American Association of Retired Persons See AARP
American Ballet Theatre Prominent ballet company based in New York City. It was founded in 1939 as the Ballet Theatre (the name was changed in 1958) by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant to promote works “American in character.” Oliver Smith replaced Pleasant as codirector in 1945; Mikhail Baryshnikov served as artistic director from 1980 to 1989 after dancing with the company in the 1970s. New ballets were created for the company by Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, and Ant¬ ony Tudor; Michel Fokine revived many of his earlier works for them as well. Principal dancers have included Alicia Alonso, Erik Bruhn, Anton Doun, and Natalia Makarova.
American Bar Association (ABA) Voluntary association (founded 1878) of U.S. lawyers, judges, and other legal professionals. The largest bar association in die U.S., it seeks to improve the legal profession, ensure the availability of legal services to all citizens, and improve the admin¬ istration of justice. It conducts educational and research projects, spon¬ sors professional meetings, and publishes a monthly journal. At the beginning of the 21st century its membership exceeded 400,000.
American Broadcasting Co. See ABC
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Organization founded by Roger Baldwin and others in New York City in 1920 to champion consti¬ tutional liberties in the U.S. It works for three basic concepts: freedom of expression, conscience, and association; due process of law; and equal protection under the law. From its founding it has initiated test cases and intervened in cases already in the courts. It may provide legal counsel, or it may file an amicus curiae brief. The Scopes trial was one of its test cases; it provided counsel for the Sacco-Vanzetti case. In the 1950s and ’60s it opposed the blacklisting of supposed left-wing subversives and worked to guarantee freedom of worship and the rights of the accused. Its work is performed by volunteers and full-time staff, including lawyers who provide free legal counsel. See also civil liberty.
American Civil War or Civil War or War Between the States
(1861-65) Conflict between the U.S. federal government and 11 South¬ ern states that fought to secede from the Union. It arose out of disputes over the issues of slavery, trade and tariffs, and the doctrine of states’ rights. In the 1840s and ’50s, Northern opposition to slavery in the West¬ ern territories caused the Southern states to fear that existing slavehold- ings, which formed the economic base of the South, were also in danger. By the 1850s abolitionism was growing in the North, and when the anti¬ slavery Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the Southern states seceded to protect what they saw as their right to keep slaves. They were organized as the Confederate States of America under Jefferson Davis. The Northern states of the federal Union, under Lincoln, commanded more than twice the population of the Confederacy and held greater advantages in manufacturing and transportation capac¬ ity. The war began in Charleston, S.C., when Confederate artillery fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Both sides quickly raised armies. In July 1861, 30,000 Union troops marched toward the Confederate capital at Richmond, Va., but were stopped by Confederate forces in the Battle of Bull Run and forced to retreat to Washington, D.C. The defeat shocked the Union, which called for 500,000 more recruits. The war’s first major campaign began in February 1862, when Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant captured Confederate forts in western Tennessee. Union victories at the battles of Shiloh and New Orleans followed. In the East, Robert E. Lee won several Confederate victories in the Seven Days' Battles and, after defeat at the Battle of Antietam, in the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 1862). After the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lee invaded the North and engaged Union forces under George Meade at the momentous Battle of Gettysburg. The war’s turning point in the West occurred in July 1863 with Grant’s success in the Vicksburg Campaign, which brought the entire Mississippi River under Union control. Grant’s command was expanded after the Union defeat at the Battle of Chicka-
mauga, and in March 1864 Lincoln gave him supreme command of the Union armies. He began a strategy of attrition and, despite heavy Union casualties at the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, began to sur¬ round Lee’s troops in Petersburg, Va. (see Petersburg Campaign). Mean¬ while William T. Sherman captured Atlanta in September (see Atlanta Campaign), set out on a destructive march through Georgia, and soon cap¬ tured Savannah. Grant captured Richmond on April 3, 1865, and accepted Lee’s surrender on April 9 at Appomattox Court House. On April 26 Sher¬ man received the surrender of Joseph Johnston, thereby ending the war. The mortality rates of the war were staggering—there were about 620,000 deaths out of a total of 2.4 million soldiers. The South was devastated. But the Union was preserved, and slavery was abolished.
American Express Co, U.S. credit card and travel services company. Founded in 1850 as an express-transportation company, American Express originally provided rapid transport of goods across New York and the Midwest. The company introduced traveler’s checks in 1891 and opened its first European office in Paris in 1895. Its contemporary busi¬ nesses include credit cards and payment-processing systems, international banking, and services for travelers (including trip planning, tour packages, and business travel management).
American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations See AFL-CIO
American Fur Co. Enterprise formed by John Jacob Astor in 1808 that dominated the U.S. fur trade early in the 19th century. The company, con¬ sidered the first U.S. business monopoly, absorbed or drove out rivals throughout the central and western U.S. Exploration by its trappers and traders helped open the frontier to settlement. By 1834, when Astor sold his company, it had become the largest commercial organization in the U.S.
American Indian or Native American or Amerindian Any
member of the various aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of the Eskimos (Inuit) and the Aleuts. Though the term Native American is today often preferred over American Indian, particu¬ larly in the U.S., many Native American peoples continue to prefer Ameri¬ can Indian (or Indian). In Canada the name First Nation is preferred. The ancestors of the American Indians were nomadic hunters of northeast Asia who migrated over the Bering Strait land bridge into North America prob¬ ably during the last glacial period (20,000-30,000 years ago). By c. 10,000 bc they had occupied much of North, Central, and South America. See also Anasazi culture; Andean civilization; Clovis complex; Eastern Woodlands Indian; Folsom complex; Hohokam culture; Hopewell culture; Mesoamerican civilization; Mississippian culture; Mogollon culture; North¬ west Coast Indian; Plains Indian; Pueblo Indian; Southeastern Indian; South¬ west Indian; Woodland culture.
American Indian languages Languages spoken by the original inhabitants of the Americas and the West Indies and by their modem descendants. They display an extraordinary structural range, and no attempt to unite them into a small number of genetic groupings has won general acceptance. Before the arrival of Columbus, more than 300 dis¬ tinct languages were spoken in North America north of Mexico by an estimated population of two to seven million. Today fewer than 170 lan¬ guages are spoken, of which the great majority are spoken fluently only by older adults. A few widespread language families (Algonquian, Iro- quoian, Siouan, Muskogean, Athabaskan, Uto-Aztecan, Salishan) account for many of the languages of eastern and interior North America, though the far west was an area of extreme diversity (see Hokan; Penutian). It is estimated that in Mexico and northern Central America (Mesoamerica), an estimated 15-20 million people spoke more than 300 languages before Columbus. The large Otomanguean and Maya families and a single lan¬ guage, Nahuatl, shared Mesoamerica with many smaller families and lan¬ guage isolates. More than 10 of these languages and language complexes still have more than 100,000 speakers. South America and the West Indies had an estimated pre-Columbian population of 10-20 million, speaking more than 500 languages. Important language families include Chibchan in Colombia and southern Central America, Quechuan and Aymaran in the Andean region, and Arawakan, Cariban, and Tupian in northern and central lowland South America. Aside from Quechuan and Aymaran, with about 10 million speakers, and the Tupian language Guarani, most remain¬ ing South American Indian languages have very few speakers, and some face certain extinction.