego. That treaty pardoned him and allowed him to return to his village on the Maumee River. After Pontiac?s War, the British government told the American colonists that the land west of the Appalachian Mountains belonged to the Indians and was not open to white settlement. Unfortunately, many whites ignored the line dividing the colonies from Indian lands. As they moved onto Indian land, fighting increased along the frontier. This time Pontiac favored peace over war. As a result, younger warriors drove him from his own village. In 1769, an Illinois Indian named Black Dog murdered Pontiac while he was on a trading trip to Cahokia, Illinois. It is widely believed that the British paid Black Dog to kill Pontiac because they feared that he might try again to unite the Indians of the Northwest. Although Pontiac never achieved his dream of a united Indian nation, it lived on to be used by future Indian leaders including Little Turtle and Tecumseh. [/FONT][/SIZE]
 
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John Holmes

John Curtis Estes (August 3, 1944 ? March 13, 1988) better known as John Holmes, John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd (after the lead character in a series of related films), was one of the most famous male adult film stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and porno feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s, including at least one gay feature film and a handful of gay loops. He was best known for his exceptionally large, uncircumcised penis, which was heavily promoted as being the longest in the porn industry; its exact dimensions are, however, uncertain and the subject of controversy. Holmes also attracted notoriety for his involvement in the brutal Wonderland Murders in 1981, and for his death from AIDS.

Born in Ashville, Pickaway County, Ohio, as John Curtis Estes, Holmes knew very little of his father Carl Estes, a railroad worker, who walked out on the family when John was three or four years old. John's mother Mary, a devout Southern Baptist, married Harold Holmes a few years later and changed the family's surname to Holmes. His new stepfather proved to be a violent alcoholic who would come home inebriated, stumble about the house, and even vomit on the children. Mary Holmes later divorced him, and moved to Columbus, Ohio, with her children where they lived on welfare for a few years. When John was age eight, his mother met and married her third husband, Harold Bowman. They moved from Columbus and settled in nearby Pataskala, Ohio. After a few years of marriage, Bowman frequently beat Holmes, the youngest of four children, according to Sharon Holmes.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holmes
 
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James Patrick Tressel (born December 5, 1952) is the current head football coach at the Ohio State University. He was hired in 2001 to replace John Cooper. Since becoming Ohio State's 22nd head football coach, his team has won a National Championship, achieving the first 14-0 season record in college football since Penn (15-0) in 1897. He has an overall record of 62-14, including a 4-2 bowl record and a 5-1 record against arch-rival Michigan. Tressel's five wins against Michigan are second only in school history to Woody Hayes' 16 wins against the Wolverines.

Jim Tressel was born in Mentor, Ohio on December 5, 1952. His father, Lee Tressel, who hails from Ada, Ohio, was the coach at a local high school; after a 34-game winning streak, Lee was hired as head coach for the Baldwin-Wallace football team. He would go on to win the 1978 NCAA Division III National Championship. Jim attended many of his father's games and practices; he also developed a friendship with neighbor (and National Football League legend) Lou Groza -- who, like Lee Tressel, had attended Ohio State and continued to be a fan.[1]
After graduating from Berea High School in 1971, he played as quarterback under his father at Baldwin-Wallace. As quarterback, he earned four varsity letters and won all-conference honors as a senior in 1974. The next year, he graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor's degree in education. While at Baldwin-Wallace Jim was initiated into Alpha Tau Omega fraternity
 
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John Rankin (February 4, 1793 ? March 18, 1886) was a Presbyterian minister, educator and abolitionist. Upon moving to Ripley, Ohio in 1822, he became known as one of Ohio's first and most active "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. Prominent pre-Civil War abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe were influenced by Rankin's writings and work in the anti-slavery movement.
When Beecher was asked after the end of the Civil War, "Who abolished slavery?," he answered, "Reverend John Rankin and his sons did it."[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rankin_(abolitionist)
 
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