The Philadelphia Award | |
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Awarded for | Given each year to a citizen of the Philadelphia region who, during the preceding year, acted and served on behalf of the best interests of the community. |
Presented by |
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First awarded | 1921Leopold Stokowski | to
Currently held by | Marsha Levick |
Website | www |
The Philadelphia Award is given each year to a citizen of the Philadelphia region who, during the preceding year, acted and served on behalf of the best interests of the community. Created by Edward William Bok in 1921, The Philadelphia Award is among the most cherished, meaningful and prestigious awards conferred in, by and for the Philadelphia community. In establishing the Award, Bok wrote, "service to others tends to make lives happy and communities prosperous." He believed that "the idea of service as a test of good citizenship should be kept constantly before the minds of the people of Philadelphia."
Since its inception, The Philadelphia Award has recognized the achievements of more than 80 individuals. Its recipients have been some of the most distinguished Philadelphians, including industrialists, educators, lawyers, political figures, scientists, physicians, members of the clergy, social activists, philosophers, musicians, artists, architects and writers.
Edward William Bok (born Eduard Willem Gerard Cesar Hidde Bok) (October 9, 1863 – January 9, 1930) [1] was born in Den Helder, Netherlands. At the age of six, he immigrated to Brooklyn, New York. In Brooklyn he washed the windows of a bakery shop after school to help support his family. His people were so poor that in addition he used to go out in the street with a basket every day and collect stray bits of coal that had fallen in the gutter where the coal wagons had delivered fuel. [2]
In 1882, Edward Bok began work with Henry Holt and Company. In 1884, he became involved with Charles Scribner's Sons, where he eventually became its advertising manager. From 1884 until 1887, Bok was the editor of The Brooklyn Magazine, and in 1886 he founded the Bok Syndicate Press.
After moving to Philadelphia in 1889, he obtained the editorship of Ladies Home Journal when its founder and editor Louisa Knapp Curtis stepped down to a less intense role at the popular, nationally circulated publication. It was published by Cyrus Curtis, who had an established publishing empire that included many newspapers and magazines.
In 1896, Bok married Mary L. Curtis, the daughter of Louisa and Cyrus Curtis. [3] She shared her family's interest in music, cultural activities, and philanthropy and was very active in social circles.
During his editorship, the Journal became the first magazine in the world to have one million subscribers and it became very influential among readers by featuring informative and progressive ideas in its articles.[ citation needed ] The magazine focused upon the social issues of the day. The mother of H.L. Mencken was one of those busy and amiable housewives who read Edward Bok’s Ladies’ Home Journal year after passing year. When Bok’s autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok, appeared in 1920, he reviewed it with an interest based on long acquaintance with the magazine. Mencken observed that Bok showed an irrepressible interest in things artistic:
When he looked at the houses in which his subscribers lived, their drab hideousness made him sick. When he went inside and contemplated the lambrequins, the gilded cattails, the Rogers groups, the wax fruit under glass domes, the emblazoned seashells from Asbury Park, the family Bible on the marble-topped center-table, the crayon enlargements of Uncle Richard and Aunt Sue, the square pianos, the Brussels carpets, the grained woodwork—when his eyes alighted upon such things, his soul revolted, and at once his moral enthusiasm incited him to attempt a reform. The result was a long series of Ladies’ Home Journal crusades against the hideousness of the national scene – in domestic architecture, in house furnishing, in dress, in town buildings, in advertising. Bok flung himself headlong into his campaigns, and practically every one of them succeeded. ... If there were gratitude in the land, there would be a monument to him in every town in the Republic. He has been, aesthetically, probably the most useful citizen that ever breathed its muggy air. [4]
The Journal also became the first magazine to refuse patent medicine advertisements. [5] In 1919, after thirty years at the journal, Bok retired.
In 1924, Mary Louise Bok founded the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, which she dedicated to her father, Cyrus Curtis, and in 1927, the Boks embarked upon the construction of Bok Tower Gardens, near their winter home in Mountain Lake Estates, Lake Wales, Florida, which was dedicated on February 1, 1929, by the president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. Bok Tower sometimes is called a sanctuary and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark. Bok is used as an example in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. [6]
Bok died on January 9, 1930, in Lake Wales, Florida, within sight of his beloved Singing Tower. [7] Two of his grandsons are Derek Bok and Gordon Bok.
In 1895, Bok began publishing in Ladies Home Journal plans for building houses which were affordable for the American middle class – from $1,500 to $5,000 – and made full specifications with regional prices available by mail for $5. Later, Bok and the Journal became a major force in promoting the "bungalow", a style of residence which derived from India. Plans for these houses cost as little as a dollar, and the 1+1⁄2-story dwelling, some as small as 800 square feet, soon became a dominant form of new domestic architecture in the country. [8]
Some architects complained that by making building plans available on a mass basis, Bok was usurping their prerogatives, and some, such as Stanford White openly discouraged him – although White would later come around, writing
I believe that Edward Bok has more completely influenced American domestic architecture for the better than any man in this generation. When he began ... I refused to cooperate with him. If Bok would come to me now, I would not only make plans for him, but I would waive my fee for them in retribution for my early mistake. [8]
Bok is credited with coining the term living room as the name for room of a house that was commonly called a parlor or drawing room . This room had traditionally been used only on Sundays or for formal occasions such as the displaying of deceased family members before burial; it was the buffer zone between the public sphere and the private one of the rest of the house. Bok believed it was foolish to create an expensively furnished room that was rarely used, and promoted the new name to encourage families to use the room in their daily lives. He wrote, "We have what is called a 'drawing room'. Just whom or what it 'draws' I have never been able to see unless it draws attention to too much money and no taste ..." [9]
Bok's overall concern was to preserve his socially conservative vision of the ideal American household, with the wife as homemaker and child-rearer, and the children raised in a healthy, natural setting, close to the soil. To this end, he promoted the suburbs as the best place for well-balanced domestic life. [8]
Theodore Roosevelt said about Bok:
[He] is the only man I ever heard of who changed, for the better, the architecture of an entire nation, and he did it so quickly and effectively that we didn't know it was begun before it was finished. [8]
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Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial", also gained him attention. The term Menckenian has entered multiple dictionaries to describe anything of or pertaining to Mencken, including his combative rhetorical and prose style.
Ladies' Home Journal was an American magazine last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In 1891, it was published in Philadelphia by the Curtis Publishing Company. In 1903, it was the first American magazine to reach one million subscribers.
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Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis was an American publisher of magazines and newspapers, including the Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post.
Derek Curtis Bok is an American lawyer and educator, and the former president of Harvard University.
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Edward William Bok was a Dutch-born American editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He was editor of the Ladies' Home Journal for 30 years (1889–1919). He also distributed popular homebuilding plans and created Bok Tower Gardens in central Florida.
The Pulitzer Prizes for 1921:
Bok Tower Gardens is a 250-acre (100 ha) contemplative garden and bird sanctuary located atop Iron Mountain, north of Lake Wales, Florida, United States, created by Edward Bok in the 1920s. Formerly known as the Bok Mountain Lake Sanctuary and Singing Tower, the gardens' attractions include the Singing Tower and its 60-bell carillon, the Bok Exedra, the Pinewood Estate now known as El Retiro, the Pine Ridge Trail, and the Visitor Center.
The Curtis Publishing Company, founded in 1891 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became one of the largest and most influential publishers in the United States during the early 20th century. The company's publications included the Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, The American Home, Holiday, Jack & Jill, and Country Gentleman.
The Public Ledger was a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, published from March 25, 1836, to January 1942. Its motto was "Virtue, Liberty, and Independence". It was Philadelphia's most widely-circulated newspaper for a period, but its circulation began declining in the mid-1930s. The newspaper also operated a syndicate, the Ledger Syndicate, from 1915 until 1946.
Mary Louise Curtis was the founder of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She was the only child of the magazine and newspaper magnate Cyrus H. K. Curtis and Louisa Knapp Curtis, the founder and editor of the Ladies' Home Journal.
Louisa Knapp Curtis, , was an American columnist and the first editor of the Ladies' Home Journal from 1883 to 1889. It became one of the most popular magazines published in the United States and reached a circulation of one million within ten years. Curtis turned over the editorship to Edward Bok in 1889 but she continued to author a column and provide oversight.
The Edward W. Bok Technical High School was a public high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed by Irwin T. Catharine and named after literary figure Edward William Bok, editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. It was completed in February 1938 by the Public Works Administration (WPA) as a vocational high school at 8th & Mifflin Streets. As part of the Philadelphia Public Schools' Multiple Property Submission, the school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December, 1986. Bok High School was reorganized in 2006-2007 to prepare students for jobs in modern technology. After the 2012-2013 school year, the school was closed. In 2014, the school was renovated to become a home for over 200 businesses including restaurants, apartments, daycares, and hair salons.
William Curtis Bok was a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice, philanthropist and writer. Heir to an enormous publishing fortune, he was also a devout Quaker and an avid sailor.
Isabel Allerdice Mallon was an American writer, best known for columns written in the 1890s as "Ruth Ashmore" for the Ladies' Home Journal, and her syndicated newspaper column as "Bab's Babble".
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Charles Leroy Blockson was an American historian, author, bibliophile, and collector of books, historical documents, art, and other materials related to the history and culture of African Americans, continental Africans, and the African diaspora throughout the rest of the world. He curated two university collections related to the study of African-American history and culture: the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and the African Diaspora at Pennsylvania State University and the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University.