History
Samuel Eliot Morison Historian
Samuel Eliot Morison, son of John H. and Emily Marshall (Eliot) Morison, was born
in Boston, Massachusetts, on 9 July 1887. He attended Noble’s School at Boston,
and St. Paul’s at Concord, New Hampshire, before entering Harvard University,
from which he was graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1908. He studied at
the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, Paris, France, in 1908-1909, and returned
to Harvard for postgraduate work, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
1912. Thereafter he became Instructor, first at the University of California in
Berkeley, and in 1915 at Harvard. Except for three years (1922-1925) when he was
Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford, England, and his periods of
active duty during both World Wars, he remained continuously at Harvard
University as lecturer and professor until his retirement in 1955.
He had World War I service as a private in the US Army, but not overseas. As he
had done some preliminary studies on Finland for Colonel House’s Inquiry, he was
detailed from the Army in January 1919 and attached to the Russian Division of the
American Commission to Negotiate Peace, at Paris, his specialty being Finland and
the Baltic States. He served as the American Delegate on the Baltic Commission of
the Peace Conference until 17 June 1919, and shortly after returned to the United
States. He became a full Professor at Harvard in 1925, and was appointed to the
Jonathan Trumbull Chair in 1940. He also taught American History at Johns
Hopkins University in 1941-1942.
Living up to his sea-going background – he has sailed in small boats and coastal
craft all his life. In 1939-1940, he organized and commanded the Harvard Columbus
Expedition which retraced the voyages of Columbus in sailing ships, barkentine
Capitana and ketch Mary Otis. After crossing the Atlantic under sail to Spain and
back, and examining all the shores visited by Columbus in the Caribbean, he wrote
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, an outstanding biography of Columbus, which won a
Pulitzer Prize in 1942. He also wrote a shorter biography, Christopher Columbus,
Mariner. With Maurico Obregon of Bogota, he surveyed and photographed the
shores of the Caribbean by air and published an illustrated book The Caribbean as
Columbus Saw It (1964).
Shortly after the United States entered World War II, Dr. Morison proposed to his
friend President Roosevelt, to write the operational history of the US Navy from
the inside, by taking part in operations and writing them up afterwards. The idea
appealed to the President and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, and on 5 May
1942, Dr. Morison was commissioned Lieutenant Commander, US Naval Reserve,
and was called at once to active duty. He subsequently advanced to the rank of
Captain on 15 December 1945. His transfer to the Honorary Retired List of the
Naval Reserve became effective on 1 August 1951, when he was promoted to Rear
Admiral on the basis of combat awards.
In July-August 1942 he sailed with Commander Destroyer Squadron Thirteen
(Captain John B. Heffernan, USN), on USS Buck, flagship, on convoy duty in the
Atlantic. In October of that year, on USS Brooklyn with Captain Francis D.
Denebrink, he participated in Operation TORCH (Allied landings in North and
Northwestern Africa - 8 November 1942). In March 1943, while attached to Pacific
Fleet Forces, he visited Noumea, Guadalcanal, Australia, and on Washington made
a cruise with Vice Admiral W. A. Lee, Jr., USN. He also patrolled around Papua in
motor torpedo boats, made three trips up “the Slot” on Honolulu, flagship of
Commander Cruisers, Pacific Fleet (Rear Admiral W.W. Ainsworth, USN), and took
part in the Battle of Kolombangara before returning to the mainland. Again in the
Pacific War Area in September 1943, he participated in the Gilbert Islands
operation on board USS Baltimore, under command of Captain Walter C. Calhoun,
USN. For the remainder of the Winter he worked at Pearl Harbor, and in the Spring
of 1944, again on board Honolulu, he participated in the Marianas operation before
returning to the United States to write.
In November 1944 he sailed for Europe in the cutter Campbell with Captain W.A.P.
Martin, USN, Commander of a convoy escort group. He left Campbell at Gibraltar to
visit scenes of recent action in Italy and France, and flew back to the United States
in January 1945. In February he joined USS Tennessee, commanded by Captain
Heffernan, and flagship of Commander, Gunfire and Covering Force (Rear Admiral
Morton L. Deyo, USN). During the amphibious assault upon and subsequent
conquest of Okinawa he witnessed many actions under enemy air attack. He later
visited Iwo Jima and the Philippines and spent some time working on files in Guam.
In July 1945 he returned again to the United States to work. Released to inactive
duty in September 1946, he returned to duty at Harvard, maintaining an office in
the Navy Department under the Director of Naval Records and History, to continue
his work on the History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. The
introduction to the history was written by Commodore Dudley W. Knox, USN,
Retired, and in a preface to the first volume, the Secretary of the Navy had made it
clear that the author, not the Navy, is responsible for the work. He was assisted
from time to time by various Naval Reserve officers and others who had active war
service. On 1 March 1963, the International Balzan Foundation announced that
Admiral Morison was winner of its cultural prize ($51,750) for his 15-volume history
and other maritime research. The 15 historical volumes, published by Little, Brown
& Company of Boston, are as follows:
I. The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939 – May 1943, (1947)
II. Operations in North African Waters, October 1942 – June 1943, (1946)
III. The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931 – April 1942, (Bancroft Prize), (1948)
IV. Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942 – Aug 1942, (1949)
V. The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942 – February 1943, (1949)
VI. Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, 22 July 1942 – 1 May 1944, (1950)
VII. Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, June 1942 – April 1944, (1951)
VIII. New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944 – August 1944, (1953)
IX. Sicily—Salerno—Anzio, January 1943 – June 1944, (1954)
X. The Atlantic Battle Won, May 1943 - May 1945, (1954)
XI. The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944 - 1945, (1955)
XII. Leyte, June 1944 – January 1945, (1956)
XIII. The Liberation of the Philippines, 1944 - 1945, (1959)
XIV. Victory in the Pacific, 1945, (1960)
XV. Supplement and General Index, (1962)
Little, Brown & Company, also published Morison’s Strategy and Compromise in
1958, and The Two Ocean War in 1963, a one-volume history of the US Navy in
World War II.
Rear Admiral Morison was awarded the Legion of Merit, with Combat
Distinguishing Device “V“, for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the
performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States as
Historian of United States Naval Operations, World War II…” In addition, he
received the Victory Medal (World War I); American Campaign Medal; European-
African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; World
War II Victory Medal; and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon; and seven engagement
stars on his campaign ribbons. He also was Commander of the Order of the White
Rose of Finland. He had the Vuelvo Panamericano Medal, awarded by the Republic
of Cuba in 1943; in 1961 he was created Cavaliero Ufficiale of the Italian Order, “Al
Merito della Republica;” and in 1963 he was made Commander of the Spanish
Order of Isabella the Catholic.
In 1910 he married Miss Elizabeth S. Greene of Boston, Massachusetts, who died
on 10 August 1945. Their children were: Elizabeth (wife of Edward D.W. Spingarn,
retired Colonel, US Army); Emily (wife of Brooks Beck, former Lieutenant
Commander, USNR); Peter Greene Morison (former Lieutenant Commander Royal
Navy Volunteer Reserve, later Captain, US Army Air Force); and Catherine. On 29
December 1949 he married Mrs. Priscilla B. Shakelford of Baltimore, Maryland. A
grandson, Samuel Loring Morison, served as a US Navy officer off South Vietnam
from 1967 to 1968 and in the Naval History Division from 1968-1972.
Dr. Morison was author of a number of other works and textbooks, including: Life
of Harrison Gray Otis (1913); Maritime History of Massachusetts (1921); Oxford
History of the United States (1927); Builders of the Bay Colony (1930);
Tercentennial History of Harvard University (awarded Jusserand Medal and Loubat
prize, 1930-36); Growth of the American Republic (with Henry Steele Commager)
(1937- in its 5th edition, 1962); Portuguese Voyages to America (1940); Admiral of
the Ocean Sea (1942) (awarded Pulitzer Prize for biography); Oxford History of the
American People (1965); By Land and By Sea (1953); Spring Tides (1965); and “Old
Bruin”, A Biography of Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1967). In 1960 he was
awarded his second Pulitzer Prize for his biography of John Paul Jones (1959).
He was editor of The American Neptune and The New England Quarterly and
brought out a new edition of William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation
(1952). He was awarded the Emerson-Thoreau Medal of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences and the Gold Medal for history and biography of the National
Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1963 he won the Balzan Award for excellence in
history, in competition with the historians of the entire world. The ceremony he
described in his Vistas of History (1964). He was cited as the foremost authority on
US Naval history and a major contributor to American history. Other honors: Past
President of the American Historical Association (1950), of the American
Antiquarian Society (1938-1950); Vice President of the Naval Historical Foundation,
and of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts; Fellow of American Philosophical
Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and British Academy; member of
the Royal Academy of History, Madrid. He was an honorary member of the
Massachusetts Historical Society and the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati,
and a member of the Charitable Irish Society.
He received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Hartford (1935); Amherst
College (1936); Union College (1939); Harvard University (1936); Columbia
University (1942); Yale University (1949); Williams College (1950); University of
Oxford (1951); Bucknell University (1960); Boston College (1961); and College of
the Holy Cross (1962). He was a member of the Army-Navy Club, Washington;
Harvard Club, New York; St Botolph Club and Somerset Club, Boston; and
Athenaeum, London.
He died on 15 May 1976 of a stroke at Boston, Massachusetts, and his ashes are
buried at Northeast Harbor, Maine.
Jim Morrison of the Doors
James Douglas 'Jim' Morrison (1943-1971)
American rock singer and rock lyric who achieved after his death a cult position
among fans. Morrison wished to be accepted as a serious artist, and he published
such collections of poetry as An American Prayer (1970) and The Lords and The
New Creatures (1971). The song lyrics Morrison wrote for The Doors much
reflected the tensions of the time - drug culture, the antiwar movement, avant-
gardt art. With his early death Morrison has been seen as a voluntary victim of the
destructive forces in pop culture. However, he was not ignorant about the
consequences of fame and his position as an idol. Morrison once confessed that
"We're more interested in the dark side of life, the evil thing, the night time."
"This is the end, beautiful friend. It hurts to set you free, But you'll never follow
me. The end of laughter and soft lies. The end of nights we tried to die. This is
the... end."
James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, on December 8, 1943.
His father, Steve Morrison, was a U.S. Navy admiral. In 1942, after graduating from
the Naval Academy, he had married Clara (Clarke) Morrison, the daughter of a
lawyer. In 1946 he returned from the Pacific and during the following years the
family moved according to his numerous postings.
Morrison was early interested in literature, he excelled at school, and he had an
IQ of 149. Morrison studied theater arts at the University of California. With his
fellow student Ray Manzarek, keyboardist, John Densmore, drummer, and Robbie
Kriger, guitarist, he formed a group which was in 1965 christened The Doors. They
never added a bass player to their group. Its name was taken from Aldous Huxley's
book on mescaline, The Doors of Perception, which quoted William Blake's poem
("If the doors of perception were cleansed / All things would appear infinite"). All
the members of the band read much, not only Morrison. Their first album, The
Doors (1967), mixed performances from Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weil's 'Alabama Song
(Whiskey Bar)' to Willie Dixon's 'Back Door Man'. It also included such Doors
classics as 'Break on Through' (to the Other Side)' and 'The End'. The lyrics
Morrison wrote in 1965 dominated the first two Doors albums. In July 1967 the
band had its first single chart success with 'Light My Fire'.
Between childhood, boyhood,adolescence & manhood (maturity) there should be
sharp lines drawn w/ Tests, deaths, feasts, rites stories, songs & judgments (from
Wilderness, 1988)
Like in the late 1950s when the beatniks tried to unite jazz and poetry, Morrison
found from music a channel to project his poetry, and add to it a theatrical aspect.
Thus improvising and unpredictableness was a part of the band's show on stage.
The mythical Lizard King, Morrison's alter ego, appeared first in the best-selling
record Waiting for the Sun (1968) in a poem that was printed inside the record
jacked. I was entitled 'The Celebration of the Lizard King'. Part of the lyrics were
used in 'Not to Touch the Earth' and the complete 'Celebration' appeared on
record Absolutely Live (1970).
Morrison's drinking, exhibitionist performances, and drug-taking badly affected
his singing and input at recordings. "Let's just say I was testing the bounds of
reality," he confessed in 1969 in Los Angeles. "I was curious to see what would
happen. That's all it was: just curiosity." In Miami in 1969 the audience thought it
saw Jim's "snake" - he was charged with exposing himself on stage, in full view of
10.000 people. The police did not arrest him on the spot, for fear that it would
cause a riot. Next year Morrison was sentenced 8 months' hard labor and a $500
fine for "profanity" and "indecent exposure", but he remained free while the
sentence was appealed. The Soft Parade (1969), which experimented with brass
sections, was received with mixed emotions but it had a hit single, 'Touch me'.
After Miami everything changed and Morrison put his leather pants in the closet.
He grew a beard, started to take distance to his fans, and devote more time with
projects outside the band. John Densmore has later told in an interview, that
although he knew Jim well, there was so much about him that he could not find
out. Possessed by his inner visions and urge to write and create music, Morrison
also had troubles explaining his aims. He also felt that his time was running short:
"O great creator of being, grant us one more hour / to perform our art and perfect
our lives."
In April 1970 Morrison Hotel hit the lists in the U.S. and England. It was hailed as a
major comeback. One song on it, 'Queen of the Highway', was dedicated Pamela
Courson, his common-law wife, who called herself Pamela Morrison. Jim called
Pamela his "cosmic mate". Morrison had also an affair with Linda Ashcroft from
1967 to 1971. With Patricia Kennealy, a rock critic, he had romance which started in
1969; supposedly they were joined in a Wiccan ceromony, known as a Hand
fasting. Morrison did not take the ritual seriously.
On his 27th birthday, Morrison made the recordings at Electra's LA studio of his
poetry, which later formed the basis of An American Prayer. The Doors played their
last concert with Morrison in New Orleans. It was a disaster - Morrison smashed
the microphone into the stage, threw the stand into the crowd and slumped down.
After finishing sessions for a new album, L.A. Woman, Morrison escaped to Paris,
where he hoped to follow literary career. "See me change," he sang. He never
came back from Paris. His first book, The Lords and the New Creatures, was
published by Simon and Schuster in 1971. It went into paperback after selling
15.000 in hardback. An earlier book, An American Prayer, was privately printed in
1970, but not made widely available until 1978. On 3 July 1971 Morrison was found
death in his bathtub. He had regurgitated a small amount of blood on the night of
July 2, but claimed he felt fine. Recently had consulted a local doctor concerning a
respiratory problem.
Morrison was buried at Pére La chaise cemetery in Paris, which houses remains of
many famous artists, statesmen and legendaries from Edith Piaf to Oscar Wilde. In
1990 his graffiti-covered headstone was stolen. Pamela Courson Morrison, died in
Hollywood of heroin overdose on April 25, 1974. In 1979 Francis Ford Coppola
used The Doors' performance of 'The End' in his Vietnam War film, Apocalypse
Now, and in 1991 director Oliver Stone made the film biography The Doors,
starring Val Kilmer. Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison was published
in 1989. It was compiled from the Morrison literary estate by his friends.
Notes on life:
Name: James "Jim" Douglas MORRISON
Birth: 8 DEC 1943 in Melbourne, Brevard Co., FL
Note: death certificate states Clearwater, FL
Residence: 1947 New Mexico
Residence: 1948 Mountain View, Santa Clara Co., CA
Note: 476 Yosemite Ave, attended Highway School at Calderon & El Camino Real
Residence: 1958 Alexandria, Fairfax Co., VA
EDU: JAN 1959 Alexandria, Fairfax Co., VA
Note: attended George Washington High School
GRAD: 1961 Alexandria, Fairfax Co., VA
Note: George Washington High School
Residence: AUG 1961 Saint Petersburg, Pinellas Co., FL
Note: Saint Petersburg Junior College
Residence: 1962 Tallahassee, Leon Co., FL
Note: Florida State University
Residence: 1964 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., CA
Note: UCLA
GRAD: 1965 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., CA
Note: UCLA
MEDI: 12 FEB 1969 Beverly Hills, Los Angeles Co., CA
Note: signed last will and testament
Residence: MAR 1971 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., CA
Note: 8216 Morton Avenue
Death: 3 JUL 1971 in Paris, France
Burial: Cimetière du Père La chaise, Paris, France
Note: in Poet's Corner
Occupation: poet, singer, songwriter for The Doors
Cause: heart attack
aka Marion Morrison John Wayne Site with his
206 movies
Born Marion Morrison, film legend John Wayne was a member of the Sigma Chi
fraternity and played on the USC football team. Western movie star Tom Mix gave
him a summer job working as a prop boy in exchange for football tickets. On the
set, Morrison met John Ford (who later directed him in "Stagecoach" and "The
Searchers" among others) and changed his name to John Wayne in 1930, and the
rest, as they say, is history. The revered actor and director was received two
Academy Awards nominations for best actor and won in 1969 for his portrayal of
Rooster Cogburn in the immortal western "True Grit." Wayne never graduated
from USC.
John Wayne Genealogy
DUKE'S SILENT MOVIES
1925 - 1929
Marion Morrison, during his Senior year of high school, played football on a team
that went undefeated. He won a football scholarship to USC, but it was still
necessary for him to pick up part-time work. His football coach got him a summer
job as a prop man and set-dresser at the William Fox Film Studio (today's 20th
Century Fox). Eventually, John Ford, the director, started using Marion Morrison,
known as Duke, as a bit player, and Duke's career was on its way, and eventually
he would be known world-wide as John Wayne. The nine silent films he worked on
can be found at the web site above and are but a few of the films Duke worked on
or in from 1925 and into 1929, but these are all that are presently known.
TRUE GRIT
1969 - Paramount
Main Cast: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Jeff Corey.
Directed by Henry Hathaway. John is Rooster Cogburn, an ex-outlaw, who is a
federal marshal in the Indian territory. He is hired by Kim Darby to go after the
murderer of her father. Duke's performance as the crusty, one-eyed Rooster
Cogburn was in many ways equal to his Ethan Edwards role in The Searchers. John
Wayne was nominated and finally won an Oscar for his acting in this picture.
Philip Morrison - Physicist Los Alamos
Philip Morrison (1915 - 2005) Philip Morrison was born on November 7, 1915, in
Somerville, New Jersey. Stricken with polio as a child, a disease that left him partly
handicapped, he started tinkering with machinery and was building radios by age
5. He grew up in Pittsburgh and attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now
Carnegie Mellon) and then the University of California, Berkeley, where he
obtained a Ph.D. in physics.
In 1945, Morrison was among the scientists of the Manhattan Project, along with J.
Robert Oppenheimer, his former graduate-school teacher, and was witness to the
Trinity nuclear testing. He helped assemble the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and was part of a team that toured Japan after the country's surrender
ended World War II.
Following the war, Morrison became a forceful advocate of international arms
control, helping to found the Federation of American Scientists, writing for the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, appearing at meetings and signing statements
opposing militarism. His views on disarmament led him to be labeled a communist
sympathizer, and he was called to testify before the U.S. Senate International
Security Subcommittee in 1953.
In 1946, Morrison left Los Alamos and jointed Hans Bethe at Cornell, where he
became interested in astrophysics and cosmology. During the 1950s, he began to
concentrate on theoretical astrophysics, and he and a colleague proposed a
search for radio signals emanating from extraterrestrial beings. He moved on to M.
I.T. in 1964, where he authored and co-authored several books and studies on
arms control. He later became involved in television and film, co-writing and
narrating the 1977 film "Powers of Ten," which was later turned into a book, and
hosting a six-part PBS miniseries called "The Ring of Truth." Morrison was also a
book-review editor for Scientific American magazine.
Morrison died April 22, 2005, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from
respiratory failure. He was professor emeritus at M.I.T. and is survived by a
stepson.
Nothing Is Too Wonderful to Be True by Philip Morrison
Related Section The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb
Eyewitness Accounts of the Explosion at Trinity on July 16, 1945 by Philip Morrison
Related Sites ALSOS Library on Nuclear Issues Entry: Philip Morrison
Los Alamos National Labs: Staff Biographies: Philip Morrison (and more)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Morrison
Howard, Morrison, Ross and Whelan
Paul A. Morrison Paul A. Morrison
Paul Morrison is one of the firm’s founding partners and focuses on personal
injury and domestic relations cases. He received his Bachelor of Science degree
with Honors in 1984 from the University of Southern Mississippi and his law
degree from Washington & Lee University as a prestigous Head Burks Scholar in
1987. Prior to establishing his present firm in 1996, Mr. Morrison practiced law in
Leesburg, Virginia where he was a member of the Board of Directors for the
Loudoun County Bar Association. He is a member of the American Association for
Justice and the Virginia Trial Lawyer’s Association and is admitted to practice
before all Federal Courts in Virginia as well as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
and the United States Supreme Court. Because of his success in personal injury
matters, most notably, wrongful death cases, he is a member of the Million Dollar
Advocates Forum. Biography: Paul A. Morrison (Member) born Columbia, Missouri,
June 11, 1958; admitted to bar, 1987, Virginia; 1991, U.S. District Court, Eastern
District of Virginia; 1992, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit; 1998, U.S. Supreme
Court. Education: Christian Brothers College; University of Southern Mississippi
(B.S., with honors, 1984); Washington & Lee University (J.D., 1987). Member, Moot
Court Team. Coach, Davis Team. Burks Scholar Teaching Fellowship, Washington
and Lee, 1986-1987. Member: Loudoun County Bar, 1987-1994 (Board of Directors,
1989-1990), Fauquier County (Neutral Case Evaluator, 2001-), Virginia, Federal and
American Bar Associations, NACDL, AAJ, VTLA. Notable reported Cases: Carter v.
Commonwealth, 11 Va App. 569, 400 S.E. 2d 540 (1991); Betancourt v.
Commonwealth, 26 Va App. 363, 494 S.E.2d 873 (1998); Kyhl v. Kyhl, 32 Va. App 53,
526 S.E.2d 292 (2000). Practice Areas: Civil Litigation; Litigation; Criminal Law;
Business Law; Domestic Relations; Personal Injury; Wrongful Death.