John Lomax

John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Shirley Mansell, John Avery Lomax, Jr., Alan Lomax, also a distinguished collector of folk music, and Bess Lomax Hawes.

Early life

The Lomax family originally came from England in the 19th century when William Lomax settled in a colony in North Carolina. John Lomax was born in Goodman in Holmes County in central Mississippi, to James Avery Lomax and the former Susan Frances Cooper. In December 1869, the Lomax family traveled by ox cart from Mississippi to Texas. John Lomax grew up in central Texas, just north of Meridian in rural Bosque County. His father raised horses and cattle and grew cotton and corn on the 183 acres (0.74 km²) of bottomland that he had purchased near the Bosque River. The cowboy songs to which he was exposed during his childhood influenced Lomax in such a way that his future choice of career already seemed confirmed. About 1876, the nine-year-old Lomax met and became close friends with Nat Blythe, a former slave who had just been hired as a farmhand by James Lomax. The friendship, "which perhaps gave my life its bent," lasted three years, and was crucial to Lomax's early development. Lomax, whose own schooling was sporadic because of the heavy farmwork he was forced to do, taught Blythe to read and write, and Blythe taught Lomax songs including "Big Yam Potatoes on a Sandy Land" and dance steps such as "Juba". When Blyth was 21 years old, he took his savings and left. Lomax never saw him again and heard rumors that he had been murdered. For years afterward, he always looked for Nat when he traveled around the South.

John A. Macdonald

Sir John Alexander Macdonald GCB KCMG PC PC QC (11 January 1815 – 6 June 1891) was a Canadian politician and Father of Confederation who was the first Prime Minister of Canada (1867–1873, 1878–1891). The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career which spanned almost half a century. He drank heavily, and in 1873 was voted out during the Pacific Scandal, in which his party took bribes from businessmen seeking the contract to build the Pacific Railway. Macdonald's greatest achievements were building and guiding a successful national government for the new Dominion, using patronage to forge a strong Conservative Party, promoting the protective tariff of the National Policy, and building the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway. Economic growth was slow during his years in office, as Canada verged on stagnation; many residents migrated to the fast-growing United States. He fought to block provincial efforts to take power back from Ottawa. His most controversial move was to approve the execution of Métis leader Louis Riel for treason in 1885; it permanently alienated the Francophones who saw themselves humiliated.