The Mighty World Of Marvel (commonly shortened to MWOM) was a British comic book series published first by Marvel UK and then by Panini Comics. Debuting on 30 September 1972,  it was the first title published by Marvel UK and ran until 1984. The series was revived in 2003 by Panini Comics, who are licensed to reprint Marvel US material in Europe, and was published monthly until November 2019.

Spending much of the 1970s as Marvel UK's flagship title, MWOM published black & white reprints of American Marvel four-colour material. Thanks in large part to the success of MWOM, Marvel UK gained a foothold in the (at the time) vast UK weekly comic market, allowing the company to cross-market and later introduce non-superhero UK-reprint titles such as Planet of the Apes and Star Wars.

Publication history

Vol. 1 (1972–1983)
MWOM started out publishing reprints of 1960s stories featuring Marvel's existing characters — including Spider-Man, The Hulk, and the Fantastic Four. The monthly format of the American material was adapted to fit the British weekly format, with stories being split up over several weeks. As was the custom with British weekly titles, the first issue of MWOM featured a free gift, in this case a Hulk iron-on T-shirt transfer.

After Spider-Man left to star in his own publication, Spider-Man Comics Weekly, replaced by Daredevil in the third strip, who was himself replaced by the original X-Men and then the Avengers.  Eventually the title settled with the Hulk as cover star, backed up by Daredevil and the Fantastic Four.

Early during the comic's run a type of fan club, FOOM (Friends Of Ol' Marvel), was started and readers were invited to join and receive exclusive items.

As MWOM passed its hundredth issue (August 31, 1974) a galaxy of different characters began to be featured in the publication (with the Hulk still holding the top spot), many of these coming via the merger of other titles into MWOM. The Avengers returned to MWOM, bringing Conan the Barbarian with them in issue #199 (July 21, 1976) following the cancellation of their own magazine. The Avengers had joint cover billing with the Hulk, and over time the green giant would share it with other characters. From issue #233 (March 1977), the Hulk co-starred with Planet of the Apes (after their own 1974–1977 weekly folded) and subsequently with Dracula and Nick Fury. (The former was left over from the last merger, when the title then called Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives merged into MWOM; while the latter was from Fury weekly, an unsuccessful March–August 1977 attempt to follow the popularity of boys' war comics in the UK.) The final strip to share the masthead with the Hulk was the Fantastic Four, who returned to MWOM after starring in their own magazine, The Complete Fantastic Four.

Marvel Comic
The comic changed when in 1978 Dez Skinn was hired by Stan Lee to head Marvel UK. Skinn revamped all of Marvel UK's titles, including The Mighty World of Marvel, changing the title to Marvel Comic at #330 (January 24, 1979). This saw a move towards more traditional UK boys' adventure-type comics as Daredevil was joined (or re-joined) by Dracula, Conan the Barbarian, Shang-Chi, Skull the Slayer, and Godzilla, who replaced the Hulk three issues after the re-launch.

Marvel Superheroes
In September 1979, however, the title returned to its roots when it became the monthly Marvel Superheroes with issue #353, starring the Avengers. Supporting the Avengers were other superhero teams, initially the original X-Men but later the Champions, while the third and final strip, Superhero Spotlight, featured a new character every few issues. Initially, it ran Ms. Marvel's adventures, which were continued from Marvel Comic. Issue #377 (September 1981) saw the first of a new series of original Captain Britain stories started, continued from the Black Knight strip in Hulk Weekly, which had also featured original material. These stories were written by Dave Thorpe and drawn by Alan Davis. Captain Britain ended with issue #388 (August 1982), just as yet another merger occurred — Rampage joined Marvel Superheroes, and the new X-Men arrived to replace Captain Britain.

Erratic distribution affected sales, and eventually Marvel Superheroes was cancelled in the summer of 1983. Issue #397 ended the continuous run of what was at the time Marvel UK's longest-running title (it was later to be supplanted by Spider-Man weekly, which eventually ran 666 continuous issues).

Volume 2 (1983–1984)
Shortly afterwards, in June 1983, Mighty World of Marvel was re-launched and re-numbered, again as a monthly. The new series mainly concentrated on reprint material, initially the X-Men (continued from Marvel Superheroes) as well as such American limited series as The Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Wolverine, Cloak and Dagger, and a somewhat out-of-chronology X-Men and the Micronauts, set some years after the recent X-Men series. MWOM vol. 2 also featured the end of Alan Moore and Alan Davis's Jaspers' Warp Captain Britain storyline, after The Daredevils was cancelled and merged with MWOM (from vol. 2, issue #7, December 1983). After Moore left, Alan Davis took over writing duties for the Captain Britain stories, but the strip stopped in issue #16 as the Captain left for his own new monthly title in 1985.

Despite some strong material, the merger of the more adult-orientated The Daredevils with the more mainstream MWOM was not an overriding success, and #17 was MWOM vol. 2's final issue. Issue #17 saw the beginning of the limited series Magick, which was continued in the Marvel UK series Savage Sword of Conan, with which MWOM merged.

Volume 3 (2003–2009)

The title remained in limbo until Panini Comics (which had obtained the Marvel UK license in 1995) began publishing it as a "Marvel Collectors' Edition" in February 2003. The new MWOM featured reprints of American Marvel material from all eras of Marvel history; a typical issue was 76 pages long, with most stories lasting 22 pages.

Initially, the title reprinted a Hulk and a Daredevil story each issue with a revolving guest spot. This format was eventually replaced with three revolving guest spots; generally a full story arc was printed before being replaced by something else, or there was a break in a run (which was often revisited at a later date). In addition to Daredevil and the Hulk, characters featured included She-Hulk, Blade, Ghost Rider, Captain Britain, the Fantastic Four, Nick Fury, and the Defenders. The title also printed many Marvel team-up stories featuring multiple superheroes, from such series as Marvel Team-Up vol. 3, the Contest of Champions II, and Beyond!. MWOM also regularly printed spotlights on the more obscure characters featured. These spotlights were a page long and featured a fictional character biography with pictures and a description of their abilities.

Issue #50 was 100 pages long to celebrate the milestone. It was mentioned in issue #67 that the editors were aiming to get closer to the US chronologically.

Volume 3 ended in August 2009, after 86 issues, following Civil War and Planet Hulk.

Volume 4 (2009–2014)
The Mighty World of Marvel vol. 4 debuted in September 2009, following the relaunch of all other Collector's Editions as part of signalling the end of Civil War. Issues #1–#5 featured the World War Hulk storyline. Issue #8 signaled the first tie-in to the Secret Invasion event that runs across all seven of the Panini Collector's Editions. Mighty World of Marvel printed tie-ins from Captain Britain and MI13, Hercules, The Thunderbolts, and Ms. Marvel.

Volume 4 ended in June 2014 with issue 62.

Volume 5 (2014–2016)

The Mighty World of Marvel vol. 5 was launched in July 2014 to tie-in with the arrival of Marvel Now! branded stories in the UK.  The initial line-up includes Guardians of the Galaxy to tie-in with their film. Avengers Arena was also in the initial lineup. The main storyline for Original Sin was also featured. Mighty World of Marvel also reprinted Silver Surfer and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. along with Daredevil.

Volume 5 ended in September 2016 with issue #30.

Volume 6 (2016–2018)

The Mighty World of Marvel vol. 6 was launched in October 2016. The initial line was Doctor Strange, Ms. Marvel and Black Widow followed by Silver Surfer and Guardians of the Galaxy. Later issues featured Ms. Marvel & Nick Fury's Civil War II stories.
The following is a summary of characters featured in this volume:
 issues #1 - #6: Doctor Strange, Ms. Marvel, Black Widow
 issue #7:  Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange
 issue #8:  Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Surfer, Tales of The Pet Avengers
 issue #9:  Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Surfer, Ms. Marvel
 issues #10 - #11: Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Surfer, Ms. Marvel, Nick Fury
 issues #12 - #13: Guardians of the Galaxy: Mother Entropy, Ms. Marvel, Nick Fury
 issue #14: Champions, Guardians of the Galaxy: Mother Entropy, Black Widow, Marvel 75th Anniversary (Captain America), Nick Fury
 issues #15 - #17: Champions, All-New Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Widow
 issues #18 - #19: Black Panther, Champions, All-New Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Widow, Doctor Strange

Volume 7 (2018–2019)
This volume started publication in April 2018 — appearing every 28 days — and ended in November 2019 with issue 22. Panini had planned to relaunch it. Volume eight was to star 'The Immortal Hulk', and issue 1 was advertised, but ultimately the end of volume 7 was also the end of the title.

Issue 1: 100-PAGE-SPECIAL!
Silver Surfer Vol. 8 #9
Black Panther Vol. 4 #3
Champions Vol. 2 #6
New Avengers Annual #1
Strange Tales #118
Release: 5 April 2018

Issue 2:
Silver Surfer Vol. 8 #10
Black Panther Vol. 4 #4
Champions Vol. 2 #7
Strange Tales #119
Release: 3 May 2018

Issue 3:
Silver Surfer Vol. 8 #11
Black Panther Vol. 4 #5
Champions Vol. 2 #8
Strange Tales #120
FREE MARVEL TRADING CARDS!
Release: 31 May 2018

Issue 4:
Silver Surfer Vol. 8 #12
Black Panther Vol. 4 #6
Champions Vol. 2 #9
Strange Tales #121
FREE MARVEL TRADING CARDS!
Release: 28 June 2018

Issue 5
100-PAGE-SPECIAL!
Secret Empire begins!
The Guardians of the Galaxy return in an all-new adventure!
Silver Surfer!
Champions in Secret Empire!
Classic Action with Doctor Strange!
FREE MARVEL TRADING CARDS!

Issues #5-6 were part of the Secret Empire event and feature Champions vol. 2, #s 10-11.

References

Sources consulted

 The Mighty World of Bronze Age British Marvel (1972-1979)

External links
 Mighty World of Marvel site at Panini Comics

Marvel UK titles
Marvel Comics titles
1972 comics debuts
1984 comics endings
2003 comics debuts
Comics anthologies
Superhero comics
British comics

The Mighty World of Marvel


Mario! Lanza At His Best is a CD released by RCA Victor in 1995, and consists of two original albums recorded by tenor Mario Lanza. These are: the Neapolitan songs album Mario!, recorded in December 1958, and The Vagabond King, recorded in July 1959. The Mario! album has been singled out for special praise, with its star conductor Franco Ferrara of Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia later hailing Lanza's singing on the disc as "vocally extraordinary...a Caruso-type voice." Lanza's first studio album in stereo, the Mario! selections include the Neapolitan songs "Voce 'e Notte," "Canta Pe' Me," "'Na Sera 'e Maggio," and "Passione." The arrangements were created by Carlo Savina and Ennio Morricone.

The Vagabond King, an operetta by Rudolf Friml, was recorded three months before Mario Lanza's death in October 1959. The selections include "Love Me Tonight," "Nocturne," "Only a Rose," and the "Drinking Song." Lanza is accompanied on several songs by the soprano Judith Raskin, who recorded her contributions a year later in New York. The conductor was Constantine Callinicos.

Note: In February 2006, this album was reissued by RCA in the sonically superior SACD format. This new CD can be played on both SACD players and conventional CD players.

Track list

1958 album "Mario! Lanza at His Best"
 "Funiculì, funiculà"
 "Dicitencello vuie"
 "Maria marì" (Remastered - 1995)
 "Voce 'e notte"
 "Canta pe' me"
 "'O surdato 'nnammurato" - the enamoured soldier
 "Comme facette mammeta?"
 "Santa Lucia Luntana"
 "Fenesta che lucive"
 "Tu ca nun chiagne"
 "Na sera 'e maggio"
 "Passione (song)"

1959 album "The Vagabond King"
 "Drinking Song"
 "Some Day" with Judith Raskin
 "Love Me Tonight"
 "Only a Rose" with Judith Raskin
 "Tomorrow" with Judith Raskin
 "Nocturne" with Chorus
 "Song of the Vagabonds" with Chorus
 "Finale" with Judith Raskin

References

Cesari, Armando. Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy. (Fort Worth: Baskerville 2004)

External links
 Mario Lanza: The Final Years, by Derek McGovern

Mario Lanza albums
1950s classical albums
RCA Victor albums
1958 compilation albums
1959 compilation albums
1995 compilation albums

Mario! Lanza at His Best


The Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Iran was a joint effort of American Presbyterian and Congregational missionaries in 1834. First they evangelised the Assyrians and later worked in north-west Iran, in a region called Rezaieh. The missionaries wanted to revitalise the old churches, but their members who converted to Protestantism were forced to leave their old denominations. Various Protestant churches were established. In 1862 the first presbytery was organised, and later more presbyteries were formed. Meanwhile, these Presbyterian missionaries' ministry led to the formation of congregations from Armenian Christian, Muslim, Judaism, and Zoroastrian background. In 1934 the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Iran was formed. In 1963 it adopted the current name.
The common language is Persian, Armenian and Assyrian are also used. It has 1,500 members and 7 congregations.

It is a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

References

Presbyterian denominations in Asia
Members of the World Communion of Reformed Churches
Evangelical denominations in Asia
1862 establishments in Iran

Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Iran


The Falls Road () is the main road through West Belfast, Northern Ireland, running from Divis Street in Belfast City Centre to Andersonstown in the suburbs. The name has been synonymous for at least a century and a half with the Catholic community in the city. The road is usually referred to as the Falls Road, rather than as Falls Road. It is known in Irish as the Bóthar na bhFál and as the Faas Raa in Ulster-Scots.

Location

The Falls Road forms the first three miles of the A501 which starts in Belfast city centre and runs southwest through the city forking just after the Falls Park into the B102 which continues for a short distance to Andersonstown. The A501 continues as the Glen Road. The area is composed largely of residential housing, with more public sector housing in the lower sections of the road. There are many small shops lining the road as well as schools, churches, hospitals and leisure facilities. Employment in the area was originally dominated by the large linen mills but these have mostly closed. Today, local employment is in the service sector, health and education with additional employment in other parts of the city.

The Falls Road district can be roughly divided into three sections. The Lower Falls which includes Divis Street starts near the city centre and continues to the junction with the Grosvenor Road. The middle Falls district centres on Beechmount. The Upper Falls starts about the Donegall Road and continues into Andersonstown.

The short stretch of the road from the city centre to the start of Divis Street at Millfield is known as Castle Street after the former Belfast Castle which was built nearby by the Normans in the 12th century. Castle Street begins at the junction with Royal Avenue and Donegall Place, the main shopping district of Belfast. Two large buildings flank either side of the entrance to the street.  On one side is the Bank Buildings and on the other is the former home of the Anderson & McAuley department store.

Near the start of Castle Street is Chapel Lane on which St. Mary's Church is situated. This is the oldest Catholic church in Belfast and dates from 1784. Nearby on Bank Street is located the historic Kelly's Cellars bar which dates from 1720. Opposite was located St. Mary's Hall, a popular social venue which was constructed in 1875 but demolished in 1990.  Bank Street begins at Royal Avenue. The ornate building at its entrance was the former home of the Provincial Bank of Ireland which was erected in 1869. When it closed in 1989, the building was occupied until 2021 by a Tesco store.  It was then refurbished as a social facility by Belfast City Council.

History
The Falls Road derives its name from the Irish túath na bhFál, an Irish petty kingdom whose name means "territory of the enclosures". These enclosures resulted from the Plantation of Ulster which occurred from the seventeenth century. This territory was roughly the same as that of the ecclesiastical parish of the Shankill, which spanned a large portion of modern-day Belfast.

The Falls Road itself was originally a country lane leading from the city centre but the population of the area expanded rapidly in the 19th century with the construction of several large linen mills. All of these have now closed or have been repurposed. This original area, which was centred on the junction of modern-day Millfield and College Avenue on what is now Divis Street, was known as Falls and lent its name to the road. which had previously been called The Pound. The housing in the area developed in the 19th century and was organised in narrow streets of small terraced housing. The Westlink linking the M1 and M2 motorways now cuts through this area.

Lower Falls

This section of the road stretches from the junction of Castle Street and Millfield to the Grosvenor Road/Springfield Road intersection.  The lower part of the road is named Divis Street after the Divis mountain which overlooks much of West Belfast.  The Falls Road proper begins at the junction with Northumberland Street and Albert Street. The area to the south of Divis Street/Lower Falls Road was considered the heart of the district and was initially composed of rows of small terraced houses which were constructed in the mid to late nineteenth century to house mill workers and their families. The area is detailed in the 1931 Ordnance Survey map of the area. Shortly after Millfield, the road crosses over the Westlink (A12) which links three motorways - the  M1 to the southwest of the city, the M2 to the north and the M3 to the east. Running alongside the Westlink is Townsend Street which originally marked the end of Belfast. Townsend Street links Divis Street with Peter's Hill at the bottom of the Shankill Road.

Housing
The housing in the area developed in the 19th century and was organised in narrow streets of small terraced housing. Many of the streets were named after local mill owners. Alexander Street West was named after John Alexander who was a local mill owner. He also named Milford Street after Milford Mills, County Carlow where he had a house. Ardmoulin Street was named after Ardmoulin House, the residence of John Chartres of Falls Flax and Weaving Company. Craig Street was called after the Craig family who owned the New Northern Mill at the corner of Northumberland Street.

By the 1960s the buildings in the area had decayed considerably and the Belfast Corporation introduced a major development plan which involved wholescale demolition of much of the area. Many of the old street names were retained in the new housing development. In the Divis Street area, the housing was replaced with the Divis Flats complex which consisted of twelve blocks of flats built on top of the historic district formerly known as the Pound Loney. The high point of this redevelopment was Divis Tower.  Because of its rapid deterioration, the whole complex, except for Divis Tower, was demolished thirty years later and replaced with blocks of terraced housing.

Past Albert Street, more mills were built on the northern side and more streets of small terraced houses on the southern side. The old streets were named after characters and events in the Crimean War (1853–1856) which was occurring at that time. These include Raglan Street (named after Lord Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War), Garnet Street (after Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley), Alma Street (after the Battle of Alma), Balaklava Street (after the Battle of Balaklava),  Inkerman Street (after the Battle of Inkerman), Sevastopol Street (after the Siege of Sevastopol), Plevna Street (after the Siege of Plevna), and Varna Street (after the Siege of Varna). There were also streets named after Balkan places such as Bosnia Street, Balkan Street, Roumania Street and Servia Street, as well as Omar Street (possibly after Omar Pasha). Other streets were named after contemporary political and royal figures such as Peel Street (after Robert Peel) and Albert Street (named after Prince Albert).

These street names are recalled in the collection of poetry The Irish for No by Ciaran Carson.  In one of the poems entitled "The Exiles' Club", Carson imagines a group of Belfast exiles:
After years they have reconstructed the whole of the Falls Road, and now
Are working on the back streets: Lemon, Peel and Omar, Balaclava, Alma.

All of these houses have now been demolished and replaced with modern terraced houses.

At the foot of Divis Street is located the Morning Star House.  This is a hostel which provides temporary accommodation for homeless people.  It is run by the Legion of Mary and was originally located at the corner of Percy Street.

Schools

At the foot of Divis Street is located the Millfield campus of Belfast Metropolitan College, the largest further and higher education college in Northern Ireland. Nearby was located the original St. Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School. In the 1960s, this school transferred to a greenfield site on the Glen Road in the upper Falls. The original school building is now the home of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust. Opposite is St. Mary's Primary School.  Nearby is the location of the Árd Scoil which was historically the centre for Irish language and culture in the area. Just past it was located the Hastings Street RUC station.

There are currently two other primary schools in the Lower Falls district.  These are St. Peter's on Ross Road and St. Joseph's on Slate Street. In addition, there is the Irish language Gaelscoil an Lonnáin which occupies the site of St Finian's Primary School at the top end of Leeson Street.  St Finian's School and the nearby St. Gall's Primary School closed in the late twentieth century due to declining student numbers. These schools were run by the De La Salle Christian Brothers. The name of the latter school survives in the name of St. Galls' Avenue.  St Comgall's Public Elementary School, in Divis Street, opened in 1932 but closed in 1988. It has been transformed into a community hub for a range of community and business activities. St. Brendan's Primary School on nearby Milford Street closed in the 1960s but for two years housed some pupils from St. Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School which at that time had exceeded its capacity in its Barrack Street premises.

The Dunlewey Centre is located near Gaelscoil an Lonnáin. The building was originally the home of the Bon Secours Sisters and also housed St. Vincent's Primary School for Girls. It is a now the home of a community education centre. Dunlewey Street on which it is located is named after the residence of a local mill owner, William Ross, who owned a house in Dunlewey, County Donegal. The nearby Ross Road is also named after William Ross.

Churches

The churches in the Lower Falls district reflect the changing demographics of the area. There are three Catholic churches in the area.  The oldest is St. Mary's Church which opened in 1784 (see above). St Peter's Cathedral is located just off Albert Street. This was originally a parish church built for the expanding Catholic population in the area and opened in 1866. It was designed by Fr Jeremiah Ryan McAulay, who had trained as an architect before he became a priest, and built on a site donated by a local baker, Bernard Hughes. It became the cathedral church for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Down and Connor and the episcopal seat of the Bishop of Down and Connor in 1986. It is home to St Peter's Schola Cantorum (Choir). Clonard monastery, the home of the Redemptorist religious order, is located near the junction with Springfield Road. The church formally opened in 1911 replacing a small church which opened in 1897. Father Alec Reid who played an important role in the Northern Ireland peace process was based here.

There were/are seven Protestant churches which were/are largely located on the edges of the area and their congregations were/are mostly drawn from neighbouring districts. All but one of the older churches have been closed, repurposed or demolished since the onset of the Troubles and the establishment of the peace lines.  There were three Church of Ireland churches. St. Luke's Church (1863-2006) on Northumberland Street, was the Church of Ireland church for the Lower Falls. When it closed  its congregation amalgamated with St. Stephen's church in Millfield at the bottom of Divis Street. This church which opened in 1856 was designed by Sir Thomas Drew who also designed St. Anne's Cathedral and many other churches. St Philips Church of Ireland church (Drew Memorial) opened on the Grosvenor Road in 1870.  It was named after the fiery preacher Rev. Dr. Thomas Drew who hailed from Limerick and became a very influential clergyman when he moved to Belfast.  It closed in 1994 and was sold to Dwyer's Gaelic Athletic Club who built their clubrooms on the site. The church congregation merged with that of St. Simon's church on the Donegall Road.

There were two Presbyterian churches. The largest was located on the other side of the peace wall dividing Townsend Street which links Divis Street with Peter's Hill, the lower Shankill Road. It opened in 1878 and formally closed in 2022 when it was taken over as a rehearsal space by the Ulster Orchestra. Nearby was located the Soho Foundry established by Robert Shipboy MacAdam in 1846. It is now an enterprise centre. There was also a Presbyterian church in Albert Street (1852-1972) where one of the ministers was the Rev. Henry Montgomery who helped establish the Shankill Road Mission in 1896. The Maureen Sheehan Centre is now located on the site of the church. The centre is named after a local community nurse who was killed in a nearby car accident. Four sculptures from the church are featured in the facade of the centre.

There was also a Methodist church in Divis Street (1850-1966). This church was designed by Charles Lanyon and was the original home of the Falls Road Orange Lodge.  Nearby was the Hungarian Flour Mill owned by Bernard Hughes. It burned down in a fire in 1966.

A recent addition is the New Life City Church which is located on Northumberland Street on the peace line marking the separation of the Falls Road and the Shankill Road. It is an Elim Pentecostal Church.

Commercial facilities
The Lower Falls area previously had many linen mills.  These have either been demolished or converted for other purposes.   The Twin Spires Complex has replaced the demolished massive mill of the New Northern Spinning and Weaving Company (Craig's Mill) which was located at the corner of Northumberland Street. The new complex consists of shops, offices and small industrial units. On the corner of Conway Street was located Greeves' Mill (original owner Thomas Greeves of Strandtown, Belfast) and also the Conway Mill (original owner James Kennedy of nearby Clonard). Originally a flax spinning mill, it now houses a community enterprise of small businesses, art studios, retail space and education floor. It also houses the Irish Republican History Museum. Finally, Ross's Mill was located on Clonard Street with an entrance at the top of Sevastopol Street.  It has been demolished and replaced by housing but its name survives in the street name Ross Mill Avenue.

There are still two large flour mills located in the lower Falls district. Near the bottom of Divis Street is located Neill's Flour Mill which is entered via College Square North. This mill was originally a small stone mill but was taken over by James Neill in 1867 who converted it into a roller mill in 1880. This mill grew in size and in the 1960s it became part of Allied Mills which in turn became part of Associated British Foods. The original mill was then demolished and rebuilt in 1986-7. Between Northumberland Street and Percy Street is located Andrews Flour Mill. The mill was originally developed in 1895 by the Andrews family from Comber, County Down. J. M. Andrews was the second Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (1940-1943). Northumberland Street and Percy Street were named after Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland who was the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1829-1830. Percy Street was badly damaged in the Belfast Blitz (1941) and 30 people were killed when a bomb hit a shelter. In August 1969, Percy Street and the neighbouring Dover Street were the location for major disturbance when a large crowd of Loyalists from the Shankill Road end attempted to invade Divis Street. Houses in the street were attacked and the residents fled (see 1969 Northern Ireland riots).  These mills recruited workers from both the Falls and Shankill Roads.

Leisure facilities
The Falls Leisure Centre is located in the lower Falls district. It currently offers a range of leisure facilities including a swimming pool, sauna and steam rooms, a gym, and a badminton court. It was originally the location of the Falls Public Baths where local residents could avail of washing and swimming facilities. On 16 April 1941, it was the site of a temporary morgue following the Belfast Blitz. This is described in the novel The Emperor of Ice-Cream by the novelist Brian Moore.

One of three Carnegie libraries built in Belfast is situated in the lower Falls Road. It opened on 1 January 1908 and is the last Carnegie library in Belfast still functioning as a library. Opposite was located the Clonard Picture House which closed in 1966. The Diamond Picture House at the corner of Cupar Street closed in 1959. The Arcadian cinema on Albert Street opened in 1912 but closed in 1960.

At the junction with Grosvenor Road is located Dunville Park which was first opened in 1893. It was funded by Robert G Dunville, the owner of the nearby Dunville & Co whiskey distillery. who also funded the large fountain at the centre of the park which was designed by the English sculptor Arthur Ernest Pearce.  Robert Dunville not only gave his name to the park and the adjacent street but named another street after his daughter Sorella. The park has recently been refurbished and includes a football pitch.  Nearby are located the clubrooms of Davitt's GAC and Dwyer's GAC.

A strong working class community, the Lower Falls has a history of storytelling, music and song which was often enjoyed in the many public houses in the area.  These included such establishments as the Old House (famous for its folk music sessions), McGeowns, the West End Bar (famous for its weekend sing-songs), the Laurel Leaf, the Centre Half and Haughey's. Gerry Conlon, who grew up in Peel Street, recalled in his autobiography Proved Innocent how he could see several pubs just a few yards from his front door:
I'd watch the men off to the pubs. There were three pubs, Paddy Gilmartin's which was called the Laurel Leaf, Peter Murray's [the West End Bar] directly opposite, or further down on the right-hand side was Charlie Gormley's, across from Finnegan's the butcher shop. The Spanish Rooms bar, in lower Divis Street, was famed for selling scrumpy, especially to young men on their way to a dance. In the early 1970s it was the largest seller of cider in Britain and Ireland. The Centre Half Bar which was located at the corner of Panton Street and the Falls Road was named by the licensee Mickey Hamill who played for both Belfast Celtic and Glasgow Celtic as well as Manchester United and Manchester City. He captained the Ireland team to their first Home International championship win in 1914. Most of these bars were demolished as part of the redevelopment of the area which occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

Near the foot of Divis Street is located the offices of Raidió Fáilte, an Irish language community radio station.  It is housed in a purpose-built facility. Nearer the city centre, in College Court, off Castle Street, was located the Astor ballroom which was a very popular dance venue in the 1960s and where such famous bands as Thin Lizzy and Them performed.

Murals

On some walls along the main road have been painted large murals. These are representations of local and national political issues and figures. One of the most famous is the large mural of Bobby Sands on the side wall of Sinn Féin's offices at the corner of Sevastopol Street. Further down the road on the corner of Northumberland Street is a series of murals which has come to be called the International or Solidarity Wall. This is a series of images of international figures who have been involved in various liberation struggles. These murals have become a popular attraction for visiting tourists. The murals are frequently updated to reflect local support for certain individuals and groups (e.g. NHS staff).

Middle Falls

This section of the road centres on the Beechmount district and stretches from the intersection with the Grosvenor Road/Springfield Road to the Whiterock Road.  The district takes its name from Beechmount House which was located at the top of a nearby hill surrounded by beech trees. It was the former home of Eliza and Isabella Riddel.  It is now the site of an Irish Language school.

The Whiterock Road leads to the Ballymurphy and to Turf Lodge districts.  It also leads to the Black Mountain which forms part of the range of hills overlooking Belfast. Across the Falls Road from the Whiterock Road is the Donegall Road. This road leads down to the junction with Broadway and Westlink – M1 motorway and then on down to Shaftesbury Square in the city centre. At the junction with Westlink is located the large public sculpture formally called RISE but informally known as the balls on the Falls.

Through the area flowed the Clowney Water or River (Irish Abhainn na Cluana - River of the meadow) which is a tributary of the larger Blackstaff River.  Both have largely been covered over and piped in.

Hospitals

There are several large hospitals in the area including the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Royal Jubilee Maternity Service, the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children (Children's Hospital), and the Royal Dental Hospital. These four linked hospitals make up Northern Ireland's biggest hospitals complex. The Royal Victoria Hospital treats over 80,000 people as inpatients and 350,000 people as outpatients every year. The complex is a major training site for medical, dental, nursing and other health students from Queen's University Belfast. The original hospital opened in 1797 and moved to its present site in 1903. The hospital was designed by Henman and Cooper of Birmingham in 1899, completed in 1906. It was claimed to be the first air-conditioned public building in the world.

Opposite the Children's Hospital is Mulholland Terrace, a row of terraced houses which were built in the nineteenth century by David Mulholland.  He also owned several bars in the area.

Schools
There are also a number of educational institutions in the immediate area.  At the senior level, there is St Dominic's Grammar School for Girls. Beside it was located St. Catherine's Primary School which was also run by the Dominican nuns but closed in 2005. At the rear was located St Rose's High School in the Beechmount district which in 2019 was amalgamated with the Christian Brothers School, Glen Road and Corpus Christi College to form All Saints College / Coláiste na Naomh Uile.

There were several boys secondary schools in the area which have gone through a process of merging over the past forty years. St. Thomas's Boys Secondary School on the Whiterock Road opened in 1957. St. Peter's Boys Secondary School on Brittons Parade opened in the 1960s.  In 1988, both of these schools amalgamated with Gort na Móna Secondary School to become Corpus Christi College which in turn merged (see above). St. Thomas's had a strong literary heritage. For a period, its headteacher was the writer Michael McLaverty. In addition, Seamus Heaney taught here for a while in the 1960s.
 He references the area in one of his poems:
 Is there life before death? That's chalked up
 In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
 Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,
 We hug our little destiny again.
Brendan Hamill, another writer, who attended the school in the 1960s recalled later: While on teaching practice, Seamus Heaney came to St Thomas' about October that year (1962). I remember him, his voice grave and resonant, his big, brown shoes, reading from Carrickfergus by Louis MacNeice. He was an enormously decent man with extraordinary antennae. Joe Graham, the writer and historian, was also a student at the school when McLaverty was the headteacher. For several years, after the school closed, this building was used by Belfast Metropolitan College for further education courses. After the new Springvale campus of the college was opened the building was demolished. Coláiste Feirste is an Irish language school situated in the Beechmount district.

St. Paul's Primary School is also located in the Beechmount area. There are two Irish language primary schools. These are Gaelscoil na bhFal and Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh.

At the higher education level, there is St Mary's University College which is part of Queen's University Belfast. This was established in 1909 as St Mary's Training College to train women as teachers. It amalgamated with St Joseph's Training College (for male trainee teachers) in 1985. Besides teacher training it now offers a range of degree courses. The college has a substantial programme of community engagement playing host to many local events including many organised by Féile an Phobail.

Churches
St Paul's Church is located opposite the hospitals on the corner of Cavendish Street.  It was built as a chapel of ease to St Peter's Cathedral and celebrated its first Mass in July 1887. St.Paul's was raised from "a district of St Peters" to the status of a parish in 1905. Broadway Presbyterian Church opened in 1891 but closed in 1982.  It has since been repurposed as an Irish language arts and culture centre (see below).

Recreation and culture
Near Beechmount is located Willowbank Park which has a number of playing fields. It is located on the site of the Willowbank Huts which in the late nineteenth century housed a small British Army barracks. When the huts were vacated they were used by various groups including Fianna Éireann. Corrigan Park which is a facility for Gaelic games is located on the Whiterock Road. A nearby smaller facility for various sporting activities is McCrory Park. It was named after Cardinal Joseph MacRory who was Bishop of Down and Connor and then Primate of All Ireland in the early part of the twentieth century.  During the 1970s it was occupied by the British Army who called it Fort Pegasus. The playing fields of the Davitt's GAC are located in Beechmount. The Whiterock Leisure Centre is located off the upper Whiterock Road. It has a community garden and allotment site. Developments include a playground and multi-use games area. At the foot of St. James's Road and sandwiched between Rodney Parade and the M1 motorway is located the St. James's Community Farm. This was an abandoned piece of land that was transformed by local residents into a community farm providing facilities for around 50 animals and various gardening initiatives.

Historically, there has been a continuing interest in the Irish language and culture in the area. In 1936 the Cluain Árd centre was established in the Beechmount area and became a centre for Irish language enthusiasts. In the 1960s, there was a resurgence of interest in the Irish language reflected in the development of the Shaw's Road Gaeltacht in Andersonstown. Since then, interest has grown, with the approval by Belfast City Council of a Gaeltacht Quarter around the Falls Road in 2002. The Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, known colloquially as the Cultúrlann, is an Irish language and arts centre based in the middle Falls area which opened in 1991. It was originally the home of Broadway Presbyterian church. The centre also houses the Irish language bookshop An Ceathrú Póilí. The Féile an Phobail, an annual festival of Irish culture, which was established in 1988 provides a showcase for Irish culture. Nearby, at the corner with Broadway, is the new Áras na bhFál, the home of Iontaobhas na Gaelscolaíochta - the Trust Fund for Irish-Medium Education.

The Áras Uí Chonghaile/James Connolly Visitor Centre is located near the top of the Donegall Road. This centre is dedicated to the life and work of James Connolly who lived nearby for a period in the early years of the twentieth century.

There are several large bars in the middle Falls area. These include the Beehive and the Red Devil - An Diabhal Dearg, at the top of Broadway, and the Rock Bar at the top  of the Donegall Road.

The Broadway Cinema which was situated near Beechmount was the largest of Belfast's suburban cinemas when it opened in 1936. It closed in 1972 after a bombing. On the Donegall Road, is the former site of Celtic Park. This was originally a football stadium and the home of Belfast Celtic F.C. It was also the first greyhound racing track to open in Ireland. The stadium closed in 1983 and is now the site of a shopping centre.

Upper Falls
This section stretches from the Whiterock Road to the Andersonstown Road.   As its name implies, the Andersonstown Road leads to the Andersonstown district and the on out of the city.  At the junction with the Glen Road was located the Andersonstown RUC station which was the most attacked police station in Northern Ireland. It was closed and demolished in 2005. The Glen Road runs for almost three miles passing the junction with Monagh By Pass/Kennedy Way, then Shaw's Road and Suffolk Road until it changes name to Colinglen Road. For much of the route in forms the northern boundary of Andersonstown and then Lenadoon.

Schools
St. Louise's Comprehensive College which was one of the largest girls schools in Europe with over 2,000 pupils is located in this area. In 2019, it was decided to admit boys and to reduce the overall student numbers to 1500. Nearby is located St. Kevin's Primary School which was established in 1933. There is also the St. Maria Goretti Nursery School on the Whiterock Road.

Churches
The St. John's RC Church is located near the foot of the Whiterock Road. It was originally established in 1928 as the population of the area increased.

St. Matthias's Church is located on the Glen Road not far from Milltown Cemetery. On the site, the original Church of Ireland church was erected in 1892. It formally closed in 1969 but was taken over by the catholic parish of St Teresa of Ávila, the main church of which is located further up the Glen Road. The building reopened as a catholic church under the same name in 1970. A new catholic church opened on the site in 2004 and the old tin church, which is listed, is in a state of disrepair.

Recreation

In the Upper Falls area is located the Falls Park which was established in 1873. The park has many mature trees, flower beds, horticultural displays and grassland areas. The park contains playing fields for Gaelic games and soccer. It has a 3G pitch, a bowling green and other facilities. Developments include an outdoor gym, a dedicated youth area suitable for a range of uses and a refurbished play park with modern play equipment. In 1924, an outdoor swimming pool, known locally as The Cooler, was added to the park. The pool closed in 1979 for public health reasons. The Féile an Phobail has its closing concert here each year.

Opposite the Falls Park, on Milltown Row, are located the facilities of St. Gall's GAC. Further up the Falls Road is located The Felons, a large social club and restaurant. It is located on the site of a former Methodist meeting house.

Cemeteries

In the late 19th century, with the rapid increase in the city population, there was an increasing need for cemeteries. At that time, the Upper Falls was a rural area and the city council and the Catholic Church decided to buy large spaces in the area to create cemeteries. The Belfast City Cemetery which is located at the bottom of the Whiterock Road, is a municipal cemetery maintained by the Belfast City Council and is one of the largest burial sites in the city. It opened in 1869. At the junction with the Glen Road, is located Milltown Cemetery, maintained by the Catholic Church, which opened in the same year.

At the bottom of Milltown Cemetery is the Bog Meadows which leads onto the M1 motorway. This large wild-life preserve is home to a wide variety of wild flowers, birds and butterflies.  Some cattle also graze on the site. It is owned and managed by the Friends of the Bog Meadows and the Ulster Wildlife Trust.

Transport

Originally there was a tram service providing public transport on the Falls Road. This was introduced in the late 19th century and replaced by trolleybuses in 1938.  There were three routes along the road: 11 for Falls Road-Whiterock Road, 12 for Falls Road-Andersonstown Road and 13 for Falls Road-Glen Road. The 77 route from the Gasworks to the Waterworks ran via Albert Street/Northumberland Street and cut across the Falls Road and the Shankill Road. The trolleybuses were replaced by diesel buses in the 1960s. With the outbreak of the troubles, the bus service was withdrawn.  The gap in public transport was replaced by black taxis.  Since the troubles ended, the public bus service has been re-introduced and expanded. Metro, a division of Translink now operates the bus service. The Falls Road is designated one of the quality bus corridors (QBCs) within the city with a variety of different routes.

In 2018, the Glider bus service was introduced. It provides a service from Poleglass via the Falls Road-City Centre and Newtownards Road to Dundonald. It was the first cross-city bus service.

Politics

A predominantly working-class community, the area has seen an ongoing contest between various versions of labour/socialist and nationalist/Irish republican ideas for electoral leadership. In the early 20th century, James Connolly, the socialist republican, resided in the Upper Falls area for a period which at that time was generally seen as a bedrock of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). Winifred Carney also lived on the Falls with her husband, George McBride, a Protestant and World War I veteran. She is buried in Milltown Cemetery.

The Falls Road forms the centre of the Belfast West (UK Parliament constituency) although it also includes areas from the neighbouring unionist Shankill Road district. In 1909, the constituency was held by Joe Devlin of the IPP. In the 1918 United Kingdom general election a separate Belfast Falls (UK Parliament constituency) was created which was again won by Joe Devlin who heavily defeated Éamon de Valera who was standing for Sinn Féin. After partition, the constituency of Belfast West was reconstituted for the 1922 United Kingdom general election and was won by the Ulster Unionist Party who held it for 11 years until it was won by Jack Beattie, standing for Labour, who held it from 1943 to 1950 and again from 1951-1955. It was then held again by the Ulster Unionists until 1966.

In the 1964 United Kingdom general election, Billy McMillen stood as a Republican Clubs candidate for the Belfast West. His office was in Divis Street and the Irish tricolour alongside the Starry Plough of Connolly's Irish Citizen Army was displayed in the window. The Flags and Emblems Act gave the RUC the power to remove any flag or emblem from public or private property which was considered to be likely to cause a breach of the peace. This was generally interpreted as any Irish flag since the Union Jack was specifically excluded from the Act. Ian Paisley insisted the RUC remove the Irish tricolour or he would organise a march and remove it himself.  The police feared a backlash from Loyalists, and removed it, causing unrest and rioting by local residents. James Kilfedder standing for the Ulster Unionist Party was elected to the seat that year but was defeated two years later in 1966 by Gerry Fitt who held the seat for the Republican Labour Party and then the SDLP for seventeen years until 1983 when Gerry Adams won the seat for Sinn Féin. He held the seat for over twenty years (1983-1992 and 1997-2011) with Joe Hendron of the SDLP holding it for the intervening five years (1992-1997). Paul Maskey of Sinn Féin was elected MP in 2011 and has held the seat since but in line with Sinn Féin's abstentionist policy he has not actually taken the seat at Westminster. In 1995, President Bill Clinton visited the area where he shook hands with the Gerry Adams near the corner with the Springfield Road.

In the 1929 Northern Ireland general election, the Belfast, Falls constituency was won by the Nationalist Richard Byrne after a bitter contest with William McMullen, a supporter of Connolly. In the 1945 election, Harry Diamond won the seat standing for the Socialist Republican Party. He held the seat until 1969 when he was defeated by Paddy Devlin standing for the Northern Ireland Labour Party. Devlin, who had once been a member, alongside Diamond, of the Belfast branch of the Irish Labour Party, became a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1970 and remained a member until Parliament was prorogued in 1972.

It was replaced by the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 which only met for one year. After the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, a new Northern Ireland Assembly was established. In the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, a total of four Sinn Féin and one People Before Profit representatives were elected in the Belfast West (Assembly constituency).

In elections for Belfast City Council, three of the seven wards (Falls Park, Ballymurphy, and Beechmount) within the Black Mountain (District Electoral Area) cover the Middle and Upper Falls area, while two of the six wards (Clonard and Falls) within the Court (District Electoral Area) cover the Lower Falls area. In the 2023 district election, six Sinn Féin and one SDLP councillors were elected for the Black Mountain (District Electoral Area) while two Sinn Féin, three DUP and one TUV councillors were elected for the Court (District Electoral Area).

The Troubles

In the late 1960s, many Catholics from across Northern Ireland began to campaign, many with Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), against discrimination in housing and jobs, under the banner of a civil rights campaign, in conscious imitation of the philosophy of, and tactics used by, the American Civil Rights Movement. Northern Ireland was part of the UK but the voting criteria were different to England, Scotland and Wales where a person could vote as soon as they became 18 years old. In Northern Ireland an 18 year old could only vote if they were the named owner or named renter of a house. Most of the Catholic houses had three generations living in the same dwelling (because of housing discrimination) so only the mother and father could vote. Furthermore, business owners (depending on the size of the company) were entitled to three to six votes unlike anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

Many Unionists saw NICRA as an Irish republican Trojan horse, designed to destabilize Northern Ireland, and force unionists into a united Ireland. Several streets around the Falls Road were burnt out by armed 'B' Specials (Police Reserve) and loyalists in August 1969, with the murder of six Catholics on the first night marking the start of 'The Troubles. In response to the worsening situation, the British Government deployed the British Army on the Falls Road to protect the Catholics from further attacks. The troops were initially welcomed by all the Falls residents to protect them, but heavy-handed tactics by the mostly British-born members of the Army who did not know, care or understand the situation would estrange most Catholics and nationalists.

In early July 1970, the road was the scene of what became known as the Falls Curfew. 3,000 British troops sealed off the streets around the Falls Road, home to about 10,000 people, setting off 1,600 canisters of CS gas. The British actions were opposed by the Official IRA (OIRA), who engaged them in a vicious gun battle. Over the course of the weekend, four Catholic civilians were killed by the British Army. Ninety rifles were recovered. This is widely regarded as the end of the British Army's "honeymoon" period with nationalists in Belfast.

During the Troubles there were repeated sectarian attacks by loyalists on residents of the Falls Road. These attacks increased during the 1969 Northern Ireland riots when whole streets in the Falls Road area were destroyed by loyalists from the Shankill Road area. Loyalists paramilitaries killed many local residents. Temporary barricades were constructed to provide residents with some security. These developed into peace walls which today separate the Falls Road from the neighbouring Shankill Road.  Although the troubles have now ceased, the peace walls still exist in this so-called Interface area.

For the following three decades, the British Army maintained a substantial presence on the Falls Road, with a base on top of the Divis Tower. This was removed in August 2005 as part of the British government's normalisation programme, following the Provisional Irish Republican Army's statement that it was ending its armed activities. In the intervening period, the Falls Road area saw some of the worst violence of "the Troubles". The last British soldier to be killed on the road itself was Private Nicholas Peacock, killed by a booby trap bomb left outside the Rock Bar, opposite the top of the Donegall Road on 1 February 1989.

In 1991, IRA hit squads based in the Upper Falls and Beechmount were involved in attacks against loyalist paramilitaries in the nearby Village area. In September 1991, they shot dead 19-year-old UVF member John Hanna at his home on the Donegall Road, and in November the same year, they shot dead William Kingsberry and his stepson, Samuel Mehaffey, members of the UDA and RHC respectively, in their home on Lecale Street.

The Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 followed by decommissioning of weapons by the IRA and the formal ending of its campaign in 2005.

Literary and musical references
There are many literary references to life on the Falls Road. These include:
 Gerry Adams (1982). Falls Memories. Dingle:Brandon.
 Ciaran Carson (1997). Star Factory. London: Granta Books.
 Liam Carson (2010). Call Mother a Lonely Field. Bridgend: Seren.
 Eimer O'Callaghan (2014). Belfast Days. A 1972 Teenage Diary. Sallins: Merrion Press.
 Patricia Craig (2007). Asking for Trouble. Belfast: Blackstaff.

The American singer Nanci Griffith sings in her song "It's a hard life wherever you go" which she wrote after visiting Belfast:
 I am a backseat driver from America
 They drive to the left on Falls Road
 The man at the wheel's name is Seamus
 We pass a child on the corner he knows
 And Seamus says, "Now, what chance has that kid got?"
 And I say from the back, "I don't know."
 He says, "There's barbed wire at all of these exits
 And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go."
Gary Kemp, British songwriter and singer for British soft rock group Spandau Ballet attributes his writing of the band's 1986 hit "Through the barricades" to emotion he experienced while on Falls Road.

See also
Gaeltacht Quarter, Belfast
Lower Falls (District Electoral Area)
Upper Falls (District Electoral Area)
Raidió Fáilte

References

External links

 Visit West Belfast
 Falls Road in Rushlight Magazine

Streets in Belfast
Roads in Northern Ireland

Falls Road, Belfast


Henry Gilman  (May 9, 1893 – November 7, 1986) was an American organic chemist known as the father of organometallic chemistry, the field within which his most notable work was done. He discovered the Gilman reagent, which bears his name.

Early life and education (1893-1918)
Henry Gilman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, as the son of a tailor. He was the third of eight children. Gilman graduated from a Boston high school and later attended Harvard University where he graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1915. During his final year as an undergraduate at Harvard, Gilman researched with Roger Adams. During this time, the two worked on the synthesis of substituted phenyl esters of oxalic acids. Gilman worked hard on his research describing it as 'a sheer delight' and often worked until midnight 'without any compulsion-just for the joy of it' and claimed this was an important step toward his interest in research. After undergraduate work Gilman was invited to stay for graduate work with the head of the Harvard department of chemistry, E.P. Kohler. Based on his work, he received a Master of Arts degree in 1917(a year late) and a PhD in 1918.

While attending graduate school, Gilman had an opportunity to travel in Europe as a recipient of the Sheldon Fellowship. He spent time at both the Polytechnicum in Zurich and at Oxford in England. During his time in Europe, Gilman met Madame Curie at the Sorbonne, the historic University of Paris. While staying in Paris, Gilman met Victor Grignard and was intrigued by the advances in organic chemistry in France made possible by Grignard reagents. Once he was able to research independently, Gilman was determined to explore the chemistry of these organometallic reagents.

Career
For a short time after receiving his PhD, Henry Gilman worked an associate professor at the University of Illinois after being invited by his former instructor Roger Adams. In 1919, Gilman moved on to become an assistant professor in charge of organic chemistry at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now Iowa State University). At the age of 30, Gilman was given the title of full professor. While at Iowa State College, Gilman met Ruth V. Shaw, a student of his first-year organic chemistry class, and the two were married in 1929. Gilman switched to the Episcopal church from the Jewish faith upon marriage.

Gilman had high expectations for his graduate students, and it often took them more than twice as long as the norm to earn their degrees. They were expected to work in the research lab well into the night and on weekends. Gilman was known for frequently visiting the lab during the day and questioning each student as to what they had accomplished since his last visit. He would also go on business trips and not inform his secretary or students on when he would come back in an effort to discourage skipping. Gilman had another common practice for his graduate students. He would not assign a research project for his graduate students, but he would push students to produce a series of preparations. Students would write short publications that would spark ideas about additional experiments to perform, drawing all the material together to form a central thesis.

During his career, Gilman consulted for many companies such as Quaker Oats and DuPont, although he continued as a professor at Iowa State University, as it came to be known. At the usual retirement age of 70, at that time, Gilman chose not to retire from Iowa State University and remained active in research until 1975 when he was 82 years old.

World War II brought new opportunities for Gilman to do research for the government. He took part in the Manhattan Project, which was the code name for the government's work on the atom bomb. Gilman concentrated on preparing volatile uranium derivatives, mainly dealing with alkoxides, and the syntheses of species with potential anti-malarial activities.

Later years (1947-1986)
In 1947, due to a combination of glaucoma and detachment of a retina Henry Gilman became blind in one eye and lost most of his vision in the other. He was forced to rely on his wife and students to act as his eyes, to read and write for him. His wife was almost always at his side to guide him in unfamiliar places and inform him of the people around him. Remarkably, he continued much of his work and never let his loss of sight hinder his skills. It could be argued that the majority of Gilman's work was done after 1947. In 1973, the current chemistry building at Iowa State University was renamed Henry Gilman Hall.

Gilman had heart problems late in his life and was fitted with a pace-maker at the age of 88. He died in Ames, IA at the age of 93 and was followed by his wife less than two months later and she was followed by their daughter Jane six months later. They are survived by a son and four grandchildren.

Works

During his lifetime, Gilman completed 1020 papers, 584 of which were published after he became blind in 1947. In 1936, the Journal of Organic Chemistry was created by Gilman with the help of M.S. Kharasch. In 1938, he published a two-volume textbook titled Organic Chemistry: An Advanced Treatise, the first major organic chemistry textbook, with each chapter being contributed by leading leaders in the U.S. Subsequent additions were published in 1943 and another two editions in 1953. Gilman reagents are named after him.

Honors and awards
Elected to National Academy of Sciences, 1945
Iowa Award and Midwest Award of American Chemical Society, 1951
Honorary Fellow of the British Chemical Society, 1961
First American Chemical Society Frederic Stanley Kipping Award in Organosilicon Chemistry, 1962
Distinguished Fellowship Awards, Iowa Academy of Sciences, 1975
Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society, 1977
Iowa Governor's Science Medal, 1982

Along with his numerous state, national, and international awards and honors, Gilman has had many tributes in his memory at Iowa State University. In 1962, Gilman became a distinguished professor at ISU. The chemistry building on Iowa State University's campus was renamed Gilman Hall in 1974. That same year, the annual series of Gilman Lectures was established. In his memory, the Gilman Graduate Fellowship Fund was established in 1987.

References

Further reading
 National Academy of Sciences Biography of Henry Gilman
 Iowa State University Visions, Fall 2006
 John McMurry, Organic Chemistry, 6th edition (Brooks/Cole-Thomson, 2004, )
 Eaborn, C. (1990). Biographical Memoirs: Gilman. Biographical Memoirs of Professor Henry Gilman . England.

External links
National Academy of Sciences Biography of Henry Gilman

1893 births
1986 deaths
Iowa State University faculty
Organic chemists
20th-century American chemists
Jewish American scientists
American blind people
Foreign Members of the Royal Society
Harvard University alumni
20th-century American Jews
American scientists with disabilities
Blind scholars and academics

Henry Gilman


John Kennedy Marshall (November 12, 1932 – April 22, 2005) was an American anthropologist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker best known for his work in Namibia recording the lives of the Juǀ'hoansi (also called the !Kung Bushmen).

Background
Marshall was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Lorna Marshall and Laurence Kennedy Marshall and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Peterborough, New Hampshire. His sister, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, is a writer. Marshall had one daughter, Sonya. He married Dr. Alexandra Eliot, who had two sons from a previous marriage, Frederick and Christopher Eliot. Marshall held a B.A. and M.A. in Anthropology from Harvard University. Marshall died of lung cancer in April 2005.

Career
Marshall first traveled to the Kalahari Desert and met the Juǀ'hoansi of the Nyae Nyae area in 1950 on a trip initiated by his father to search for the "Lost World of the Kalahari."   Before his second trip to the Kalahari, one year later, Marshall received a 16mm Kodak camera and advice from his father, "Don't direct, John, don't try to be artistic, just film what you see people doing naturally." Marshall employed this advice during the 1950s, his films anticipated the cinéma vérité movement of the 1960s.  Throughout the 1950s and 1960s members of the Marshall family—John Marshall, his sister Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Lorna Marshall, and Laurence Marshall—returned to the Kalahari Desert numerous times to conduct an ethnographic study of the Juǀ'hoansi and document one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer cultures.  From 1950-1958 Marshall filmed the hunting and gathering life of the Juǀ'hoansi. His first edited film, The Hunters, was released in 1957. The Hunters told the story of a Juǀ'hoansi giraffe hunt. Marshall later realized he had unintentionally romanticized Juǀ'hoansi life. The Hunters portrayed the Juǀ'hoansi as if they continued to live as they always had, where their main conflict was a struggle with nature. But when Marshall filmed them, they were actually suffering from having collided with the modern world and were subsisting primarily on gathered food and struggling to find enough to eat. Recognizing this discrepancy between reality and the portrayal of Juǀ'hoan life in The Hunters, Marshall was determined to produce more objective and less mediated films about the Juǀ'hoansi. He produced a series of short films designed to educate without exoticizing or "imposing western narrative structures on the subjects."

During the 1960s and most of the 1970s, Marshall, and nearly all anthropologists and filmmakers, were banned from visiting the Juǀ'hoansi by a government that saw them as "a threat to the status quo." So during this period, Marshall produced many short films about the Juǀ'hoansi of Nyae Nyae from the footage he had collected in the 1950s  and pursued other film projects in the United States. He was the cinematographer for Fred Wiseman's first documentary film, Titicut Follies. Marshall also shot and produced a series of short films about police work in Pittsburgh, PA.  In 1968, Marshall and Tim Asch founded Documentary Educational Resources, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating the use of cross-cultural documentaries in the classroom.

Marshall became involved in grassroots organizing and development in Nyae Nyae in the 1980s, forming a foundation that would become the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia and devoting himself to advocating on behalf of the Juǀ'hoansi. In 2003, the Society for Visual Anthropology bestowed on Marshall a lifetime achievement award for his 50 years of work among the hunter gatherer society.

Two million feet of Marshall's 16mm documentary footage along with thousands of hours of video footage as well as edited films and videos of Juǀ'hoansi are held at the Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution.  Known officially as the John Marshall Juǀ'hoan Bushman Film and Video Collection, 1950–2000, the collection was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register for documentary heritage of world importance in July 2009.  Cynthia Close, former Executive Director of Documentary Educational Resources, called the collection, "unparalleled in the history of film and in the history of documenting humanity".

Evolution of reality filmmaking
John Marshall produced realistic films that combined documentary media and ethnographic film. His work offers an evolving, original, and unique view on what was technically possible and stylistic in documentary through his more than fifty years as a filmmaker. Marshall was a pioneer in the cinéma vérité style. He is quoted as saying, "I began shooting events from angles and distances that approximated the perspectives of the people I was filming, I tried to film as a member of the group rather than shoot standing outside as an observer." He began thinking about his position vis-à-vis the people he was filming, asking, "Am I someone in the group? Who? Why am I looking at the other person? Am I an outside observer? If I am an observer who am I? Is there anyone else observing from this angle and distance? What are they seeing and thinking?" Marshall's shooting style evolved to reflect his position within the society he was filming, that of participant more than outside observer. As similar as this approach sounds to cinéma vérité, Marshall employed sit-down interviews in many of his films such as Nǃai, the Story of a ǃKung Woman and cinéma vérité does not use sit-down interviews.

In his early films, and indeed, most of his films about the Juǀ'hoansi, Marshall presents realistic views of the changing life of the once hunter-gatherer culture, but he himself is never a central character in those films. However, in his 2002 6-episode film A Kalahari Family, the curtain is pulled and John Marshall, as well as his family, who by that time had been involved in both ethnographic and then political efforts with the Juǀ'hoansi since the early 1950s, are revealed. This may be the ultimate in reality filmmaking, as the Marshalls have been intimately involved in the Juǀ'hoansi culture, making both positive and negative impacts, and finally in A Kalahari Family, their impact is explored.

Filmography
1957: The Hunters
1961: A Group Of Women
1962: A Joking Relationship
1967: Titicut Follies (cinematographer)
1969: An Argument About Marriage
1969: 'N/um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen
1969: A Curing Ceremony
1970: Inside/Outside Station 9 (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1970: The Melon Tossing Game
1970: The Lion Game
1971: Three Domestics (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1971: Vagrant Woman (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1971: Bitter Melons
1972: Investigation of a Hit and Run (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1972: 901/904 (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1972: Debe''s Tantrum
1972: Playing With Scorpions
1972: A Rite of Passage
1972: !Kung Bushmen Hunting Equipment
1972: A Wasp Nest
1973: After the Game (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: A Forty Dollar Misunderstanding (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: The Informant (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: A Legal Discussion of a Hit and Run (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: Manifold Controversy (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: Nothing Hurt But My Pride (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: Two Brothers (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: $21 or 21 Days (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: Wrong Kid (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: You Wasn't Loitering (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: Henry Is Drunk (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: The 4th, 5th, & Exclusionary Rule (Pittsburgh Police Series)
1973: Men Bathing
1974: The Meat Fight
1974: Baobab Play
1974: Children Throw Toy Assegais
1974: Tug-Of-War-Bushmen
1978: If It Fits
1980: N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman
1985: Pull Ourselves Up Or Die Out
1987: The !Kung San: Traditional Life
1988: The !Kung San: Resettlement
1990: To Hold Our Ground: A Field Report
2001: Between Two Worlds: John Marshall (interviewee)
2002: A Kalahari Family

Publications
By John Marshall

 "Filming and Learning," in a special edition of Visual Anthropology entitled The Cinema of John Marshall, Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1993
 "Plight of the Bushman," Leadership Magazine, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1985
 "Where are the Ju/'hoansi of Nyae Nyae? Changes in a Bushman Society 1950–1981," with Claire Ritchie, for Center for African Studies, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, 1984
 "Death Blow to the Bushmen," in Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1984
 "Urban Film," with Emilie de Brigard in Visual Anthropology, Paul Hockings, Editor, H. Mouton & Co,, The Hague, 1975
 "Man as a Hunter," Natural History Museum, 1958

On John Marshall

 Tomaselli, Keyan, Visual Anthropology, Encounters in the Kalahari, Chicago, 1999.
 Ruby, Jay, The Cinema of John Marshall,  Switzerland, 1993.
 Kapfer, J., Petermann, W., Thoms, R.,Jager und Gejagte John Marshall und seine Filme,  Germany, 1991.

See also
Tim Asch

References

External links
John Marshall (III) (1932–2005). IMDb.com

 (biographical short documentary on John Marshall)
 (interview with John Marshall)
 Guide to the John Marshall Ju/'hoan Bushman Film and Video Collection, 1950–2000, Human Studies Film Archives and National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
 Web exhibition on the John Marshall Ju/'hoan Bushman Film and Video Collection
 Press Release on 2009 inscriptions to the Memory of the World Register, UNESCO

Visual anthropologists
1932 births
2005 deaths
Deaths from lung cancer
Harvard University alumni
Memory of the World Register
20th-century American anthropologists

John Marshall (filmmaker)


The maker culture is a contemporary subculture representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture that intersects with hardware-oriented parts of hacker culture and revels in the creation of new devices as well as tinkering with existing ones. The maker culture in general supports open-source hardware. Typical interests enjoyed by the maker culture include engineering-oriented pursuits such as electronics, robotics, 3-D printing, and the use of computer numeric control tools, as well as more traditional activities such as metalworking, woodworking, and, mainly, its predecessor, traditional arts and crafts.

The subculture stresses a cut-and-paste approach to standardized hobbyist technologies, and encourages cookbook re-use of designs published on websites and maker-oriented publications. There is a strong focus on using and learning practical skills and applying them to reference designs. There is also growing work on equity and the maker culture.

Philosophical emphasis
Maker culture emphasizes learning-through-doing (active learning) in a social environment. Maker culture emphasizes informal, networked, peer-led, and shared learning motivated by fun and self-fulfillment. Maker culture encourages novel applications of technologies, and the exploration of intersections between traditionally separate domains and ways of working including metalworking, calligraphy, filmmaking, and computer programming. Community interaction and knowledge sharing are often mediated through networked technologies, with websites and social media tools forming the basis of knowledge repositories and a central channel for information sharing and exchange of ideas, and focused through social meetings in shared spaces such as hackerspaces. Maker culture has attracted the interest of educators concerned about students' disengagement from STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in formal educational settings. Maker culture is seen as having the potential to contribute to a more participatory approach and create new pathways into topics that will make them more alive and relevant to learners.

Some say that the maker movement is a reaction to the de-valuing of physical exploration and the growing sense of disconnection with the physical world in modern cities. Many products produced by the maker communities have a focus on health (food), sustainable development, environmentalism and local culture, and can from that point of view also be seen as a negative response to disposables, globalised mass production, the power of chain stores, multinationals and consumerism.

In reaction to the rise of maker culture, Barack Obama pledged to open several national research and development facilities to the public. In addition the U.S. federal government renamed one of their national centers "America Makes".

The methods of digital fabrication—previously the exclusive domain of institutions—have made making on a personal scale accessible, following a logical and economic progression similar to the transition from minicomputers to personal computers in the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. In 2005, Dale Dougherty launched Make magazine to serve the growing community, followed by the launch of Maker Faire in 2006. The term, coined by Dougherty, grew into a full-fledged industry based on the growing number of DIYers who want to build something rather than buy it.

Spurred primarily by the advent of RepRap 3D printing for the fabrication of prototypes, declining cost and broad adoption have opened up new realms of innovation. As it has become cost-effective to make just one item for prototyping (or a small number of household items), this approach can be depicted as personal fabrication for "a market of one person".

Makerspaces

The rise of the maker culture is closely associated with the rise of hackerspaces, fablabs and other "makerspaces", of which there are now many around the world, including over 100 each in Germany and the United States. Hackerspaces allow like-minded individuals to share ideas, tools, and skillsets. Some notable hackerspaces which have been linked with the maker culture include Artisan's Asylum, Dallas Makerspace, Noisebridge, NYC Resistor, Pumping Station: One, and TechShop. In addition, those who identify with the subculture can be found at more traditional universities with a technical orientation, such as MIT and Carnegie Mellon University (specifically around "shop" areas like the MIT Hobby Shop and CMU Robotics Club). As maker culture becomes more popular, hackerspaces and Fab Labs are becoming more common in universities and public libraries. The federal government has started adopting the concept of fully open makerspaces within its agencies, the first of which (SpaceShop Rapid Prototyping Lab) resides at NASA Ames Research Center. In Europe the popularity of the labs is more prominent than in the US: about three times more labs exist there.

Outside Europe and the US, the maker culture is also on the rise, with several hacker or makerspaces being landmarks in their respective cities' entrepreneurial and educational landscape. More precisely:
HackerspaceSG in Singapore has been set up by the team now leading the city-state's (and, arguably, South-East Asia's) most prominent accelerator JFDI.Asia.
Lamba Labs in Beirut is recognized as a hackerspace where people can collaborate freely, in a city often divided by its different ethnic and religious groups.
Xinchejian in Shanghai is China's first hackerspace, which allows for innovation and collaboration in a country known for its strong internet censorship.

With the rise of cities, which will host 60% of the human population by 2030, hackerspaces, fablabs and makerspaces will likely gain traction, as they are places for local entrepreneurs to gather and collaborate, providing local solutions to environmental, social or economical issues. The Institute for the Future has launched in this regard Maker Cities as "an open and collaborative online game, to generate ideas about how citizens are changing work, production, governance, learning, well-being, and their neighborhoods, and what this means for the future".

Tools and hardware

Cloud
Cloud computing describes a family of tools in service of the maker movement, enabling increased collaboration, digital workflow, distributed manufacturing (i.e. the download of files that translate directly into objects via a digitized manufacturing process) and sharing economy. This, combined with the open source movement, initially focused on software, has been expanding into open-source hardware, assisted by easy access to online plans (in the cloud) and licensing agreements.

Some example of cloud-based tools include online project repositories like Appropedia and thingiverse, version-controlled collaborative platforms like GitHub and wevolver, knowledge sharing platforms like instructables, wikipedia and other Wikis, including WikiHow and wikifab and platforms for distributed manufacturing like shapeways and 100k garages.

Computers
Programmable microcontrollers and single-board computers like the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, and Intel's Galileo and Edison, many of which are open source, are easy to program and connect to devices such as sensors, displays, and actuators. This lowers the barrier to entry for hardware development. Combined with the cloud, this technology enables the Internet of Things.

Digital fabrication
Desktop 3D printing is now possible in various plastics and metals. In combination with DIY open-source microelectronics, they can create autoreplicant 3d printers, such as RepRap. Digital fabrication also includes various subtractive fabrication tech, eg. laser cutting, CNC milling, and knitting machines.

To create one's own designs for digital fabrication requires digital design tools, like Solidworks, Autodesk, and Rhinoceros 3D. More recently, less expensive or easier to use software has emerged. Free, open-source software such as FreeCAD can be extremely useful in the design process. Autodesk's Fusion 360 is free for start ups and individuals, and Onshape and Tinkercad are browser-based digital design software.

Online project repositories make many parts available for digital fabrication—even for people who are unable to do their own design work. Opendesk is one example of a company which has made a business by designing and hosting projects for distributed digital fabrication.

Funding platforms
Patreon and Kickstarter are two examples of distributed funding platforms key to the maker movement.

Hand tools
Maker culture is not all about new, digital technologies. Traditional and analog tools remain crucial to the movement. Traditional tools are often more familiar and accessible, which is key to maker culture. In many places and projects where digital fabrication tools are just not suitable, Hand tools are.

Other types of making
Maker culture involves many types of making – this section reviews some of the major types.

Amateur scientific equipment
This involves making scientific instruments for citizen science or open source labs. With the advent of low-cost digital manufacturing it is becoming increasingly common for scientists as well as amateurs to fabricate their own scientific apparatuses from open source hardware designs. Docubricks is a repository of open source science hardware.

Biology, food and composting
Examples of maker culture in food production include baking, homebrewing, winemaking, home roasting coffee, vegoil, pickling, sausage, cheesemaking, yogurt and pastry production.

This can also extend into urban agriculture, composting and synthetic biology.

Clothes

Like many other craft objects, also clothing has traditionally been made at home. But within the maker culture, also clothes has seen a resurgence. Clothes can include sew and no-sew DIY hacks, and pattern-sharing magazines and platforms, such as Burda Style. Especially the open source element has been picked up by a new generation of makers, creating open patterns and platforms for sharing patterns, sewing methods and construction techniques. Hacking has also been a popular reference to DIY clothing and up cycling.

Clothing can also include knitted or crocheted clothing and accessories. Some knitters may use knitting machines with varying degrees of automatic patterning. Fully electronic knitting machines can be interfaced to computers running computer-aided design software. Arduino boards have been interfaced to electronic knitting machines to further automate the process.

Free People, a popular clothing retailer for young women, often hosts craft nights inside the doors of its Anthropologie locations.

Cosmetics
Maker cosmetics include perfumes, creams, lotions, shampoos, and eye shadow.

Tool kits for maker cosmetics can include beakers, digital scales, laboratory thermometers (if possible, from -20 to 110 °C), pH paper, glass rods, plastic spatulas, and spray to disinfect with alcohol.

Perfumes can be created at home using ethanol (96%, or even vodka or everclear), essential oils or fragrance oils, infused oils, even flavour extracts (such as pure vanilla extract), distilled or spring water and glycerine. Tools include glass bottles, glass jar, measuring cup/measuring spoons, a dropper, funnel, and aluminum foil or wrapping paper.

Musical instruments
The concept of homemade and experimental instruments in music has its roots prior to the maker movement, from complicated experiments with figures such as Reed Ghazala and Michel Waisvisz pioneering early circuit bending techniques to simple projects such as the Cigar Box Guitar. Bart Hopkin published the magazine Experimental Musical Instruments for 15 years followed by a series of books about instrument building. Organizations such as Zvex, WORM, STEIM, Death by Audio, and Casper Electronics cater to the do-it-yourself audience, while musicians like Nicolas Collins and Yuri Landman create and perform with custom made and experimental instruments.

Synth DIY

While still living at home Hugh Le Caine began a lifelong interest in electronic music and sound generation. In 1937, he designed an electronic free reed organ, and in the mid-1940s, he built the Electronic Sackbut, now recognised to be one of the first synthesizers. In 1953, Robert Moog produced his own theremin design, and the following year he published an article on the theremin in Radio and Television News. In the same year, he founded RA Moog, selling theremins and theremin kits by mail order from his home. One of his customers, Raymond Scott, rewired Moog's theremin for control by keyboard, creating the Clavivox. John Simonton founded PAiA Electronics in Oklahoma City in 1967 and began offering various small electronics kits through mail order. Starting in 1972 PAiA began producing analog synthesizer kits, in both modular and all-in-one form.

Tool making
Makers can also make or fabricate their own tools. This includes knives, hand tools, lathes, 3-D printers, wood working tools, etc.

Vehicles
A kit car, also known as a "component car", is an automobile that is available as a set of parts that a manufacturer sells and the buyer himself then assembles into a functioning car.

Car tuning can include electric vehicle conversion.

Motorcycle making and conversions are also represented. As examples: Tinker Bike is an open source motorcycle kit adaptable to recycled components; NightShift Bikes is a small, Makerist project in custom, DIY electric motorcycle conversions.

Bicycles, too, have a DIY, Maker-style community. Zenga Bros' Tall Bikes are one example. Community bike workshops are a specific type of makerspaces.

Media
MAKE (a magazine published since 2004 by O'Reilly Media), is considered a "central organ of the Maker Movement," and its founder, Dale Dougherty, is widely considered the founder of the Movement. Other media outlets associated with the movement include Wamungo, Hackaday, Makery, and the popular weblog Boing Boing. Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow has written a novel, Makers, which he describes as being "a book about people who hack hardware, business-models, and living arrangements to discover ways of staying alive and happy even when the economy is falling down the toilet".

In 2016 Intel sponsored a reality TV show—America's Greatest Makers—where 24 teams of makers compete for $1 million.

Maker Faires
Since 2006 the subculture has held regular events around the world, Maker Faire, which in 2012 drew a crowd of 120,000 attendees. Smaller, community driven Maker Faires referred to as Mini Maker Fairs are also held in various places where an O'Reilly-organised Maker Faire has not yet been held. Maker Faire provides a Mini Maker Faire starter kit to encourage the spread of local Maker Faire events.

Following the Maker Faire model, similar events which don't use the Maker Faire brand have emerged around the world.

Maker Film Fest
A Maker Film Festival was announced for August 2014 Powerhouse Science Center in Durango, Colorado, featuring "Films About Makers, and Makers Making Movies."

PPE Production in Response to COVID-19
The Maker movement galvanized in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with participants initially directing their skills toward designing Open Source ventilators. They subsequently targeted production of Personal protective equipment (PPE). Disruption of supply chains was a mounting problem, particularly in the early days of the pandemic, and compounded with the Shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the medical sectors. The response was largely regional and spread across 86 countries on 6 continents, and coordinated their response, designs and shared insights with each other through intermediary organizations such as Tikkun Olam Makers, the Fab Fouhdation or Open Source Medical Supplies which included more than 70,000 people.

National movements emerged in Germany, Brazil, Romania, France, Spain, India, and the United Kingdom. Said movements used distributed manufacturing methods; some cooperated with local government entities, local police and the national military to help locate supply shortages and manage distribution.

Total production figures sides the maker community exceeded 48.3 million units produced, totaling a market value of about $271 million. The most-produced items included face shields (25 million), medical gowns (8 million) and face masks (6 million). The primary modes of production utilized were familiar tools like 3D printing, laser cutting or sewing machines, but multiple maker organizations scaled their production output by pooling funds to afford high-output methods like die cutting or injection molding.

Criticisms
The maker movement has at times been criticized for not fulfilling its goals of inclusivity and democratization. One of the most famous critiques came from Deb Chachra's piece, Why I Am Not a Maker in The Atlantic, criticizing the movement's gendered history and present; Evgeny Morozov's Making It in The New Yorker, challenging the movement's potential to actually disrupt or democratize innovation; and Will Holman's The Toaster Paradox, about Thomas Thwaites' the Toaster Project's challenges to the DIY and "Maker impulse."

Critical making can also be seen as an argument against or a comment on maker culture, which has been explored by Garnet Hertz, Eric Paulos, John Maeda, Matt Ratto and others. The primary argument is that maker culture is unnecessarily fascinated with technology, and that projects are improved when they work to critically consider social concerns - borrowing from the more established disciplines of industrial design and media art practice. Others criticize the maker movement as not even being a movement, and posit that fundamental hypocrisy extends to limit the scope and impact of every aspect of the "Movement."

See also

 Autonomous building
 Bricolage
 Craft production
 Do-it-yourself biology
 Modular design
 Open-design movement
 Open-source car
 SparkFun Electronics
 STEAM fields
 STEM education

References

External links

 Informal crowd-sourced research by the Ananse Group
 The Maker Manifiesto.
 Maker Movement, P2P Foundation

Subcultures

Maker culture