A ramjet is a type of jet engine which uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust. Ramjets are most often attached to aircraft, and require that the aircraft is moving above the speed of sound (Mach 1). They are different from turbojets ("normal" aircraft engines) because they do not have any moving parts which compress the air. Instead, they use a shock cone to compress the air. The ramjet gets its name from this fact; it "rams" the air hard enough to compress it to a combustible pressure.

Parts of a Ramjet

Ramjets are made up of 4 main sections.

Inlet
The first section is called the inlet. The purpose of the inlet is to capture air and compress it. Compression is required in order to burn the fuel correctly. The compression comes from a process called a shock wave. Shock waves only occur when the aircraft is moving at or above Mach 1. For this reason, ramjets are more efficient if moving around Mach 2 or 3.

Diffuser
The second part of the ramjet is called the diffuser. Air that comes through the inlet is moving very fast, which makes it very hard to burn fuel. The job of the diffuser is to slow the flow down in an efficient way. By the time the air has passed all the way through the inlet, it is traveling slower than Mach 1. This is important for the diffuser to work properly. The diffuser is essentially just a pipe that increases in area as you move along it. Because the flow moving slower than Mach 1, the increasing area causes the air to slow down.

Combustion chamber
The third part of the ramjet is the combustor, also called the combustion chamber. The combustor is where the fuel is introduced to the air, and then burns. Burning fuel adds energy to the air, which will be later used to create thrust. The air must be moving relatively slowly for the combustor to work properly. There is a part inside the combustor called the flame holder. The flame holder, as the name suggests, holds the flame in place. A typical flame holder looks like a ring of small v-shaped pieces of metal. They create little pockets of slow air, which make it easier for the fuel to keep burning.

Nozzle
After the fuel is burned and the air is heated, it flows through the last part, the nozzle. The purpose of the nozzle is to turn all of the energy in the air into thrust. In order to do this, the nozzle must first get smaller then get larger. The smallest area of the nozzle is called the "throat". The air coming from the combustor is moving slower than Mach 1, so as the nozzle gets smaller, the air speeds up. The nozzle is designed so that once the air reaches the throat, it has sped all the way up to Mach 1. This is an important detail for the nozzle to work properly. Once the air passes the throat, the air gets larger again. Since the flow reached Mach 1 in the throat, increasing the area also increases the speed of the air. This is the key to creating thrust. The air exiting the nozzle essentially "pushes" the ramjet forward.

Related pages
 Gas turbine
 Turbojet

Aircraft engines

Ramjet


Lillian Ross (June 8, 1918 – September 20, 2017) was an American journalist and author, who was a staff writer at The New Yorker for seven decades, beginning in 1945. Her novelistic reporting and writing style, shown in early stories about Ernest Hemingway and John Huston, are widely understood as a primary influence on what would later be called "literary journalism" or "new journalism."

Biography
Ross was born Lillian Rosovsky in Syracuse, New York, in 1918 and raised, partly in Syracuse and partly in Brooklyn, the youngest of three children of Louis and Edna (née Rosenson) Rosovsky. Her elder siblings were Helen and Simeon. During most of her career at The New Yorker she conducted an affair with its longtime editor, William Shawn. In The Talk of the Town, following the death of J. D. Salinger, she wrote of her long friendship with Salinger and showed photographs of him and his family with her family, including her adopted son, Erik (born 1965).

Death
Ross died from a stroke in Manhattan on September 20, 2017, at the age of 99.

Bibliography

Books

 Picture (account of the making of the film The Red Badge of Courage, originally published in The New Yorker), Rinehart (New York City), 1952, Anchor Books (New York City), 1993.
 Portrait of Hemingway (originally published as a "Profile" in The New Yorker, May 13, 1950), Simon & Schuster (New York City), 1961.
 (With sister, Helen Ross) The Player: A Profile of an Art (interviews), Simon & Schuster, 1962, Limelight Editions, 1984.
 Vertical and Horizontal (novel based on stories originally published in The New Yorker), Simon & Schuster, 1963.
 Reporting (articles originally published in The New Yorker, including "The Yellow Bus," "Symbol of All We Possess," "The Big Stone," "Terrific," "El Unico Matador," "Portrait of Hemingway," and "Picture"), Simon & Schuster, 1964, with new introduction by the author, Dodd (New York City), 1981.
 Talk Stories (sixty stories first published in "The Talk of the Town" section of The New Yorker, 1958–65), Simon & Schuster, 1966.
 Adlai Stevenson, Lippincott (Philadelphia), 1966.
 Reporting Two, Simon & Schuster, 1969.
 Moments with Chaplin, Dodd, 1980.
 Takes: Stories from "The Talk of the Town", Congdon & Weed (New York City), 1983.
 Here but Not Here: A Love Story (memoir), Random House, 1998.
 Reporting Back:  Notes on Journalism, Counterpoint (New York), 2002.
 Reporting Always: Writing for The New Yorker (non-fiction), Scribner, November 2015.

Essays and reporting

  Talk piece on Transit Radio, Inc.

References

External links
 "Nothing for Lillian Ross in William Shawn's will", observer.com
 "'William Shawn - stud or saint?': the memories of Lillian Ross and Ved Mehta"
 Profile, nytimes.com
 Profile, nymag.com
 J.D. Salinger infosite
 "Lillian Ross does Katharine Hepburn", slate.com
 "'Here But Not Here: A Love Story' by Lillian Ross", old.post-gazette.com

1918 births
2017 deaths
Jewish American journalists
20th-century American women journalists
The New Yorker staff writers
Journalists from Brooklyn
Writers from New York (state)
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American women journalists
21st-century American Jews

Lillian Ross (journalist)


Trisha Goddard, formerly called Trisha, is a British tabloid talk show hosted by Trisha Goddard. It initially aired on ITV in the mornings from 1998 to 2004 before moving to Channel 5, where it was broadcast until 2010. It was also shown on ITV's digital channel ITV2 with a spin-off show called Trisha: Extra and a double bill of the main Trisha show every afternoon. The programme was moved to Channel 5 and aired from January 2005 to December 2010.

Format
The show started and ended taking over from Vanessa Feltz and the Vanessa show. Initially, Trisha Goddard continued her predecessor's tradition of light-hearted debate, on subjects such as men who wore women's clothes. Goddard would also interview ordinary people in the news.

However, from around 2001 the show began modelling itself on The Jerry Springer Show, which at the time had a following in the UK. More and more, Trisha began to focus on working-class or underclass guests and their numerous problems. These were usually to do with infidelity and/or paternity issues, but other subjects covered included troublesome teenagers or surprise family reunions.

Goddard hosts the programme, which is well known for the conducting of lie detector tests and DNA tests, the results of which are then revealed on air. Robert Phipps, a body language expert, frequently guests on the show.

Trisha has frequently been accused of exploiting its subjects plus copying American formats such as The Maury Povich Show. Verbal abuse and physical fights between guests sometimes break out on the show, the latter are never shown. Instead the camera cuts to the audience or Trisha herself until her security team restores order.

Dispute
Trisha ceased production in 2004, when ITV refused to allow Trisha's own TV production company, Town House TV, to make future episodes of the show. She decided not to renew her contract and moved to rival broadcaster Channel 5 to present a similar series. The new programme, Trisha Goddard, was made by Town House TV. ITV mounted a successful spoiler campaign against Trisha's new series; they stockpiled their remaining episodes of Trisha until the launch date of Trisha Goddard.

When ITV finally ran out of Trisha episodes, Channel 5 began running Trisha Goddard. From 16 October 2006, it has been seen on both Channel 5 and then in a double-bill on its new female-oriented digital channel Fiver (formerly Five Life).

Trisha Goddard launched on Channel 5 on Monday 24 January 2005, but it was shown in the afternoons and not directly opposite ITV's series. ITV did, however, schedule a double bill of Trisha on ITV2 to clash with the series on Channel 5. The first Trisha Goddard gained 500,000 viewers on Channel 5, significantly fewer than the 1.3 million viewers who watched ITV's show.

Trisha took some of her "experts" with her to Channel 5, including counsellor advisor on Aftercare for show and Psychological factors Ricky Maczka, Robert Phipps and head security guard Pete. Others, such as counsellor Claire Evans and polygraph expert Bruce Burgess, stayed with ITV to work on its successor show, The Jeremy Kyle Show.

The show production base was moved from the ITV Anglia studios in Norwich to The Maidstone Studios in Kent.

On 9 January 2009, Channel 5 announced that Trisha Goddard had been cancelled. The channel blamed the "current economic climate" for the "difficult decision".

Trisha: Extra
Trisha: Extra was a spin-off show shown on ITV's digital channel ITV2.

U.S. version

In July 2011, it was announced that NBCUniversal Television Distribution will bring Goddard to the United States to launch an American version of her program, which would follow the same concept as her UK version. The U.S. version was picked up by NBC O&O's and other stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group and launched in September 2012. The show ran for three seasons before being cancelled.

References

External links
Trisha Goddard at channel5.com
Trisha Goddard Show  Official Website

1998 British television series debuts
2010 British television series endings
1990s British television talk shows
2000s British television talk shows
2010s British television talk shows
Channel 5 (British TV channel) original programming
English-language television shows
ITV (TV network) original programming
Television series by ITV Studios
Television series by Universal Television
Television shows produced by Anglia Television

Trisha Goddard (TV series)


Ángela Peralta (6 July 1845, Mexico City – 30 August 1883, Mazatlán) (baptised María de los Ángeles Manuela Tranquilina Cirila Efrena Peralta Castera) was an operatic soprano of international fame and a leading figure in the operatic life of 19th-century Mexico. Called the "Mexican Nightingale" in Europe, she had already sung to acclaim in major European opera houses by the age of 20. Although primarily known for her singing, she was also a composer as well as an accomplished pianist and harpist.

Biography

Ángela Peralta was the daughter of Manuel Peralta and Josefa Castera de Peralta. She showed an early talent for singing and music. At the age of 8, she sang a cavatina from Belisario by Gaetano Donizetti with great success, and went on to study at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Mexico City. At 15 she made her operatic debut as Leonora in Giuseppe Verdi's Il trovatore at the Teatro Nacional in Mexico City. Accompanied by her father, and financed by a wealthy patron, Santiago de la Vega, she then went on to study singing in Italy under Leopardi. On 13 May 1862, she made her debut at La Scala in Milan with an acclaimed performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

She sang Bellini's La sonnambula before King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy at the Teatro Regio in Turin where she received 32 curtain calls. Between 1863 and 1864, she sang in the opera houses of Rome, Florence, Bologna, Genoa, Naples, Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, St. Petersburg, Alexandria, and  Cairo. The Second Mexican Empire invited her to return to her country to sing in the National Imperial Theatre, and in 1865 she accepted the invitation. In 1866 she sang before Maximilian I of Mexico and Charlotte of Belgium and was named "Chamber singer of the Empire". In December 1866 with the downfall of the Second Mexican Empire imminent, she returned to Europe, performing in New York City and Havana along the way. In Madrid, she married her cousin, Eugenio Castera, and for a while retired from singing, although she continued to compose songs and piano pieces. Her most well-known work is Álbum Musical de Ángela Peralta. Her marriage was an unhappy one due to her husband's mental illness which manifested itself in the first year of their marriage. (Castera was later committed to a mental hospital in Paris where he died in 1876.)

On a visit to Mexico in 1871, Peralta established her own touring opera company for which she frequently sang her signature roles – Amina in La sonnambula and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. (In her lifetime, she sang Amina 122 times, and Lucia 166 times.)
In the mid-1870s she began an affair with the Mexican lawyer and entrepreneur Julián Montiel y Duarte, which caused a scandal in Mexico City. The city's social elite boycotted her performances and hired hecklers to harass her during performances. Her reputation recovered following her performance in Linda di Chamounix, but she kept her vow never to sing in Mexico City again.

In 1883, with her reputation (and economic situation) again in decline, she began a tour of northern Mexico with her troupe of Italian opera singers. The tour began in Guaymas and proceeded to La Paz, Baja California Sur. It was in La Paz that she sang for the last time on stage  – the title role in Maria di Rohan – with the performance taking place in a theatre improvised from a disused sand pit. On 22 August, the troupe arrived in the port city of Mazatlán, where they were to perform Il trovatore and Aida. The city of Mazatlán prepared an elaborate welcome for her. Her boat docked at a pier decorated with garlands of flowers, and she was greeted by a band playing the Mexican National Anthem. When her carriage arrived, her admirers unhitched the horses and pulled it themselves to the Hotel Iturbide, where she once again saluted the crowds from her balcony. However, within a few days, she and 76 of the troupe's 80 members were to die in the yellow fever epidemic that swept the city shortly after their arrival.

Ángela Peralta died in the Hotel Iturbide in Mazatlán at the age of 38 on 30 August 1883. She married her lover Julián Montiel y Duarte on her deathbed. According to an eyewitness account of the marriage ceremony, she was already unconscious when it took place. One of the singers from her company, Lemus, supported her by the shoulders. When asked if she took Montiel y Duarte as her husband, Lemus moved her head to make it appear that she was nodding her assent. Before her burial in Mazatlán, her body lay in state, dressed in one of her opera costumes and her best jewels. In 1937, her remains were disinterred and brought to the Rotunda de Hombres Ilustres (the Rotunda of Illustrious People) in Mexico City's Panteón de Dolores. Both Mazatlán and San Miguel de Allende have theatres named in her honour.

Voice and repertoire

A Mazatlán opera-lover and journalist, who watched Peralta rehearsing in the Teatro Rubio on 22 August 1883, wrote in his diary: She is a woman with an agreeable presence, slightly obese, with bulging but very lively eyes. She has a wonderful voice that produces notes from the very highest to the lowest with astounding ease; she sang several variations with such delicate notes, like the trill of a goldfinch...
Peralta's wide-ranging repertoire included: Leonora in Il trovatore, Violetta in La traviata; Elvira in I puritani; Marie in La fille du régiment; Amina in La sonnambula; Adina in L'elisir d'amore; and the title roles in Aida, Dinorah, Linda di Chamounix, Maria di Rohan, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Norma.  She also created the leading female roles in three operas by Mexican composers: Ildegonda (1866) and Gino Corsini (1877) by Melesio Morales, and Guatimotzin (1871) by Aniceto Ortega del Villar.

Tribute
On July 6, 2021, Google celebrated her 175th birthday with a Google Doodle.

Notes

References
Gaxiola Aldana, Yovana, Rercodarán la voz de Ángela Peralta en Mazatlán, El Universal, 13 August 2008  (in Spanish). Accessed 29 August 2008.
Gugliotta, Bobette, Women of Mexico: The Consecrated and the Commoners, 1519–1900, Floricanto Press, 1989, pp. 164–165.
Manjarrez, Armida, Ángela Peralta, RedEscolar, Instituto Latinoamericano de la Comunicación Educativa (in Spanish). Accessed 29 August 2008.
Standish, Peter, A Companion to Mexican Studies, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2006, p. 70. .
Stevenson, Robert, 'Peralta, Angela' in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1992, Vol. 3, pp. 948–949.
Werner, Michael S., Concise Encyclopedia of Mexico, Taylor & Francis, 2001, p. 526. .
Whipperman, Bruce, Moon Handbooks: Pacific Mexico, Avalon Travel, 2007. p. 44. .

External links
History of the Teatro Ángela Peralta in Mazatlán and a biography of Peralta on the official web site of the Instituto Municipal de Cultura, Turismo y Artes de Mazatlán (in Spanish and English).
Obituary: Senora Angela Peralta, The New York Times, 9 September 1883, p. 7. (PDF format)
Postage stamp commemorating Ángela Peralta issued by the Mexican Postal Service on 20 December 1974. Realia Project, Oberlin College Digital Collections.

1845 births
1883 deaths
Mexican operatic sopranos
Mexican women composers
Deaths from yellow fever
Singers from Mexico City
National Conservatory of Music of Mexico alumni
Infectious disease deaths in Mexico
19th-century composers
19th-century Mexican women opera singers
19th-century women composers

Ángela Peralta


Jaws is a 1974 American novel by Peter Benchley. It is about a great white shark that eats several people in the ocean near a small town in Long Island, New York. Three men set out on a boat to hunt and kill the shark. Benchley was partly inspired by the adventures of a shark fisherman named Frank Mundus.

Millions of copies of the novel were sold. In 1975, a movie based on the book, also called Jaws, was released. The movie was directed by Steven Spielberg.

1974 books
20th-century American novels
New York (state) in fiction
Sharks

Jaws (novel)


Reynolds syndrome is a rare secondary laminopathy, consisting of the combination of primary biliary cirrhosis and progressive systemic sclerosis.  In some patients this syndrome has also been associated with Sjögren's syndrome and hemolytic anemia.  Typical clinical features include jaundice, elevated blood levels of alkaline phosphatase, calcinosis cutis, telangiectasias, and pruritus. This disease may cause white or yellow-ish spots on the arms or legs. The syndrome, a special case of scleroderma, is named after the American physician, Telfer B. Reynolds, MD (1921–2004), who first described it.  He is also known for creating one of the world's first hepatology programs at the University of Southern California.

It should not be confused with the more common Raynaud's phenomenon.

References

 T. B. Reynolds, E. K. Denison, H. D. Frank, F. L. Lieberman, R. L. Peters:  Primary biliary cirrhosis with scleroderma, Raynaud's phenomenon and telangiectasia. New syndrome. American Journal of Medicine, New York, 1971, 50 (3): 302–312.
 Volker Stadie, Johannes Wohlrab, Wolfgang Christian Marsch: The Reynolds Syndrome - a Rare Combination of Two Autoimmune Diseases. Medizinische Klinik, München, 2002, 97 (1): 40–43.

External links

Autoimmune diseases
Digestive diseases
Hepatology
Rheumatology
Syndromes
Rare diseases

Reynolds syndrome


Richard Mentor Johnson (October 17, 1780 – November 19, 1850)  was an American lawyer, military officer and politician who served as the ninth vice president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841 under President Martin Van Buren. He is the only vice president elected by the United States Senate under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. Johnson also represented Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. He began and ended his political career in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1806 in the early Federal period. He became allied with fellow Kentuckian Henry Clay as a member of the War Hawks faction that favored war with Britain in 1812. At the outset of the War of 1812, Johnson was commissioned a colonel in the Kentucky Militia and commanded a regiment of mounted volunteers from 1812 to 1813. He and his brother James served under William Henry Harrison in Upper Canada. Johnson led troops in the Battle of the Thames. Many reported that he personally killed the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, a claim that he later used to his political advantage.

After the war, Johnson returned to the House of Representatives. The state legislature appointed him to the Senate in 1819 to fill the seat vacated by John J. Crittenden. With his increasing prominence, Johnson was criticized for his interracial relationship with Julia Chinn, a mixed-race slave who was classified as octoroon (or seven-eighths white). Unlike other upper-class planters and leaders who had African-American mistresses or concubines, but never acknowledged them, Johnson treated Chinn as his common law wife. He acknowledged their two daughters as his children, giving them his surname, much to the consternation of some of his constituents. It is believed that because of this, the state legislature picked another candidate for the Senate in 1828, forcing Johnson to leave in 1829, but his Congressional district voted for him and returned him to the House in the next election.

In 1836, Johnson was the Democratic nominee for vice-president on a ticket with Martin Van Buren. Campaigning with the slogan "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh", Johnson fell one short of the electoral votes needed to secure his election. Virginia's delegation to the Electoral College refused to endorse Johnson, voting instead for William Smith of South Carolina. The Senate elected him to the vice-presidential office. Johnson proved such a liability for the Democrats in the 1836 election that they refused to renominate him for vice president in 1840. Van Buren campaigned for reelection without a running mate. He lost to William Henry Harrison, a Whig. Johnson tried to return to public office but was defeated. He finally was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1850, but died on November 19, 1850, just two weeks into his term.

Early life and education
Richard Mentor Johnson was born in the settlement of Beargrass on the Kentucky frontier (present-day Louisville) on October 17, 1780, the fifth of Robert and Jemima (Suggett) Johnson's 11 children, and the second of eight sons. His brothers John and Henry Johnson survived him. His parents married in 1770. Robert Johnson purchased land in what is now Kentucky, but was then part of Virginia, from Patrick Henry and from James Madison. He had worked as a surveyor and was able to pick out good land. His wife Jemima Suggett "came from a wealthy and politically connected family."

About the time of Richard's birth, the family moved to Bryan's Station, near present-day Lexington in the Bluegrass Region. This was a fortified outpost, as there was much Native American resistance to white settlement. The Shawnee and Cherokee hunted in this area. Jemima Johnson was remembered as among the community's heroic women because of what was told of her actions during Simon Girty's raid on Bryan's Station in August 1782. According to later reports, with Indian warriors hidden in the nearby woods and the community short on water, she led the women to a nearby spring, and the attackers allowed them to return to the fort with the water. Having the water helped the settlers beat off an attack made with flaming arrows. At the time, Robert Johnson was serving in the legislature in Richmond, Virginia, as he had been elected to represent Fayette County.  (Kentucky was part of Virginia until 1792.)

Beginning in 1783, Kentucky was considered safe enough that settlers began to leave the fortified stations to establish farms. The Johnsons settled on the land Robert had purchased at Great Crossing. As a surveyor, he became successful through well-chosen land purchases and being in the region when he could take advantage of huge land grants.

According to Miles Smith's doctoral thesis, "Richard developed a cheery disposition and seems to have been a generally happy and content child". Richard lived on the family plantation until he was 16. In 1796, he was sent briefly to a local grammar school, and then attended Transylvania University, the first college west of the Appalachian Mountains. While at the Lexington college, where his father was a trustee, he read law as a legal apprentice with George Nicholas and James Brown, later a US Senator.

Career
Johnson was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1802, and opened his law office at Great Crossing. Later, he owned a retail store as a merchant and pursued a number of business ventures with his brothers. Johnson often worked pro bono for poor people, prosecuting their cases when they had merit. He also opened his home to disabled veterans, widows, and orphans. Johnson also became a prominent Freemason, and in the late 1830s was part of a Masonic organization, the Hunters Lodge, that unsuccessfully planned an invasion of Canada to overthrow the British government there and establish a provisional American administration.

Marriage and family

Family tradition holds that Johnson broke off an early marital engagement when he was about sixteen because of his mother's disapproval. Purportedly Johnson vowed revenge for his mother's interference. His former fiancée later gave birth to his daughter, named Celia, who was raised by the Johnson family. Celia Johnson later married Wesley Fancher, one of the men who served in Johnson's regiment at the Battle of the Thames.

After his father died, Richard Johnson inherited Julia Chinn, an octoroon mixed-race woman (seven-eighths European and one-eighth African in ancestry), who was born into slavery around 1790. She had grown up in the Johnson household, where her mother served. Julia Chinn was the daughter of Benjamin Chinn, who was living in Malden, Upper Canada, or London, Canada, and a sister of Daniel Chinn.  An 1845 letter from Newton Craig, Keeper of the Penitentiary in Frankfort, Kentucky, to Daniel Chinn, mentions another brother of Julia Chinn named Marcellus, who accompanied Col. Johnson on his first electioneering tour for vice-presidency.  Marcellus left Col. Johnson in New York, whereupon Col. Johnson tried to find Marcellus' whereabouts from Arthur Tappan, Esq.

Though Chinn was legally Johnson's concubine, he began a long-term relationship with her, and treated her as his common-law wife, which was legal in Kentucky at the time. They had two daughters together and she later became manager of his plantation. Both Johnson and Chinn championed the "notion of a diverse society" by their multi-racial, predominately white family. They were prohibited from marrying because she was a slave.<ref name=mills>Mills, The Vice-President and the Mulatto</ref> When Johnson was away from his Kentucky plantation, he authorized Chinn to manage his business affairs. She died in the widespread cholera epidemic that occurred in the summer of 1833. Johnson deeply grieved her loss.

The relationship between Johnson and Chinn shows the contradictions within slavery at the time. There were certainly numerous examples that "kin could also be property". Johnson was unusual for being open about his relationship and treating Chinn as his common-law wife. He was heard to call her "my bride" on at least one occasion, and they acted like a married couple. According to oral tradition, other slaves at Great Crossings were said to work on their wedding.

Chinn gradually gained more responsibilities. As she spent much of her time in the "plantation's big house", a two-story brick home, she managed Johnson's estate for at least half of each year, with her purview later expanding to all of his property, even acting as "Richard's representative" and allowing her to handle money. This gave, as historical scholar Christina Snyder argues, some independence, since Johnson told his white employees that Chinn's authority must be respected, and her role allowing her children's lives to be different from "others of African descent at Great Crossings", giving them levels of privileged access within the plantation. This was further complicated by the fact that Chinn was still enslaved but supervised the work of slaves, which the Chinn family never sold or mortgaged off, but she did not have the power to "challenge the institution of slavery or overturn the government that supported it", she only had the power to gain some personal autonomy, with Johnson never legally emancipating her. This may have been because, as Snyder says, liberating her from human bondage would erode "ties that bound her to him" and keeping her enslaved supported his idea of being a "benevolent patriarch".

Johnson and Chinn had two daughters, Adaline (or Adeline) Chinn Johnson and Imogene Chinn Johnson, whom he acknowledged and gave his surname to, with Johnson and Chinn preparing them "for a future as free women". Johnson taught them morality and basic literacy, with Julia undoubtedly teaching her own skills, with both later pushing for both of them to "receive regular academic lessons" which he later educated at home to prevent the scorn of neighbors and constituents. Later Johnson would provide for Adaline and Imogene's education. Both daughters married white men. Johnson gave them large farms as dowries from his own holdings. There is confusion about whether Adeline Chinn Scott had children; a 2007 account by the Scott County History Museum said she had at least one son, Robert Johnson Scott (with husband Thomas W. Scott) who became a doctor in Missouri. Meyers said that she was childless. There is also disagreement about the year of her death. Bevins writes that Adeline died in the 1833 cholera epidemic. Meyers wrote she died in 1836. The Library of Congress notes that she died in February 1836.

Although Johnson treated these two daughters as his own, according to Meyers, the surviving Imogene was prevented from inheriting his estate at the time of his death. The court noted she was illegitimate, and so without rights in the case. Upon Johnson's death, the Fayette County Court found that "he left no widow, children, father, or mother living." It divided his estate between his living brothers, John and Henry.

Bevins's account, written for the Georgetown & Scott County Museum, says that Adeline's son Robert Johnson Scott, her first cousin, Richard M. Johnson, Jr., and Imogene's family (husband Daniel Pence, first daughter Malvina and son-in-law Robert Lee, and second daughter and son-in-law Josiah Pence) "acquired" Johnson's remaining land after his death.

After Chinn's death, Johnson began an intimate relationship with another family slave. When she left him for another man, Johnson had her picked up and sold at auction. Afterward he began a similar relationship with her sister, also a slave.Stimpson, p. 133

Political career
Early years

After passing the bar, Johnson returned to Great Crossing, where his father gave him a plantation and slaves to work it. The many lawsuits over ownership of land provided him with much legal work, and, combined with his agricultural interests, he quickly became prosperous.

Johnson ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1803, but finished third, behind the winner, Thomas Sandford, and William Henry. At that time, following the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson in 1801, many young, democratically minded aspiring politicians were seeking office. While Jefferson and Johnson agreed on the need for greater democracy, Jefferson felt that the people should be led by the elite, such as himself, while Johnson took a more populist view.

In 1804, Johnson ran for the Kentucky House of Representatives for Scott County (where Great Crossing is) and this time was elected, the first native Kentuckian to serve in the state's legislature. Although the Kentucky Constitution imposed an age requirement of twenty-four for members of the House of Representatives, Johnson was so popular that no one raised questions about his age, and he was allowed to take his seat.Snyder, p. 44. Seeking to protect his constituents, most of whom were small farmers, he introduced a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment limiting the power of the federal courts to matters involving the U.S. Constitution. Throughout his political career, Johnson sought to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts, which he deemed undemocratic.Meyer, pp. 52–53

In 1806, Johnson was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives, serving as the first native Kentuckian to be elected to Congress. In the three-way election, he defeated Congressman Sandford and James Moore. At the time of his election in August 1806, he did not meet the U.S. Constitution's age requirement for service in the House (25), but by the time the congressional term began the following March, he had turned 25. He was re-elected and served six consecutive terms. During the first three terms from 1807 to 1813, he represented Kentucky's Fourth District.

Johnson took his seat in the House on October 26, 1807; Congress had been called into special session by President Jefferson to consider how to react to the Chesapeake–Leopard affair, the forcible boarding of an American naval ship by a British vessel, with four sailors seized as deserters and one hanged. Jefferson had tried to maintain neutrality with the main combatants in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain and France, and at his urging, Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807, with Johnson voting in support, finding economic warfare preferable to the use of guns: "we fear no nation, but let the time for shedding human blood be protracted, when consistent with our safety".

Over the following year, Congress attempted to tighten the Embargo, which was widely evaded, especially in the Northeast, with Johnson voting in favor each time. Johnson generally supported Jefferson's proposals, and those of his successor James Madison: all three were Democratic-Republicans, and Johnson saw the party's proposals as superior to any suggested by the Federalists, whom he saw as not acting in the best interests of the country. In 1809, Johnson supported Jefferson in adopting the administration's proposal to replace the Embargo Act with the Non-Intercourse Act, as the Embargo had proven ineffective except in causing a serious recession in the United States.

Although Johnson is considered one of the War Hawks, the young Southern and Western Democratic-Republicans who sought expansion and development of the nation, he was cautious in the runup to the War of 1812. Johnson saw Britain as the major obstacle to United States control of North America, but worried about what a war might bring. By the time Congress met in late 1811, he had come around to war, and joined the War Hawks in electing one of their own, Henry Clay of Kentucky, as Speaker. Like the other War Hawks, though, he was initially unwilling to support increased taxes and borrowing to finance the construction of naval vessels. When Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war against Britain in June 1812, Johnson voted in favor as the House passed the resolution, 79–49. Madison signed the declaration on June 18, 1812.

For his fourth consecutive term from 1813 to 1815, he had secured one of Kentucky's at-large seats in the House. For his fifth and sixth consecutive terms, 1815 to 1819, he represented Kentucky's Third District. Johnson continued to represent the interests of the poor as a member of the House. He first came to national attention with his opposition to rechartering the First Bank of the United States.

Johnson served as chairman of the Committee on Claims during the Eleventh Congress (1809–1811). The committee was charged with adjudicating financial claims made by veterans of the Revolutionary War. He sought to influence the committee to grant the claim of Alexander Hamilton's widow to wages which Hamilton had declined when serving under George Washington. Although Hamilton was a champion of the rival Federalist Party, Johnson had compassion for Hamilton's widow; before the end of his term, he secured payment of the wages.

War of 1812

Initial service
Within a week of the declaration of war, Johnson urged the House of Representatives to recommend the raising of troops in the western states, lest disaster befall settlers on the frontier. After the adjournment, Johnson returned to Kentucky to recruit volunteers. So many men responded that he chose only those with horses, and raised a body of mounted rifles. The War of 1812 was extraordinarily popular in Kentucky; Kentuckians depended on sea trade through the port of New Orleans and feared that the British would stir up another Indian war. The land war fought in the Northern United States pitted American troops against British forces and their Indian allies. Johnson recruited 300 men, divided into three companies, who elected him major. They merged with another battalion, forming a regiment of 500 men, with Johnson as colonel, with the merged volunteer forces becoming a brigade commanded by General Edward W. Tupper of Ohio. The Kentucky militia was under the command of General William Henry Harrison, the Governor of the Indiana Territory.

Johnson's force was originally intended to join General William Hull at Detroit, but Hull surrendered Detroit on August 16 and his army was captured. Harrison by then was in command of the entire Northwest frontier and ordered Johnson to relieve Fort Wayne in the northeast of the Territory, which was already being attacked by the Indians. On September 18, 1812, Johnson's men reached Fort Wayne in time to save it, and turned back an Indian ambush. They returned to Kentucky and disbanded, going out of their way to burn Potawatomi villages along the Elkhart River en route.

Johnson returned to his seat in Congress in the late fall of 1812. Based on his experience, he proposed a plan to defeat the mobile, guerrilla warfare of the Indians. American troops moved slowly, dependent on a supply line. Indians would evade battle and raid supplies until the American forces withdrew or were overrun. Mounted riflemen could move quickly, carry their own supplies, and live off the woods. If they attacked Indian villages in winter, the Indians would be compelled to stand and fight for the supplies they used to wage war and could be decisively defeated. Johnson submitted this plan to President James Madison and Secretary of War John Armstrong, who approved it in principle. They referred the plan to Harrison, who found winter operations impracticable. Johnson was permitted to try the tactics in the summer of 1813; later, the US conducted Indian wars in winter with his strategy.

Johnson left Washington, D.C., just before Congress adjourned. He raised one thousand men, nominally part of the Kentucky militia under Governor Isaac Shelby, but largely operating independently. He disciplined his men, required that every man have arms in prime condition and ready to hand, and hired gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and doctors at his own expense. He devised a new tactical system: when any group of men encountered the enemy, they were to dismount, take cover, and hold the enemy in place. All groups not in contact were to ride to the sound of firing, and dismount, surrounding the enemy when they got there. Between May and September, Johnson raided throughout the Northwest, burning the war supply centers of Indian villages, surrounding their fighting units and scattering them, killing some  warriors each time.

Battle of the Thames
In September, Oliver Hazard Perry destroyed most of the British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie, taking control of the lake. This made the British army, then at Fort Malden (now Amherstburg, Ontario) vulnerable to having its supply lines cut. The British, under General Henry Procter, withdrew to the northeast, pursued by Harrison, who had advanced through Michigan while Johnson kept the Indians engaged. The Indian chief Tecumseh and his allies covered the British retreat, but were countered by Johnson, who had been called back from a raid on Kaskaskia that had taken the post where the British had distributed arms and money to the Indians. Johnson's cavalry defeated Tecumseh's main force on September 29, took British supply trains on October 3, and was one of the factors inducing Procter to stand and fight at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, as Tecumseh had been demanding he do. One of Johnson's slaves, Daniel Chinn, accompanied Johnson to the battle.

At the battle itself, Johnson's forces were the first to attack. One battalion of five hundred men, under Johnson's elder brother, James Johnson, engaged the British force of eight hundred regulars; simultaneously, Richard Johnson, with the other, now somewhat smaller battalion, attacked the fifteen hundred Indians led by Tecumseh. There was too much tree cover for the British volleys to be effective against James Johnson; three-quarters of the regulars were killed or captured.

The Indians were a harder fight; they were out of the main field of battle, skirmishing on the edge of an adjacent swamp. Richard Johnson ordered a suicide squad of twenty men to charge with him and draw the Indians' fire, with the rest to attack as the Indians reloaded. But he was unable to push his troops through the enemy position due to the swampy ground. Johnson had to order his men to dismount and hold until Shelby's infantry came up. By then, under the pressure of Johnson's attack, the Native American force broke and fled into the swamp, during which time Tecumseh was slain.Snyder, Great Crossings, pp. 44–47.

The question of who shot and killed Tecumseh was highly controversial in Johnson's lifetime, as he was most often named as the shooter. Johnson himself did not publicly say that he had killed Tecumseh, stating that he had killed "a tall, good-looking Indian", but initial published accounts named him, and it was not until 1816 that another claimant, a man named David King, appeared. John Sugden, in his book on the Battle of the Thames, found that Johnson's "claim is surely the stronger". Jones suggested that the issue did not truly catch the public's attention until Johnson became a potential candidate for national office in the 1830s, and was promoted through such means as a campaign biography, stage play and song. In any event, he found, "Colonel Johnson truly was a war hero at the Battle of the Thames. By ... leading the suicide mission on horseback, more lives were saved than lost. Johnson was lucky to have been only wounded, since fifteen men died instantly during the charge."

There are reports from Indians that support Johnson's account, but most were made decades after the battle, by which time the question of whether Johnson shot Tecumseh had become politically charged. Tecumseh was said to have been shot from a firearm pointed at a downward angle, as if from a horse, with a ball and three buckshot, which Johnson's pistol was said to be loaded with. Evidence that it was so loaded is lacking, and the angle of the wound did not exclude the possibility that he had been stooping when shot. Some accounts have muskets loaded with cartridges containing a ball and three buckshot being commonly carried by American soldiers, and whether the Americans identified the proper body as Tecumseh (whose death was attested to by British officers who had been at the battle) is another source of contention.

On April 4, 1818, an act of Congress requested that the President of the United States present to Johnson a sword in honor of his "daring and distinguished valor" at the Battle of the Thames. The sword was presented to Johnson by President James Monroe in April 1820. Johnson was one of only 14 military officers to be presented a sword by an act of Congress prior to the American Civil War.

Return to Washington
With the American success at the Battle of the Thames, the war in the northwest was effectively over. Although there was no organized resistance to his presence in Canada, Harrison withdrew to Detroit because of supply problems. Johnson remained, wounded, at Detroit as his men began their return to Kentucky. Once he had recovered enough to bear the journey, he was conveyed home in a bed in a carriage, arriving there in early November 1813. It took him five months to recover, though he was still left with a damaged left arm and hand, and was later described as walking with a limp. He returned to Congress in February 1814, but due to his wounds was unable to participate in debates until the following session of Congress. He received a hero's welcome, still suffering from war wounds that would plague him for the rest of his life.

In August 1814, British forces attacked Washington, D.C., and burned the White House and Capitol, and when Congress reconvened on September 19, with Johnson present, it was in temporary quarters. On September 22, Johnson moved for the appointment of a committee to look into why the British had been allowed to burn the city, and he was appointed as chairman. Johnson's committee compiled a voluminous report, but it was objected to by Representative Daniel Webster, who felt the report, including much correspondence, needed to be printed so that all congressmen could study it. This postponed any debate to 1815, by which time the Treaty of Ghent had been ratified, and the United States was again at peace. With Congress having little interest in debating the matter, it was dropped. Had the war continued, Johnson was ready to return to Kentucky to raise another military unit.

Post-war career in the House
With the end of the war, Johnson, who was made chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs, turned his legislative attention to issues such as securing pensions for widows and orphans and funding internal improvements in the West. There were widespread reports of Americans, including women and children, captured by Indians during the war, and Johnson used his congressional office to investigate these matters, and to try to secure the release of captives. Western Democratic-Republicans like Johnson strongly supported the military and urged aid for the veterans; in December 1815, Johnson introduced legislation for the "relief of the infirm, disabled, and superannuated officers and soldiers". Fearing that the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York produced dandies, not soldiers, Johnson expanded on a proposal by President Madison to establish three additional military academies, urging the placement of one of them in Kentucky. Despite the support of such influential members of the House as Clay and John C. Calhoun, the proposal did not pass, but Johnson worked to have federal facilities built in the West throughout his time in Congress.

Johnson believed that Congressional business was too slow and tedious and that the per diem system of compensation encouraged delays on the part of members. To remedy this, he sponsored legislation to pay annual salaries of $1,500 to congressmen rather than a $6 per diem for the days the body was in session. At the time, this had the effect of increasing the total compensation from about $900 to $1500. Johnson noted that congressmen had not had a pay increase in 27 years, during which time the cost of living had greatly increased, and that $1,500 was less than the salaries of 28 of the clerks employed by the government. The popular Johnson's sponsorship of the measure provided political cover for proponents; Maryland's Robert Wright wondered how his colleagues would feel if, "the highly honorable mover of this bill, who slew Tecumseh with his own hands ... he who came up here covered with wounds and glory, with his favorite war-horse and his more favorite servant—his attendant in the army, his nurse and necessary assistant" was "obliged to sell his war-horse or his servant"; salaries would prevent such things from coming to pass. The bill passed the House and Senate quickly and was made law on March 19, 1816. But, the measure proved extremely unpopular with voters, in part because it gave Congress an immediate pay raise, rather than waiting until after the next election. Many members who supported the bill lost their seats as a result, including Johnson's colleague Solomon P. Sharp from Kentucky. Johnson's overall popularity helped him retain his seat against a challenge, one of only 15 of 81 who voted to pass the bill to keep their seats in the House. The old Congress met for a lame-duck session in December, repealed the new law effective when the new Congress was sworn in, but at Johnson's suggestion, did not revive the old per diem, thus forcing the new legislators to act on the matter if they wanted to get paid. Compensation for members of Congress remained on a per diem basis until an annual salary of $3,000 (~$ in ) was prescribed in 1855. According to Edward J. McManus, who wrote Johnson's entry in the American National Biography, "Johnson, instead of defending the merits of the reform, avoided the backlash by pledging to work for the repeal of his own measure. He justified his reversal by arguing that representatives should reflect the popular will, but lack of political stamina may have been closer to the truth."

Johnson disliked the idea of a national bank, and had voted in 1811 not to renew the charter of the First Bank of the United States. Calhoun's bill for a Second Bank of the United States passed Congress in early 1816. Johnson was opposed, but was absent for the vote, busy with other matters. A bonus was to be paid to the government by the Second Bank, and a bill was introduced early in 1817 to spend that money on internal improvements. Although Johnson was opposed to the national bank, he supported the bill, believing that the improvements to transportation would benefit his constituents, and the bill passed the House by two votes. Madison, then in his final days in office, vetoed the bill. Johnson joined the effort to override the veto, but it failed. The break from the administration was unusual for Johnson, but he believed the war had shown the need for better roads and canals.

When he took office in 1817, President James Monroe's first choice for Secretary of War was Henry Clay, who declined the position. The post ultimately went to Calhoun. The result was that Johnson became chair of the Committee on Expenditures where he wielded considerable influence over defense policy in the Department of War during the Fifteenth Congress. In 1817, Congress investigated General Andrew Jackson's execution of two British subjects during the First Seminole War. Johnson chaired the inquiry committee. The majority of the committee favored a negative report and a censure for Jackson. Johnson, a Jackson supporter, drafted a minority report that was more favorable to Jackson and opposed the censure. The ensuing debate pitted Johnson against fellow Kentuckian Clay. Johnson's report prevailed, and Jackson was spared censure. This disagreement between Johnson and Clay, however, marked the beginning of a political separation between the two that lasted for the duration of their careers.

In 1818, Calhoun approved an expedition to build a military outpost near the present site of Bismarck, North Dakota on the Yellowstone River; Johnson awarded the contract to his brother James. Although the Yellowstone Expedition was an ultimate failure and expensive to the U.S. Treasury, the Johnsons escaped political ill will in their home district because the venture was seen as a peacekeeping endeavor on the frontier. However, the Panic of 1819 caused Congress to investigate the Yellowstone matter, and in 1820, a report found that James Johnson had overcharged the government by $76,000. Richard and James Johnson, as well as other family members, remained in debt until 1824, when arrangements were made with the largest creditor, the Second Bank of the United States, to settle the liabilities.

Senator
Monroe years (1819–1825)
Johnson announced his intent to retire from the House of Representatives in early 1818. Sources differ on why he did; David Petriello, in his biography of Johnson, stated that the Kentucky congressman had determined to move on to the Senate; an earlier biographer, Leland Winfield Meyer stated that Johnson's departure from the House was because he believed in rotation in office and felt he had served there long enough. Jones stated that Johnson planned to return to private life to deal with family business interests.

Under the original federal Constitution, state legislators, not the voters, elected U.S. senators, and the Kentucky General Assembly was to choose a replacement for outgoing senator Isham Talbot in December 1818. Johnson was considered a strong contender if he entered the race, and in October he let it be known through the press that he would accept the Senate seat if the General Assembly elected him. On December 18, 1818, legislators chose William Logan over Johnson, 67–55. Newspapers noted that the former congressman had never officially declared his candidacy, and that Johnson's political friends intended to nominate him for governor in the 1820 election.

Johnson's term in the House expired March 3, 1819, but by August, he had been elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, where he worked to secure passage of a law that abolished imprisonment for debtors in the state, though it did not pass until 1821. But when Senator John J. Crittenden resigned in November 1819, the legislature was called upon to fill the seat. The following month, the General Assembly elected Johnson to the Senate in a 68–53 vote over John Adair, who would be Kentucky's next governor.

Johnson was sworn in on January 3, 1820. The Senate was at that time grappling with the admission of the Missouri Territory and the Maine District (then part of Massachusetts) as states. When a bill was introduced which would bar slavery in the territories north and west of Missouri, Johnson was assigned to a select committee of five senators to consider it. The Maine and Missouri questions had been combined into one bill; Johnson voted against an amendment to separate them, which was defeated.

On February 17, the Senate voted to bar slavery outside Missouri in the part of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ north latitude line, with Johnson voting in favor. The bill passed, and was signed by President Monroe in March. Missouri's admission was delayed due to controversial clauses in its draft constitution, such as one forbidding the entry to the state of free African-Americans. Johnson served on the committee of House and Senate members which brokered a resolution, enabling Missouri's admission in August 1821.

Johnson was re-elected to a full term in 1822, so that in total, his Senate tenure ran from December 10, 1819, to March 4, 1829. In 1821, he introduced legislation chartering Columbian College (later The George Washington University) in Washington, D.C. During this time period, his views on Western expansion were clear. He believed that the US "empire of liberty" should extend across the continent, arguing in debates leading up to the Missouri Compromise that western expansion and emancipation should go hand in hand, acknowledging issues with white racism but advocating for gradual emancipation. Furthermore, he went against the ideas put forward by sympathizers of the Colonization movement, arguing in "favor of meaningfully incorporating people of color into a multiracial empire".

In December 1822, Johnson introduced legislation to abolish imprisonment for debt at the federal level. He first spoke to the issue in the Senate on December 14, 1822, pointing to the positive effects its cessation had effected in his home state. The bill failed, but Johnson persisted in re-introducing it every year. In 1824, it passed the Senate but was too late to be acted upon by the House. It passed the Senate a second time in 1828, but again, the House failed to act on it, and the measure died for some years, owing to Johnson's exit from the Senate the next year. Passage would have made only a modest impact since few were imprisoned for debt at the federal level, but Johnson hoped to advance the cause of abolishing it in the states. The reform was opposed by the business community, but Jackson's support after he became president in 1829 eventually gave the movement fresh life, and a limited bill was passed in 1832. Within ten years after that, imprisonment for debt had been abolished in most states.

Johnson also sought help for debtors not in prison, such as some form of bankruptcy legislation, which would help his own problems and those of his neighbors. Johnson knew this politically pressing issue, which he worked on into the 1830s, quite well because it affected him personally. He was in debt himself from his business losses and support for Western expansion. He also continued to advocate for the positions he had held while a member of the House. As the chair of the Committee on Military Affairs, Johnson pushed for higher veterans pensions, and a liberal policy to enable settlers to buy land in the West more easily.

Adams opponent (1825–1829)
The congressional nominating caucus system for choosing presidential and vice presidential candidates was unpopular by 1824, though a caucus did choose William H. Crawford of Georgia. State legislatures chose the other presidential candidates: Clay, Jackson and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Johnson supported Clay, his fellow Kentuckian, and Clay gained the state's electoral votes. Jackson led in both the popular and electoral vote for president, but did not have a majority, so the election for president was thrown into the House of Representatives, though Calhoun gained a majority of the electoral vote for vice president. Clay had finished fourth in electoral vote, and as the Constitution limits the House's choice to the top three finishers, he was eliminated. Johnson supported Jackson, and there were rumors Johnson would be Secretary of War in a Jackson administration. Clay threw his support to Adams, who was elected, and many believed Clay (who became Secretary of State) and Adams had made a Corrupt Bargain. Johnson was the one who informed Jackson of this. Many of Jackson's supporters were enraged by the outcome, including Johnson, who promised to oppose the Adams administration: "for by the Eternal, if they act as pure as the angels that stand at the right hand of the throne of God, we'll put them down". Johnson opposed Adams's policies, and became a member of the faction, later the Democratic Party, that New York Senator Martin Van Buren was forming to promote Jackson's candidacy in 1828.

Already known for securing government contracts for himself, as well as his brothers and friends, he offered land to establish the Choctaw Academy, a school devoted to the European-American education of Indians from the Southeast tribes. Johnson had tried to establish an Indian school at Great Crossings in 1818, partnering with the Kentucky Baptist Society, but the school folded in 1821 after it failed to gain the support of the federal government or private donors. The new academy would come into being a few years later. The academy, sitting on his farm in Scott County in 1825, was overseen by Johnson; and not only was part of treaty negotiations with the Choctaw Nation but appealed to his colleagues as a form "peaceful conquest" or "expansion with honor" as Henry Knox put it.Foreman, The Choctaw Academy Although he never ran afoul of the conflict of interest standards of his day, some of his colleagues considered his actions ethically questionable. Johnson was paid well for the school by the federal government, which gave him a portion of the annuities for the Choctaw. It was promoted by the Baptist Missionary Society as well. Some European-American students also attended the academy, including his nephew Robert Ward Johnson from Arkansas.

Another pet project Johnson supported was prompted by his friendship with John Cleves Symmes Jr., who proposed that the Earth was hollow. In 1823, Johnson proposed in the Senate that the government fund an expedition to the center of the Earth. The proposal was soundly defeated, receiving only twenty-five votes in the House and Senate combined.

Johnson served as chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses. Near the end of his term in the Senate, petitioners asked Congress to prevent the handling and delivery of mail on Sunday because it violated biblical principles about not working on the Sabbath. These petitions were referred to Johnson's committee. In response, Johnson, a practicing Baptist, drafted a report now commonly referred to as The Sunday Mail Report.Langworthy, p. 39 In the report, presented to Congress on January 19, 1829, Johnson argued that government was "a civil, and not a religious institution", and as such could not legislate the tenets of any particular denomination. The report was applauded as an elegant defense of the doctrine of separation of church and state. But Johnson was criticized for conflicts of interest in his defense, as he had friends who were contracted to haul mail, and who would have suffered financially from such a ban.

In 1828, Johnson was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election, owing in part to his relationship with the biracial slave Julia Chinn, with whom he lived in a common-law marriage. Although residents of his own district seemed little bothered by the arrangement, slaveholders elsewhere in the state were not so forgiving. The Democratic Party in Kentucky was split, with enough dissidents to be able to join with the opposition to block Johnson's re-election. Johnson's managers withdrew his name and proposed George M. Bibb, who was elected. In his own defense, Johnson said, "Unlike Jefferson, Clay, Poindexter and others I married my wife under the eyes of God, and apparently He has found no objections." (The named men were suspected or known to have similar relationships with slave women.) According to Henry Robert Burke, what people objected to was Johnson trying to introduce his daughters to "polite society". People were used to planters and overseers having relationships with slave women, but they were expected to deny them.

Return to the House
After his failed Senatorial re-election bid, Johnson returned to the House, representing Kentucky's Fifth District from 1829 to 1833, and Thirteenth District from 1833 to 1837. During the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses, he again served as chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads. In this capacity, he was again asked to address the question of Sunday mail delivery. He drew up a second report, largely similar in content to the first, arguing against legislation preventing mail delivery on Sunday. The report, commonly called "Col. Johnson's second Sunday mail report", was delivered to Congress in March 1830.

Some contemporaries doubted Johnson's authorship of this second report. Many claimed it was instead written by Amos Kendall. Kendall claimed he had seen the report only after it had been drafted and said he had only altered "one or two words". Kendall speculated that the author could be Reverend O.B. Brown, but historian Leland Meyer concludes that there is no reason to doubt that Johnson authored the report himself.

Johnson chaired the Committee on Military Affairs during the Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth Congresses. Beginning in 1830, there arose a groundswell of public support for Johnson's "pet project" of ending debt imprisonment. The subject began to appear more frequently in President Jackson's addresses to the legislature. Johnson chaired a House committee to report on the subject, and delivered the committee's report on January 17, 1832. Later that year, a bill abolishing the practice of debt imprisonment passed both houses of Congress, and was signed into law on July 14.

Johnson's stands won him widespread popularity and endorsement by George H. Evans, Robert Dale Owen, and Theophilus Fisk for the presidency in 1832, but Johnson abandoned his campaign when Andrew Jackson announced he would seek a second term. He then began campaigning to become Jackson's running mate, but Jackson favored Martin Van Buren instead. At the Democratic National Convention, Johnson finished a distant third in the vice-presidential balloting, receiving only the votes of the Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois delegations; William B. Lewis had to persuade him to withdraw

Election of 1836
After the election of 1832, Johnson continued to campaign for the vice presidency which would be available in 1836. He was endorsed by the New York labor leader Ely Moore on March 13, 1833, nine days after Jackson and Van Buren were inaugurated. Moore praised his devotion to freedom of religion and his opposition to imprisonment for debt.

William Emmons, the Boston printer, published a biography of Johnson in New York dated July 1833. Richard Emmons, from Great Crossing, Kentucky, followed this up with a play entitled Tecumseh, of the Battle of the Thames and a poem in honor of Johnson. Many of Johnson's friends and supporters – Davy Crockett and John Bell among them – encouraged him to run for president. Jackson, however, supported Vice President Van Buren for the office. Johnson accepted this choice, and worked to gain the nomination for vice president.

Emmons's poem provided the line that became Johnson's campaign slogan: "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh." Jackson supported Johnson for vice-president, thinking that the war hero would balance the ticket with Van Buren, who had not served in the War of 1812. Jackson made his decision based on Johnson's loyalty but also the president's anger at the primary rival candidate, William Cabell Rives.

Despite Jackson's support, the party was far from united behind Johnson. Van Buren preferred Rives as a running mate. In a letter to Jackson, Tennessee Supreme Court justice John Catron doubted that "a lucky random shot, even if it did hit Tecumseh, qualifies a man for the vice presidency." Although Johnson was a "widower" after Chinn's death in 1833, there was still dissension related to Johnson's open relationship with a slave. The 1835 Democratic National Convention, in Baltimore, in May 1835, was held under the two-thirds rule, largely to demonstrate Van Buren's wide popularity. Although Van Buren was nominated unanimously, Johnson barely obtained the necessary two-thirds of the vote. (A motion was made to change the rule, but it obtained only a bare majority, not two-thirds.)

Tennessee's delegation did not attend the convention. Edward Rucker, a Tennessean who happened to be in Baltimore, was picked to cast its 15 votes, so that all the states would endorse Van Buren. Senator Silas Wright, of New York, prevailed upon Rucker to vote for Johnson, giving him just more than twice the votes cast for Rives, and the nomination.

Jackson's faith in Johnson to balance the ticket proved misplaced. In the general election, Johnson cost the Democrats votes in the South, where his relationship with Chinn was particularly unpopular. He also failed to garner much support from the West, where he was supposed to be strong due to his reputation as an Indian fighter and war hero. He even failed to deliver his home state of Kentucky for the Democrats. Regardless, the Democrats still won the popular vote.

When the electoral vote was counted in Congress on February 8, 1837, Van Buren was found to have received 170 votes for president, but Johnson had received only 147 for vice-president. Although Virginia had elected electors pledged to both Van Buren and Johnson, the state's 23 "faithless electors" refused to vote for Johnson, leaving him one electoral vote short of a majority. For the only time, the Senate was charged with electing the vice president under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. The vote on February 8, 1837, divided strictly along party lines, with Johnson becoming vice-president by a vote of 36, as opposed to 16 for Whig Francis Granger, with three senators absent.

Vice presidency (1837–1841)

Johnson served as vice president from March 4, 1837, to March 4, 1841. His term was largely unremarkable, and he enjoyed little influence with President Van Buren. His penchant for wielding his power for his own interests did not abate. He lobbied the Senate to promote Samuel Milroy, whom he owed a favor, to the position of Indian agent. When Lewis Tappan requested presentation of an abolitionist petition to the Senate, Johnson, who was still a slaveholder, declined the request.

As presiding officer of the Senate, Johnson was called on to cast a tie-breaking vote fourteen times, more than all of his predecessors save John Adams and John Calhoun. Despite the precedent set by some of his predecessors, Johnson never addressed the Senate on the occasion of a tie-breaking vote; however, on one occasion, he did explain his vote — via an article in the Kentucky Gazette.

After the financial Panic of 1837, Johnson took a nine-month leave of absence, during which he returned home to Kentucky and opened a tavern and spa on his farm to offset his continued financial problems.McQueen, pp. 19–20 Upon visiting the establishment, Amos Kendall wrote to President Van Buren that he found Johnson "happy in the inglorious pursuit of tavern keeping – even giving his personal superintendence to the chicken and egg purchasing and water-melon selling department".

In his later political career, he became known for wearing a bright red vest and tie. He adopted this dress during his term as vice-president when he and James Reeside, a mail contractor known for his drab dress, passed a tailor's shop that displayed a bright red cloth in the window. Johnson suggested that Reeside should wear a red vest because the mail coaches he owned and operated were red. Reeside agreed to do so if Johnson would also. Both men ordered red vests and neckties, and were known for donning this attire for the rest of their lives.

Election of 1840
By 1840, it had become clear that Johnson was a liability to the Democratic ticket. Even former president Jackson conceded that Johnson was "dead weight," and threw his support to James K. Polk.McQueen, p. 20 President Van Buren stood for re-election, and the Whigs once again countered with William Henry Harrison. Van Buren was reluctant to drop Johnson from the ticket, fearing that dropping the Democrats' own war hero would split the party and cost him votes to Harrison. A unique compromise ensued, with the Democratic National Convention refusing to nominate Johnson, or any other candidate, for vice president. The idea was to allow the states to choose their own candidates, or perhaps return the question to the Senate should Van Buren be elected with no clear winner in the vice-presidential race.

Undaunted by this lack of confidence from his peers, Johnson continued to campaign to retain his office. Although his campaign was more vigorous than that of Van Buren, his behavior on the campaign trail raised concern among voters. He made rambling, incoherent speeches. During one speech in Ohio, he raised his shirt in order to display to the crowd the wounds that he had received during the Battle of the Thames. Charges he leveled against Harrison in Cleveland were so poorly received that they touched off a riot in the city.

In the end, Johnson received only forty-eight electoral votes. One elector from Virginia and all eleven from South Carolina voted for Van Buren for president but selected someone other than Johnson for vice-president. Johnson lost his home state of Kentucky again and added to the embarrassment by losing his home district as well.

Post-vice presidency (1841–1850)
After his term as vice president, Johnson returned to Kentucky to tend to his farm and oversee his tavern. He again represented Scott County in the Kentucky House from 1841 to 1843. In 1845, he served as a pallbearer when Daniel Boone was re-interred in Frankfort Cemetery.

Johnson never gave up on a return to public service. He ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against John J. Crittenden in 1842. He briefly and futilely sought his party's nomination for president in 1844. He also ran as an independent candidate for Governor of Kentucky in 1848, but after talking with the Democratic candidate, Lazarus W. Powell, who had replaced Linn Boyd on the ticket, Johnson decided to drop out and back Powell. Some speculated that the real object of this campaign was to secure another nomination to the vice-presidency, but this hope was denied.

Johnson finally returned to elected office in 1850, when he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives. By this time, however, his physical and mental health was already failing. On November 9, the Louisville Daily Journal reported that "Col. R. M. Johnson is laboring under an attack of dementia, which renders him totally unfit for business. It is painful to see him on the floor attempting to discharge the duties of a member. He is incapable of properly exercising his physical or mental powers."

He died of a stroke on November 19, just two weeks into his term, aged 70. He was interred in the Frankfort Cemetery, in Frankfort, Kentucky. Ruling that his surviving daughter Imogene was illegitimate, the Frankfort County Court split his estate between his brothers John and Henry.

Legacy

Counties in four U.S. states are named for Johnson, namely in Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and Nebraska. Richard Mentor Johnson is also the namesake of Dick Johnson Township, Indiana.

His political prominence led to a family dynasty: his brothers James and John Telemachus Johnson, and his nephew Robert Ward Johnson were all elected to the House of Representatives, the first two from Kentucky, and Robert from Arkansas. Robert was later elected as a senator before the Civil War.

See also
 List of federal political sex scandals in the United States
 List of people from Kentucky

Notes

References
Citations

Sources
Used in article:
 Mark O. Hatfield, ed.: "Richard Mentor Johnson, 9th Vice President (1837–1841)", Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789–1993 (PDF), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997: pp. 121–131. Retrieved on January 3, 2008.
 Jonathan Milnor Jones, "The making of a vice president: The national political career of Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky" (Ph.D. thesis) Memphis, Tennessee: University of Memphis, 1998.
 John E. Kleber. "Johnson, Richard Mentor", in John E. Kleber, ed: The Kentucky Encyclopedia, Associate editors: Thomas D. Clark, Lowell H. Harrison, and James C. Klotter, Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1992. .
 Asahel Langworthy A Biographical Sketch of Col. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. New York City, New York: Saxton & Miles. Retrieved on January 3, 2008.
 Leyland Winfield Meyer, The Life and Times of Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. New York: Columbia University, 1932. OCLC 459524641.
 David Petriello, The Days of Heroes are Over: A Brief Biography of Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson (Kindle edition). Washington, D.C.: Westphalia Press, 2016. .
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1945. OCLC 3077215.
 Miles Smith, "The Kentucky colonel: Richard M. Johnson and the rise of western democracy, 1780–1850" (Ph.D. thesis). Fort Worth, Texas: Texas Christian University, 2013.
 Christina Snyder Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. .

Others:
 Anonymous:
  Index to Politicians: Johnson, O to R. The Political Graveyard. Retrieved on January 3, 2008.
 "Richard Mentor Johnson (1837–1841)." University of Virginia. Retrieved on January 4, 2008.
 Pierre Berton, Flames across the Border, Little Brown, 1981.
 Ann Bevins, , Georgetown and Scott County Museum, 2007, Retrieved on March 25, 2008.
 Henry Robert Burke.  "Window to the Past", Lest We Forget Communications. Retrieved on January 3, 2008.
 "By His Hand the Chief Tecumseh Fell" (PDF), The New York Times, August 13, 1895. Reprint from the Philadelphia Times.  Retrieved on January 3, 2008.
 Albert Z. Carr, The Coming of War; an account of the remarkable events leading to the War of 1812. Doubleday, 1960.
 Freeman Cleaves, Old Tippecanoe; William Henry Harrison and his Time. Scribner, 1939.
 William Emmons,  Authentic Biography of Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. New York; H. Mason., 1833.
 Carolyn Thomas Foreman "The Choctaw Academy". The Chronicles of Oklahoma 6 (4), December 1928. Oklahoma Historical Society.  January 3, 2008.
 James Strange French, Elkswatawa, Harper Brothers, 1836. A historical novel with endnotes based on the author's research and interviews.
 Denis Tilden Lynch: An Epoch and a Man, Martin Van Buren and his Times, Liveright, 1929
 Edgar J. McManus, "Richard Mentor Johnson", American National Biography. Online version posted February 2000, accessed April 5, 2008.
 Keven McQueen, "Richard Mentor Johnson: Vice President", in Offbeat Kentuckians: Legends to Lunatics, Ill. by Kyle McQueen, Kuttawa, Kentucky: McClanahan Publishing House. .
 David Mills. "The Vice-President and the Mulatto", The Huffington Post, April 26, 2007, Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
Fletcher Pratt, "Richard M. Johnson: Rumpsey-Dumpsey", Eleven Generals; Studies in American Command, New York; William Sloane Assoc., 1949, pp. 81–97.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson, Little Brown, 1945.
Robert Sobel, "Johnson, Richard Mentor", Biographical Directory of the United States Executive Branch, 1774–1989. Greenwood Press, 1990 . Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
Edmund Lyne Starling, History of Henderson County, Kentucky. Henderson, Kentucky, 1887; repr. Unigraphic, Evansville, Indiana, 1965. Accessed April 5, 2008.
Michael Stillman, "Eccentricity at the Top: Richard Mentor Johnson." Americana Exchange Monthly, January 2004. Retrieved on January 3, 2008.
George William Stimpson, "A book about American politics." 1952. Retrieved on August 11, 2010.

Further reading

 "An Affecting Scene in Kentucky", a political print (c.1836) attacking Johnson for his relationship with Julia Chinn, published in Harper's Weekly, at Library of Congress
 Carolyn Jean Powell, "What's love got to do with it?" The Dynamics of Desire, Race and Murder in the Slave South, January 2002, Doctoral dissertation #AAI3039386, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
 "Carrying the War into Africa", an 1836 political print attacking Johnson for his relationship with Julia Chinn, published in Harper's Weekly, at Library of Congress
 Richard Shenkman, Kurt Reiger (2003). "The Vice-President Who Sold His Mistress At Auction", One-Night Stands with American History: Odd, Amusing, and Little-Known Incidents. HarperCollins, pp. 71–72. .
 George Stimpson, A Book about American Politics. New York; Harper 1952, p. 133.
 The Sunday Mail Report, authored and delivered by Johnson to the Senate on January 19, 1829 (related to delivery of mail on the Sabbath)
 William Hobart Turner, Edward J. Cabbell Blacks in Appalachia''. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1985. pp. 75–80. .

External links
 Richard Mentor Johnson at The Political Graveyard

1780 births
1850 deaths
Politicians from Louisville, Kentucky
Richard Mentor Johnson family
American people of Scottish descent
Baptists from Kentucky
Vice presidents of the United States
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Presidency of Martin Van Buren
Van Buren administration cabinet members
Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky
Democratic-Republican Party United States senators from Kentucky
Jacksonian United States senators from Kentucky
Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
1836 United States vice-presidential candidates
1840 United States vice-presidential candidates
Democratic Party Kentucky state senators
Democratic Party members of the Kentucky House of Representatives
American Freemasons
American surveyors
Kentucky lawyers
American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law
People from Scott County, Kentucky
Politicians from Lexington, Kentucky
19th-century vice presidents of the United States
19th-century American lawyers
19th-century Baptists
Transylvania University alumni
American militia officers
American militiamen in the War of 1812
People from Kentucky in the War of 1812
Burials at Frankfort Cemetery
United States senators who owned slaves
Members of the United States House of Representatives who owned slaves

Richard Mentor Johnson


Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), better known as Jack Kerouac, was an American author and poet. He was part of the Beat Generation movement of writers and artists of the 1950s and 1960s, and gave the movement its name. His most famous work was a long novel titled On the Road, which was published in 1957.

Kerouac was a friend of writers Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gregory Corso, among many others. Nearly all of Kerouac's writings were directly based on his own life, but he mostly changed names and details, to protect everyone's privacy. The man he wrote about most was his friend Neal Cassady, who was called "Dean Moriarty" in On the Road. Kerouac influenced many other writers and poets who came along later, and also many musicians of the 1960s, through his works. He also changed the way Americans saw themselves, and their country.

Early life
Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts to French Canadian parents (named Leo and Gabrielle), and was the youngest of three children. He spoke only French until he started school. His family was Roman Catholic. His father was a printer, and Kerouac became interested in printed works. He liked to make his own handwritten newspapers and books. He enjoyed reading, and imitated the styles of writers he liked, such as Thomas Wolfe. He became an expert typist, and could type faster than 100 words per minute.

Kerouac was a good athlete, and earned a football scholarship to Columbia University. An injury during a practice game ended his football career. He dropped out of Columbia, and devoted himself to writing stories and plays. He met Allen Ginsberg at college. Their circle of friends included many future writers and artists, like William S. Burroughs, and Herbert Huncke.

During World War II, Kerouac served in the Merchant Marine, which made him a veteran of the American military. He kept journals of his experiences, and he used them later to write other works. He was honorably discharged from military service in 1943 when he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder. He was able to get veteran's benefits later, such as medical help when he was sick with , and grant money to pay his bills while he wrote. Kerouac was proud to be an American, and always said good things about his country.

Kerouac's father died of stomach cancer in 1946. He made Kerouac promise to always work to support his mother. He tried to talk Kerouac out of becoming a writer, because he knew it was hard to succeed in such a career. Kerouac had a hard time staying with any other kind of work, though. He would become impatient or restless, or a disagreement with someone at work would turn into trouble. Kerouac did his best to earn enough money to pay for both his and his mother's living, but his mother also had to work. She was a nurse. She worked in a factory when there were no nursing jobs.

Early career
Kerouac published a few  and reviews in New York magazines and newspapers in the 1940s. He worked briefly for his hometown newspaper, The Lowell Sun. His first novel, The Town and the City, was published in 1950. For his second novel, Kerouac wanted to write a book about  road trips and hitchhiking. Hitchhiking was safer to do in the 1940s, in America, than it is today. Kerouac stopped and restarted writing this book several times. Kerouac did not want to just tell an ordinary story. He wanted to give an idea of how the people he met thought things through, and expressed this to each other, along with telling what they did and said. He also knew he needed more experiences, to tell a better story.

Many experiences came through Kerouac's friendship with Neal Cassady. Cassady was a handsome, bright young  with a teenaged wife, named Luanne Henderson. Cassady and Luanne had a hard relationship, and broke up and got back together many times. He later married another woman named Carolyn Robinson, who was older than Luanne and understood him better, but Carolyn and Cassady also had troubles. Kerouac was briefly married, to girlfriend Edie Parker. They did not stay together long, and were soon divorced. Cassady taught Kerouac, who never had a , how to drive, while Kerouac taught Cassady about writing.

Neal Cassady traveled back and forth across the country, usually driving cars like Hudsons at high speed. he looked for jobs, fresh experiences, and new friends. Kerouac began to travel with him. They lived in and visited cities such as Denver, San Francisco, Monterey, and even Mexico City. They also looked sometimes for Cassady's father, who disappeared years earlier. Kerouac got sick in Mexico City, and Cassady left him behind at the hospital. Kerouac had to make his own way home. He took this very hard, and was angry with Cassady. He forgave him later, when they met again, and he made Cassady the central character of his new book. One job Kerouac could fall back on, thanks to Cassady, was as a railroad brakeman.

Many people in the 1940s and 1950s used  drugs such as benzedrine, to help them stay alert. Jazz music was also popular, and some jazz musicians and listeners smoked marijuana. Kerouac was influenced by both drugs, and they changed the way he wrote. He began to write what he called " prose", jotting down words in much the same way a musician  a solo in a song. (Kerouac played no musical instruments, but could  well, and had many of the same instincts as a musician.) His new writing style was strange to many people, and even seen as bad by some older authors and critics. It was six years before Kerouac published his second novel.

The version of On the Road that finally satisfied Kerouac was written over three weeks in 1951. It was typed on a single roll of teletype paper. Kerouac liked to type on rolls of paper, because he did not have to stop to change pages. He had just gotten married for the second time, to Joan Haverty. The manuscript was Kerouac's way to explain his friendship with Neal Cassady to his new wife. The explanation made a fine rough draft for a novel, but it did not help his marriage. Joan felt that Kerouac's nonstop work on the manuscript was an , and she did not want to stay married to him after it was finished. They were soon divorced, as he was with his first wife.

The editor who worked on The Town and the City found the long, scroll-like manuscript hard to understand, and even harder to work with. Kerouac's publisher rejected the novel, as did every other publisher he went to. Nor was anyone interested in The Subterraneans, a shorter novel he wrote in three nights, about his romance with an African-American woman. Such a relationship was taboo in America during the 1950s. Kerouac continued to write, from short stories and essays to long novels, and even poetry. He tried many different subjects, but had almost nothing published. He also worked different jobs, including brakeman and .

It turned out that Joan Haverty was pregnant by Kerouac, and she gave birth to a daughter, Jan-Michelle. Kerouac denied he was the father at first, but a blood test later proved it was likely. She also grew to look like him, and he accepted her as his child. Joan sued Kerouac for child support, but he was ill and could not work at the time, and she collected almost no money. Kerouac only saw Jan a few times, but talked to her more often by telephone. Joan mostly kept them apart.

Fame
Allen Ginsberg became well known during the 1950s for his writings, in particular a poem called "Howl", whose title came from Kerouac's  of it. Ginsberg mentioned his friends in some of his works, including Kerouac, and wanted the people who liked him to give them and their writings a chance. Finally Viking Press agreed to publish On the Road, after many changes to the manuscript. The novel became a bestseller, and Kerouac was a celebrity after years of little success. Magazines began to request articles and essays from him. He appeared on many television programs, including The Steve Allen Show. Steve Allen liked him, and they recorded an album together, with Kerouac reading aloud and Allen playing piano. He recorded another album later, with jazz musicians Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.

Kerouac wrote and published more novels, including The Dharma Bums, Doctor Sax, Maggie Cassidy, Visions of Gerard (a  of his older brother, who died in childhood), Big Sur (about the stresses brought on by fame, and how the people he knew saw him differently), Desolation Angels, and Book of Dreams (a ). He studied Buddhism, and this also influenced his writing. He wrote Some of the Dharma as an introduction to Buddhism, though he remained a Catholic.

As Kerouac, Ginsberg, and their friends became famous, a trend among the group of writers and artists was noticed, and was written about in the mainstream media. Kerouac was asked to describe his generation. He explained that the pressures of 20th century living had 'beaten' normal ways of thinking and working out of them, and they preferred the beat of bebop and jazz to most other music, "so I guess you could say we're a beat generation."

"Beat Generation" became the name for the new sense of style coming from artists and writers in New York and San Francisco. Kerouac's circle of friends and acquaintances (and their imitators) were called the Beats, with Kerouac himself called "King of the Beats" by the media. (The term was later parodied as "", implying such people were Communists, and would hurt the country.) Kerouac narrated a movie, called Pull My Daisy, about the Beat phenomenon.

An ongoing problem Kerouac had with fame was that people thought he did all the things he wrote about. Much of what he described (like Neal Cassady's lawless nature, , and drug use) was only what he saw in other people. Not everyone who read Kerouac's stories understood this. Some people wanted to blame him for doing bad things, or getting others to do them. Other people wanted to do those kinds of things with Kerouac. Shy by nature, Kerouac pulled away. He became almost a  in the house he bought for his mother. He also began to abuse alcohol.

Later life and career
During the 1960s, American society went through many changes, in part because of the influence of the Beats. Many young people read On the Road, and saw things they related to, and it made them want to experience more in their own lives. Other writers liked the looseness of Kerouac's style, and it made them think more about their own writing, how to study life, and how to better express themselves. Many musicians were affected by Kerouac's books, including Bob Dylan, Donovan, and The Doors.

Kerouac was more disappointed than happy to be famous. Even though he liked some of what he inspired, he felt that the public largely got the wrong message from his books. He saw many people take what the Beats wrote as a kind of permission to get into trouble, or abandon (give up) people and things they cared about. He felt  for the , but disagreed with them on the Vietnam War, the role of government, and . He also lost some of his old friends, when their views differed.

Kerouac still abused alcohol and other drugs, and it harmed his health. He became bloated and irritable, and looked drunk on his last television appearance, on William F. Buckley's Firing Line in 1968. He married for the third time, to Stella Sampas, the sister of a boyhood friend. Stella looked after Kerouac and his mother, kept the public and others away, and tried to get him to stop drinking alcohol.

His daughter Jan-Michelle also began to write during her teen years. He gave her his , and told her "You can use my (last) name." She wrote under the name Jan Kerouac, and published novels and stories herself, from the 1970s to the 1990s. Kerouac's mother became sick, and he sometimes worked at her bedside on stories. She helped him work out the ending of Pic, his novel about a young African-American.

Kerouac wrote and reworked new material until the last day of his life. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida during emergency surgery, to try to repair a  caused by cirrhosis, due to his alcohol abuse. He was buried in his hometown, and was hardly remembered there at first. Even though he was world famous, Kerouac earned very little money as a writer. He died with only a few hundred dollars in the bank. It was years before his grave received a headstone.

Neal Cassady died more than a year before, of exposure, alongside a railroad track in Mexico. He set out to become a writer or musician, but he never got far with either. He only published one book, The First Third, which was about his youth. Cassady earned most of his money from labor, and was often out of work and owed money. He spent a long time in jail after he was arrested for selling marijuana. Sometimes the fact that Cassady was well known through Kerouac kept him from having the life he wanted. Cassady had a family with Carolyn, but she had to both work, and raise the children when her husband was away. Carolyn later wrote a memoir.

Legacy
Kerouac's works, especially On the Road, are now more popular than ever. Generations have discovered his works, as a means of learning about life and attitudes in America during his lifetime, as a way to measure their own sense of experience, or as examples of  and  in .

Less than half of Kerouac's writings were published during his lifetime, but nearly all are now available. The ones published later drew hundreds of times more money than his most famous works, when they first appeared. His hometown Lowell remembers Kerouac today with a , and cultural events every year. His grave now has a headstone, which reads "He honored life". A street in Lowell was renamed "Jack Kerouac Alley" in his memory.

In other media
The Subterraneans was made into a movie by MGM in 1960, but the  was almost completely different from the book. On the Road was considered many times to be made into a movie, once with actor Marlon Brando as Dean Moriarty and another time with Sean Penn, but this never got farther than . The movie rights were resold in the 1990s, for more than ten times Kerouac's lifetime earnings, and a movie of On the Road appeared in 2012, starring Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund as Kerouac and Cassidy, with Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst as LuAnne Henderson and Carolyn Cassady.

A movie, Heart Beat, was made in 1980, about the relationship between Carolyn Robinson, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac. It starred Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte, and John Heard.

Kerouac appears as "Hank" in William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, and was played by Nicholas Campbell in the 1991 movie version.

He was also the subject of a song by 10,000 Maniacs, "Hey Jack Kerouac".

He and Neal Cassady are the subject of a song by Tom Waits, "Jack & Neal/California Here I Come". Waits also covered a song written by Kerouac, titled "On the Road", on his' album "Orphans".

Sources

 Kerouac: A Biography, by Ann Charters (St. Martin's Press)
 Jack Kerouac, by Tom Clark (Marlowe & Company)

1922 births
1969 deaths
Deaths from hemorrhage
Deaths from cirrhosis
American poets
Beat Generation
Columbia University alumni
Disease-related deaths in Florida
People with personality disorders
Writers from Massachusetts
People from Lowell, Massachusetts

Jack Kerouac


The National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NDDIC) is an information dissemination service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health, which is under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Established in 1980, the Clearinghouse provides information about digestive diseases to people with digestive disorders and to their families, health care professionals, and the public. The NDDIC answers inquiries, develops and distributes publications, and works closely with professional and patient organizations and Government agencies to coordinate resources about digestive diseases.

Publications produced by the Clearinghouse are carefully reviewed by both NIDDK scientists and outside experts.

References

External links
 http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/

Digestive diseases
National Institutes of Health
Health education in the United States