|
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
| FREE NEWSLETTER | |
|
B. Enrico Fermi was born in Rome, Italy, immigrated to the U.S. to escape Fascist political harassment (His wife was Jewish.). Winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics, he was instrumental in creating the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction at the University of Chicago in 1942 which helped pave the way for America's development of the atomic bomb. He was strongly opposed to the development of the hydrogen bomb.
C. Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist and a Nobel laureate who made basic contributions to the structure of the atom. In 1939, he alerted scientists in the U.S. to the importance of experiments being done in Nazi Germany on nuclear fission. During the Nazi occupation of Denmark, he escaped to Sweden and eventually to the U.S. where he joined in the development of the first atomic bomb. After the war, he returned to Denmark where he pursued the cause of peaceful uses for atomic energy.
2. A. Irving Berlin was born in Russia, immigrating to the U.S. with his family at the age of five. When his father, a Jewish cantor, died three years later, he helped support his family by selling newspapers and street singing. Although he never learned to read or write music, he became America's top lyricist writing over 1,500 songs including "There's No Business Like Show Business", "God Bless America", "Easter Parade" and "White Christmas". In 1955, President Eisenhower presented Berlin with a Congressionally-authorized medal for his many patriotic songs.
3. A. Felix Frankfurter a native of Vienna, Austria immigrated to the U.S. at the age of twelve. A distinguished authority on American constitutional law, he served as a professor at Harvard Law School for 25 years, and was a top aide to President Roosevelt in formulating and implementing the New Deal. He served on the Supreme Court of the U.S. for 23 years where, much to the surprise of most of his friends and associates, he compiled a conservative voting record.
4. C. Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica, immigrating to the U.S. as an adult. Founder of the United Negro Improvement League, he is credited with being the foremost proponent of the "Back to Africa" movement in the U.S. In 1919, he founded the Black Star Line, a steamship company to transport American blacks back to their ancestral homeland in Africa. He also was a strong proponent of black economic independence. However, after being arrested for mail fraud, he served time in prison after which he was deported to Jamaica.
5. B. Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland, immigrated to the U.S. at the age of thirteen where he was employed as a bobbin boy at a cotton mill in Pennsylvania. Although he lacked a formal education, after the Civil War, he became a steel tycoon, eventually controlling 25% of American iron and steel production. He sold his company to U.S. Steel Corporation in 1899 for $250 million. He donated millions of dollars to thousands of libraries and educational institutions including Tuskegee University. After the age of 33 when he had an annual income of $50,000, he said, "Beyond this never earn, make no effort to increase fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes."
6. B. Edward Steichen, born in Luxemburg, immigrated to the U.S. as a child. An earlier pioneer in photography, by 1923, he was the chief photographer for Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines. During World War II, he directed a U.S. Naval combat photography team. In 1947, he was appointed as the director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His Family of Man book of photographs sold over three million copies.
7. C. Thomas Mann, born in Germany, was one of the most acclaimed novelists of the 20th Century. In his autobiographical essay, Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (1918), he concluded that an artist must be involved in society. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929, and voluntarily exiled himself from Germany upon Hitler's ascension to power in 1933. In 1936, he was stripped of his German citizenship by the Nazi government. He lived in Switzerland and later emigrated to the U.S. where he became a U.S. citizen in 1944. He later returned to Switzerland in 1953 where he died two years later.
8. B. Willem De Kooning, like Robert Rauschenberg and Jackson Pollock, was an abstract expressionist painter. Born in the Netherlands, he immigrated to the U.S. as an adult working first as a house painter and later as a commercial artist. During the Depression, he painted murals for the federal Works Projects Administration (WPA). His first exhibition of black and white paintings in 1948 established him as one of the leading artists of New York's abstract expressionist movement. Besides painting, he excelled in lithographs and bronze sculptures.
9. C. Claes Oldenburg, a native of Stockholm, Sweden, was a pioneer of American pop art. His sculpture exhibit in Los Angeles in 1964 called "Autobodies" involved cars, crowds of people and ice cubes in an event which involved audience participation. He opened a store in New York City which offered for sale plastic replicas of hamburgers, sundaes and other fast-food items. He also worked with soft materials such as vinyl and canvass in creating gigantic versions of common household items. Later, he worked with such materials as fiberglass and metal in constructing outdoor sculptures like "Geometric Mouse".
10. B. Charlie Chaplin, movie-picture actor, director, writer and composer was one of the leading talents in film history. Born in poverty in London, his achievements resulted in his being knighted in 1975. Immigrating to the U.S. as an adult, he created his most famous character the little tramp with his cane, bowler hat, baggy pants and enormous shoes. Founding United Artists film studio with other film stars in 1919, Chaplin's little tramp delighted film fans in over 70 movies including "The Kid", "The Gold Rush", "The Great Dictator" and "Modern Times". Hounded out of the U.S. during the McCarthy era because of his leftist views, Chaplin returned to Europe, returning to the U.S. in 1972 to receive several tributes including an Academy Award for his contributions to the film industry.
Schedule A Legal Consultation
Return to Immigration Guide Homepage