Aranka Siegal
born Aranka Davidowitz on June 10, 1930 is a writer, Holocaust survivor, and beneficiary
of the Newbery Honor and Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, both presented to her in
1982. She is the author of 3 books, the best known of which is Upon the Head of
the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary 1930-1944, a memoir of her childhood in
Hungary before her 12-month sentence in the Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz
– Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. Other works of hers take in Grace in the
Wilderness: After the Liberation 1945-1948 and Memories of Babi. Her novels are
sold globally, and have been converted into several different languages
including, but not limited to, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese,
Dutch, and German. Siegal herself talks 6 languages and is the fifth child of
seven children.
Monday, 13 January 2014
Friday, 22 February 2013
Aranka Siegal
Aranka Siegal (born Aranka Davidowitz on June 10, 1930) is a
writer, Holocaust survivor, and recipient of the Newbery Honor and Boston
Globe-Horn Book Award, both awarded to her in 1982. She is the author of three
books, the best known of which is Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in
Hungary 1930-1944, a memoir of her childhood in Hungary before her 12-month
imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz – Birkenau and
Bergen-Belsen. Other works of hers include Grace in the Wilderness: After the
Liberation 1945-1948 and Memories of Babi. Her novels are sold worldwide, and
have been translated into several different languages including, but not
limited to, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, and German.
Siegal herself speaks six languages and is the fifth child of seven children.
Thursday, 2 August 2012
Delina Filkins
Delina Filkins, née Ecker (May 4, 1815 – December 4, 1928), was an American supercentenarian who was the earliest verified person to reach the ages of 112 and 113, in 1927 and 1928, respectively. Filkins was the first verified person to surpass the longest confirmed lifespan by two years. She was also the first supercentenarian to outlive another supercentenarian, in fact she outlived two: Miriam Bannister (1817–1928) and Demetrius Philiphovitch (1818–1928). Her case was thoroughly investigated in the 1970s and re-investigated in 2005, and found to be fully verifiable. In fact, the number of documents located make this the second-most verified case of all time, after Jeanne Calment.
Filkins's age in 1928, 113, would not be reached again until Betsy Baker attained it in 1955, and Filkins' record stood for more than 50 years - by far the longest period a person has held the record as the oldest undisputed person ever. Filkins' age was 113 years 214 days at the time of her death in Richland Springs, New York.
Filkins's age in 1928, 113, would not be reached again until Betsy Baker attained it in 1955, and Filkins' record stood for more than 50 years - by far the longest period a person has held the record as the oldest undisputed person ever. Filkins' age was 113 years 214 days at the time of her death in Richland Springs, New York.
Monday, 17 October 2011
Early History: Development of chemical photography
The first permanent photograph (later accidentally destroyed) was an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. His photographs were produced on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea, which he then dissolved in white petroleum. Bitumen hardens with exposure to light. The unhardened material may then be washed away and the metal plate polished, rendering a positive image with light regions of hardened bitumen and dark regions of bare pewter. Niépce then began experimenting with silver compounds based on a Johann Heinrich Schultz discovery in 1727 that silver nitrate (AgNO3) darkens when exposed to light.
In partnership, Niépce (in Chalon-sur-Saône) and Louis Daguerre (in Paris) refined the existing silver process.] In 1833 Niépce died of a stroke, leaving his notes to Daguerre. While he had no scientific background, Daguerre made two pivotal contributions to the process. He discovered that exposing the silver first to iodine vapour before exposure to light, and then to mercury fumes after the photograph was taken, could form a latent image. Bathing the plate in a salt bath then fixes the image. On January 7, 1839 Daguerre announced that he had invented a process using silver on a copper plate called the daguerreotype, and displayed the first plate. The French government bought the patent and almost immediately (on August 19 of that year) made it public domain.
In 1832, French-Brazilian painter and inventor Hercules Florence had already created a very similar process, naming it Photographie.
After reading about Daguerre's invention, Fox Talbot worked on perfecting his own process; in 1839 he acquired a key improvement, an effective fixer, from John Herschel, the astronomer, who had previously showed that hyposulfite of soda (also known as hypo, or now sodium thiosulfate) would dissolve silver salts. Later that year, Herschel made the first glass negative.
A calotype print showing the American photographer Frederick Langenheim (circa 1849). Note, the caption on the photo calls the process Talbotype
By 1840, Talbot had invented the calotype process. He coated paper sheets with silver chloride to create an intermediate negative image. Unlike a daguerreotype, a calotype negative could be used to reproduce positive prints, like most chemical films do today. The calotype had yet another distinction compared to other photographic processes of the day, in that the finished product lacked fine clarity due to its translucent paper negative. This was seen as a positive attribute for portraits because it softened the appearance of the human face. Talbot patented this process, which greatly limited its adoption. He spent the rest of his life in lawsuits defending the patent until he gave up on photography. Later George Eastman refined Talbot's process, which is the basic technology used by chemical film cameras today. Hippolyte Bayard had also developed a method of photography but delayed announcing it, and so was not recognized as its inventor.
In 1839, John Herschel made the first glass negative, but his process was difficult to reproduce. Slovene Janez Puhar invented a process for making photographs on glass in 1841; it was recognized on June 17, 1852 in Paris by the Académie Nationale Agricole, Manufacturière et Commerciale. In 1847, Nicephore Niépce's cousin, the chemist Niépce St. Victor published his invention of a process for making glass plates with an albumen emulsion; the Langenheim brothers of Philadelphia and John Whipple of Boston also invented workable negative-on-glass processes in the mid 1840s.
In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the collodion process. Photographer and children's author Lewis Carroll used this process.
Roger Fenton's assistant seated on Fenton's photographic van, Crimea, 1855.
Herbert Bowyer Berkeley experimented with his own version of collodian emulsions after Samman introduced the idea of adding dithionite to the pyrogallol developer. Berkeley discovered that with his own addition of sulfite, to absorb the sulfur dioxide given off by the chemical dithionite in the developer, that dithionite was not required in the developing process. In 1881 he published his discovery. Berkeley's formula contained pyrogallol, sulfite and citric acid. Ammonia was added just before use to make the formula alkaline. The new formula was sold by the Platinotype Company in London as Sulpho-Pyrogallol Developer.
Nineteenth-century experimentation with photographic processes frequently became proprietary. The German-born, New Orleans photographer Theodore Lilienthal successfully sought legal redress in an 1881 infringement case involving his "Lambert Process" in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
In partnership, Niépce (in Chalon-sur-Saône) and Louis Daguerre (in Paris) refined the existing silver process.] In 1833 Niépce died of a stroke, leaving his notes to Daguerre. While he had no scientific background, Daguerre made two pivotal contributions to the process. He discovered that exposing the silver first to iodine vapour before exposure to light, and then to mercury fumes after the photograph was taken, could form a latent image. Bathing the plate in a salt bath then fixes the image. On January 7, 1839 Daguerre announced that he had invented a process using silver on a copper plate called the daguerreotype, and displayed the first plate. The French government bought the patent and almost immediately (on August 19 of that year) made it public domain.
In 1832, French-Brazilian painter and inventor Hercules Florence had already created a very similar process, naming it Photographie.
After reading about Daguerre's invention, Fox Talbot worked on perfecting his own process; in 1839 he acquired a key improvement, an effective fixer, from John Herschel, the astronomer, who had previously showed that hyposulfite of soda (also known as hypo, or now sodium thiosulfate) would dissolve silver salts. Later that year, Herschel made the first glass negative.
A calotype print showing the American photographer Frederick Langenheim (circa 1849). Note, the caption on the photo calls the process Talbotype
By 1840, Talbot had invented the calotype process. He coated paper sheets with silver chloride to create an intermediate negative image. Unlike a daguerreotype, a calotype negative could be used to reproduce positive prints, like most chemical films do today. The calotype had yet another distinction compared to other photographic processes of the day, in that the finished product lacked fine clarity due to its translucent paper negative. This was seen as a positive attribute for portraits because it softened the appearance of the human face. Talbot patented this process, which greatly limited its adoption. He spent the rest of his life in lawsuits defending the patent until he gave up on photography. Later George Eastman refined Talbot's process, which is the basic technology used by chemical film cameras today. Hippolyte Bayard had also developed a method of photography but delayed announcing it, and so was not recognized as its inventor.
In 1839, John Herschel made the first glass negative, but his process was difficult to reproduce. Slovene Janez Puhar invented a process for making photographs on glass in 1841; it was recognized on June 17, 1852 in Paris by the Académie Nationale Agricole, Manufacturière et Commerciale. In 1847, Nicephore Niépce's cousin, the chemist Niépce St. Victor published his invention of a process for making glass plates with an albumen emulsion; the Langenheim brothers of Philadelphia and John Whipple of Boston also invented workable negative-on-glass processes in the mid 1840s.
In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the collodion process. Photographer and children's author Lewis Carroll used this process.
Roger Fenton's assistant seated on Fenton's photographic van, Crimea, 1855.
Herbert Bowyer Berkeley experimented with his own version of collodian emulsions after Samman introduced the idea of adding dithionite to the pyrogallol developer. Berkeley discovered that with his own addition of sulfite, to absorb the sulfur dioxide given off by the chemical dithionite in the developer, that dithionite was not required in the developing process. In 1881 he published his discovery. Berkeley's formula contained pyrogallol, sulfite and citric acid. Ammonia was added just before use to make the formula alkaline. The new formula was sold by the Platinotype Company in London as Sulpho-Pyrogallol Developer.
Nineteenth-century experimentation with photographic processes frequently became proprietary. The German-born, New Orleans photographer Theodore Lilienthal successfully sought legal redress in an 1881 infringement case involving his "Lambert Process" in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Monday, 22 August 2011
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