When was B.B. King born?

Riley B. King was born on September 16, 1925, on the Berclair cotton plantation near the town of Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers Albert and Nora Ella King. He considered the nearby city of Indianola, Mississippi to be his home. When King was four years old, his mother left his father for another man, so he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Elnora Farr, in Kilmichael, Mississippi.

B.B. King

Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer, electric guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. King introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that influenced many later electric blues guitarists.

King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and is considered one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname "The King of the Blues", and is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert and Freddie King). King was known for performing tirelessly throughout his musical career, appearing on average at more than 200 concerts per year into his 70s. In 1956 alone, he reportedly appeared at 342 shows.

King was born on a cotton plantation in Berclair, Mississippi, and later worked at a cotton gin in Indianola, Mississippi. He was attracted to music and the guitar in church, and began his career in juke joints and local radio. He later lived in Memphis, Tennessee, and Chicago, and toured the world extensively. King died at the age of 89 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 14, 2015.

While young, King sang in the gospel choir at Elkhorn Baptist Church in Kilmichael. King was attracted to the Pentecostal Church of God in Christ because of its music. The local minister performed with a Sears Roebuck Silvertone guitar during services. The minister taught King his first three chords. It seems that at the age of 12 he purchased his first guitar for $15.00, although another source indicates he was given his first guitar by Bukka White, his mother's first cousin (King's grandmother and White's mother were sisters).

In November 1941, "King Biscuit Time" first aired, broadcasting on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. It was a radio show featuring the Mississippi Delta blues. King listened to it while on break at a plantation. A self-taught guitarist, he then wanted to become a radio musician.

In 1943, King left Kilmichael to work as a tractor driver and play guitar with the Famous St. John's Gospel Singers of Inverness, Mississippi, performing at area churches and on WGRM in Greenwood, Mississippi.

In 1946, King followed Bukka White to Memphis, Tennessee. White took him in for the next ten months. However, King returned to Mississippi shortly afterward, where he decided to prepare himself better for the next visit, and returned to West Memphis, Arkansas, two years later in 1948. He performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio program on KWEM in West Memphis, where he began to develop an audience. King's appearances led to steady engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis, and later to a ten-minute spot on the Memphis radio station WDIA. The radio spot became so popular that it was expanded and became the "Sepia Swing Club".

He worked at WDIA as a singer and disc jockey, where he was given the nickname "Beale Street Blues Boy", later shortened to "Blues Boy", and finally to "B.B." It was there that he first met T-Bone Walker. King said, "Once I'd heard him for the first time, I knew I'd have to have [an electric guitar] myself. 'Had' to have one, short of stealing!"

In 1949, King began recording songs under contract with Los Angeles-based RPM Records. Many of King's early recordings were produced by Sam Phillips, who later founded Sun Records. Before his RPM contract, King had debuted on Bullet Records by issuing the single, "Miss Martha King" (1949), which did not chart well. "My very first recordings [in 1949] were for a company out of Nashville called Bullet, the Bullet Record Transcription company," King recalled. "I had horns that very first session. I had Phineas Newborn on piano; his father played drums, and his brother, Calvin, played guitar with me. I had Tuff Green on bass, Ben Branch on tenor sax, his brother, Thomas, on trumpet, and a lady trombone player. The Newborn family were the house band at the famous Plantation Inn in West Memphis."

King assembled his own band; the B.B. King Review, under the leadership of Millard Lee. The band initially consisted of Calvin Owens and Kenneth Sands (trumpet), Lawrence Burdin (alto saxophone), George Coleman (tenor saxophone), Floyd Newman (baritone saxophone), Millard Lee (piano), George Joyner (bass) and Earl Forest and Ted Curry (drums). Onzie Horne was a trained musician elicited as an arranger to assist King with his compositions. By his own admission, King could not play chords well and always relied on improvisation.

King's recording contract was followed by tours across the United States, with performances in major theaters in cities such as Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and St. Louis, as well as numerous gigs in small clubs and juke joints of the southern United States. During one show in Twist, Arkansas, a brawl broke out between two men and caused a fire. He evacuated along with the rest of the crowd but went back to retrieve his guitar. He said he later found out that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named the guitar Lucille, as a reminder not to fight over women or run into any more burning buildings.

Following his first "Billboard" Rhythm and Blues charted number one, "3 O'Clock Blues" (February 1952), B.B. King became one of the most important names in R&B music in the 1950s, amassing an impressive list of hits including "You Know I Love You", "Woke Up This Morning", "Please Love Me", "When My Heart Beats like a Hammer", "Whole Lotta Love", "You Upset Me Baby", "Every Day I Have the Blues", "Sneakin' Around", "Ten Long Years", "Bad Luck", "Sweet Little Angel", "On My Word of Honor", and "Please Accept My Love". This led to a significant increase in his weekly earnings, from about $85 to $2,500, with appearances at major venues such as the Howard Theater in Washington and the Apollo in New York, as well as touring the "Chitlin' circuit". 1956 became a record-breaking year, with 342 concerts booked and three recording sessions. That same year he founded his own record label, Blues Boys Kingdom, with headquarters at Beale Street in Memphis. There, among other projects, he was a producer for artists such as Millard Lee and Levi Seabury. In 1962, King signed to ABC-Paramount Records, which was later absorbed into MCA Records (which itself was later absorbed into Geffen Records). In November 1964, King recorded the "Live at the Regal" album at the Regal Theater. King later said that "Regal Live" "is considered by some the best recording I've ever had... that particular day in Chicago everything came together..."

From the late 1960s, new manager Sid Seidenberg pushed King into a different type of venue as blues-rock performers like Eric Clapton (once a member of The Yardbirds, as well as Cream), and Paul Butterfield were popularizing an appreciation of blues music among white audiences. King gained further visibility among rock audiences as an opening act on the Rolling Stones' 1969 American Tour. He won a 1970 Grammy Award for his version of the song "The Thrill Is Gone;" which was a hit on both the Pop and R&B charts. It also gained the number 183 spot in "Rolling Stone" magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

King was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2014. In 2004, he was awarded the international Polar Music Prize, given to artists "in recognition of exceptional achievements in the creation and advancement of music."

From the 1980s to his death in 2015, he maintained a highly visible and active career, appearing on numerous television shows and sometimes performing 300 nights a year. In 1988, King reached a new generation of fans with the single "When Love Comes to Town," a collaborative effort between King and the Irish band U2 on their "Rattle and Hum" album. In December 1997, he performed in the Vatican's fifth annual Christmas concert and presented his trademark guitar "Lucille" to Pope John Paul II. In 1998, he appeared in "The Blues Brothers 2000", playing the part of the lead singer of the Louisiana Gator Boys, along with Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Koko Taylor and Bo Diddley. In 2000, he and Clapton teamed up again to record "Riding With the King", which won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.

Discussing where he took the Blues, from "dirt floor, smoke in the air" joints to grand concert halls, King said the Blues belonged everywhere beautiful music belonged. He successfully worked both sides of the commercial divide, with sophisticated recordings and "raw, raucous" live performance.

In 2006, King went on a "farewell" world tour, although he remained active afterward. The tour was partly supported by Northern Irish guitarist, Gary Moore, with whom King had previously toured and recorded. It started in the United Kingdom, and continued with performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival and in Zürich at the Blues at Sunset. During his show in Montreux at the Stravinski Hall, he jammed with Joe Sample, Randy Crawford, David Sanborn, Gladys Knight, Leela James, Andre Beeka, Earl Thomas, Stanley Clarke, John McLaughlin, Barbara Hendricks and George Duke.
In June 2006, King was present at a memorial of his first radio broadcast at the Three Deuces Building in Greenwood, Mississippi, where an official marker of the Mississippi Blues Trail was erected. The same month, a groundbreaking was held for a new museum, dedicated to King, in Indianola, Mississippi. The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center opened on September 13, 2008.

In late October 2006, King recorded a concert album and video entitled "B.B. King: Live" at his B.B. King Blues Clubs in Nashville and Memphis. The video of the four-night production featured his regular B.B. King Blues Band and captured his show as he performed it nightly around the world. Released in 2008, they documented his first live performances in over a decade.

In 2007, King played at Eric Clapton's second Crossroads Guitar Festival and contributed the songs "Goin' Home", to "" (with Ivan Neville's DumpstaPhunk) and "One Shoe Blues" to Sandra Boynton's children's album "Blue Moo", accompanied by a pair of sock puppets in a music video for the song.

In the summer of 2008, King played at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, where he was given a key to the city. Also in 2008, he was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame.
King performed at the Mawazine festival in Rabat, Morocco, on May 27, 2010. In June 2010, King performed at the Crossroads Guitar Festival with Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughan, and Eric Clapton. He also contributed to Cyndi Lauper's album "Memphis Blues", which was released on June 22, 2010.

In 2011, King played at the Glastonbury Music Festival, and in the Royal Albert Hall in London, where he recorded a concert video.

"Rolling Stone" ranked King at No. 6 on its 2011 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

On February 21, 2012, King was among the performers of "In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues," during which President Barack Obama sang part of "Sweet Home Chicago". King recorded for the debut album of rapper and producer Big K.R.I.T., who also hails from Mississippi. On July 5, 2012, King performed a concert at the Byblos International Festival in Lebanon.

On May 26, 2013, King appeared at the New Orleans Jazz Festival.

On October 3, 2014, after completing his live performance at the House of Blues in Chicago, a doctor diagnosed King with dehydration and exhaustion, and the eight remaining shows of his ongoing tour had to be cancelled. King didn't schedule any additional shows for the remainder of the year.

B.B. King used equipment characteristic of the different periods he played in. He played guitars made by various manufacturers early in his career. He played a Fender Esquire on most of his recordings with RPM Records. However, he was best known for playing variants of the Gibson ES-355.
In the September edition 1995 of Vintage Guitar, early photos show him playing a Gibson ES-5 through a Fender tweed amp. In reference to the photo, B.B. King stated,
"Yes; the old Fender amplifiers were the best that were ever made, in my opinion. They had a good sound and they were durable; guys would throw them in the truck and they’d hold up. They had tubes, and they’d get real hot, but they just had a sound that is hard to put into words. The Fender Twin was great, but I have an old Lab Series amp that isn’t being made anymore. I fell in love with it, because its sound is right between the old Fender amps that we used to have and the Fender Twin. It’s what I’m using tonight."

He later moved on from the larger Gibson hollow bodied instruments which were prone to feedback when played a high volumes to various semi-hollow models beginning first with the ES-335 and then a deluxe version called the ES-355 which employed a stereo option. In 1980, Gibson Guitar Corporation launched the B.B. King Lucille model, a ES-355 with stereo options, a varitone selector and fine tuners (neither of which were actually utilized by B.B.) and, at King's direct request, no f-holes to further reduce feedback. In 2005, Gibson made a special run of 80 Gibson Lucilles, referred to as the "80th Birthday Lucille", the first prototype of which was given as a birthday gift to King, and which he used thereafter.

King used a Lab Series L5 2×12" combo amplifier and had been using this amplifier for a long time. It was made by Norlin Industries for Gibson in the 1970s and 1980s. Other popular L5 users are Allan Holdsworth and Ty Tabor of King's X. The L5 has an onboard compressor, parametric equalization, and four inputs. King also used a Fender Twin Reverb.

He used his signature model strings "Gibson SEG-BBS B.B. King Signature Electric Guitar Strings" with gauges: 10–13–17p–32w–45w–54w and D'Andrea 351 MD SHL CX (medium 0.71mm, tortoise shell, celluloid) picks.

In 1991, Beale Street developer John Elkington recruited B.B. King to Memphis to open the original B.B. King's Blues Club, and in 1994, a second club was launched at Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles. A third club in New York City's Times Square opened in June 2000 but closed on April 29, 2018. Management is currently in the process of finding a new location in New York City. Two more clubs opened, at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut in January 2002, and in Nashville in 2003. Another club opened in Orlando in 2007. A club in West Palm Beach opened in the fall of 2009 and an additional one, based in the Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas, opened in the winter of 2009.

King made guest appearances in numerous popular television shows, including "The Cosby Show", "The Young and the Restless", "General Hospital", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Sesame Street", "Married... with Children", "Sanford and Son", and "Touched by an Angel".

In 2000, the children's show, "Between The Lions", featured a singing character named "B.B. the King of Beasts", modeled on the real King.

"B.B. King: The Life of Riley", a feature documentary about King narrated by Morgan Freeman and directed by Jon Brewer, was released on October 15, 2012.

King, who was diabetic, appeared in several television commercials for OneTouch Ultra, a blood glucose monitoring device, in the 2000s and early 2010s. He appeared in 1995 in a McDonald's commercial with Australian guitarist Nathan Cavaleri, and then in a commercial for the Toyota Camry with his guitar Lucille.

King was married twice, to Martha Lee Denton, November 1946 to 1952, and to Sue Carol Hall, 1958 to 1966. The failure of both marriages has been attributed to the heavy demands made by King's 250 performances a year. It is reported that he fathered 15 children with several different women. After his death, three more have come forward, claiming King as their father as well. Though neither of his marriages produced children, and biographer Charles Sawyer wrote that doctors found his sperm count too low to conceive children, King never disputed paternity of any of the 15 who claimed it, and by all accounts was generous in bankrolling college tuitions and establishing trust funds. In May 2016, the 11 surviving children initiated legal proceedings against King's appointed trustee over his estimated $30 million to $40 million estate. Several of them also went public with the allegation that King's business manager, LaVerne Toney, and his personal assistant, Myron Johnson, had fatally poisoned him. Autopsy results showed no evidence of poisoning. A defamation suit filed by Johnson against the accusing family members (including his own sister, Karen Williams) is pending. Other children have filed lawsuits targeting King's music estate, which remains in dispute.

King was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1990. He lived with diabetes for over 20 years, and was a high-profile spokesman in the fight against the disease.

King was an FAA certified private pilot and learned to fly in 1963 at what was then Chicago Hammond Airport in Lansing, Illinois. He frequently flew to gigs but in 1995 his insurance company and manager asked him to fly only with another certified pilot. As a result, he stopped flying around the age of 70.

King's favorite singer was Frank Sinatra. In his autobiography he spoke about how he was a "Sinatra nut" and how he went to bed every night listening to Sinatra's classic album "In the Wee Small Hours". During the 1960s Sinatra had arranged for King to play at the main clubs in Las Vegas. He credited Sinatra for opening doors to black entertainers who were not given the chance to play in "white-dominated" venues.

In September 1970, King recorded Live in Cook County Jail, during a time in which issues of race and class in the prison system were prominent in politics. King also co-founded the Foundation for the Advancement of Inmate Rehabilitation and Recreation, tying in his support for prisoners and interest in prison reform. In addition to prison reform, King also wanted to utilize prison performances as a way to preserve music and songs in a similar way that Alan Lomax did.

In 2002, King signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and instruction to children in underprivileged public schools throughout the United States. He sat on the organization's Honorary Board of Directors.

In the 2000s to early 2010s, King was also involved in a diabetes awareness campaign with American Idol contestant, Crystal Bowersox, with One Touch Ultra, starring in commercials promoting diabetes health management.

The remaining eight shows of his 2014 tour were cancelled because of health problems caused by complications from high blood pressure and diabetes. King died in his sleep on May 14, 2015, at the age of 89, from vascular dementia caused by a series of small strokes as a consequence of his type 2 diabetes. Two of his daughters alleged that King was deliberately poisoned by two associates trying to induce diabetic shock, however an autopsy showed no evidence of poisoning.

On May 27, 2015, King's body was flown to Memphis. A funeral procession went down Beale Street, with a brass band marching in front of the hearse, playing "When the Saints Go Marching In." Thousands lined the streets to pay their last respects. His body was then driven down Route 61 to his hometown of Indianola, Mississippi. He was laid in repose at the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, in Indianola, for people to view his open casket. The funeral took place at the Bell Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Indianola, on May 30. He was buried at the B.B. King Museum.

Years reflect the year in which the Grammy was awarded, for music released in the previous year.
Other awards


When was the Whig party founded?

The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four presidents belonged to the party while in office. It emerged in the 1830s as the leading opponent of Jacksonian democracy, pulling together former members of the National Republican (one of the successors of the Democratic-Republican Party) and the Anti-Masonic Party. It had links to the upscale traditions of the long-defunct Federalist Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1840s to the mid-1860s. It originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson (in office 1829–1837) and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. It appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal. Party founders chose the "Whig" name to echo the American Whigs (aka the Patriots) of the 18th century who fought for independence. The political philosophy of the American Whig Party was not related to the British Whig party. Historian Frank Towers has specified a deep ideological divide:

Whig Party (United States)

Democrats stood for the'sovereignty of the people' as expressed in popular demonstrations, constitutional conventions, and majority rule as a general principle of governing, whereas Whigs advocated the rule of law, written and unchanging constitutions, and protections for minority interests against majority tyranny.

The Whig Party nominated several presidential candidates in 1836. General William Henry Harrison of Ohio was nominated in 1840, former Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in 1844, General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana in 1848, General Winfield Scott of New Jersey in 1852 and the last nominee, former President Millard Fillmore from New York in 1856. In its two decades of existence, the Whig Party had two of its candidates, Harrison and Taylor, elected president and both died in office. John Tyler succeeded to the presidency after Harrison's death in 1841, but was expelled from the party later that year. Millard Fillmore, who became President after Taylor's death in 1850, was the last Whig President.

The party fell apart because of internal tension over the expansion of slavery to the territories. With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction prevented the nomination for a full term of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election"—"instead, the party nominated General Scott. Most Whig Party leaders eventually quit politics (as Abraham Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The Northern voter base mostly gravitated to the new Republican Party. In the South, most joined the Know Nothing Party, which unsuccessfully ran Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, by which time the Whig Party had become virtually defunct having merely endorsed Fillmore's candidacy. Some former Whigs became Democrats. The Constitutional Union Party experienced significant success from conservative former Whigs in the Upper South during the 1860 presidential election. Whig ideology as a policy orientation persisted for decades, and played a major role in shaping the modernizing policies of the state governments during Reconstruction.

The name "Whig" repeated the term that Patriots used to refer to themselves during the American Revolution. It indicated hostility to the king. Despite the identical name it did not directly derive from the British Whig Party (see etymology).

The American Whigs were modernizers who saw President Andrew Jackson as "a dangerous man on horseback"—like a king—with a "reactionary opposition" to the forces of social, economic and moral modernization. The Democratic-Republicans who formed the Whig Party, led by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, drew on a Jeffersonian tradition of compromise, balance in government and territorial expansion combined with national unity and support for a Federal transportation network and domestic manufacturing. Casting their enemy as "King Andrew", they sought to identify themselves as modern-day opponents of governmental overreaching.

Despite the apparent unity of Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans from 1800 to 1824, the American people ultimately preferred partisan opposition to popular political agreement. As Jackson purged his opponents, vetoed internal improvements and killed the Second Bank of the United States, alarmed local elites fought back. In 1831, Henry Clay re-entered the Senate and started planning a new party. He defended national rather than sectional interests. Clay's plan for distributing the proceeds from the sale of lands among the states in the public domain was intended to serve the nation by providing the states with funds for building roads and canals, which would stimulate growth and knit the sections together. However, his Jacksonian opponents distrusted the federal government and opposed all federal aid for internal improvements and they again frustrated Clay's plan. Jacksonians promoted opposition to the National Bank and internal improvements and support of egalitarian democracy, state power and hard money.

The Tariff of Abominations of 1828 had outraged Southern feelings—the South's leaders held that the high duties on foreign imports gave an advantage to the North (where the factories were located). Clay's own high tariff schedule of 1832 further disturbed them as did his stubborn defense of high duties as necessary to his American System. However, Clay moved to pass the Compromise of 1833, which met Southern complaints by a gradual reduction of the rates on imports to a maximum of twenty percent. Controlling the Senate for a while, Whigs passed a censure motion denouncing Jackson's arrogant assumption of executive power in the face of the true will of the people as represented by Congress.

The Whig Party began to take shape in 1833. Clay had run as a National Republican against Jackson in 1832, but carried only 49 electoral votes against Jackson's 219, and the National Republicans became discredited as a major political force. The Whig Party emerged in the aftermath of the 1832 election, the Nullification Crisis, and debates regarding the Second Bank of the United States, which Jackson denounced as a monopoly—and from which he abruptly removed all government deposits. People who helped to form the new party included supporters of Clay, supporters of Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, former National Republicans, former Anti-Masons, former disaffected Jacksonians (led by John C. Calhoun), who viewed Jackson's actions as impinging on the prerogatives of Congress and the states—and small remnants of the Federalist Party, people whose last political activity was with them a decade before. The "Whig" name emphasized the party's opposition to Jackson's perceived executive tyranny, and the name helped the Whigs shed the elitist image of the National Republican Party.

Clay was the clear leader of the Whig Party nationwide and in Washington, but he was vulnerable to Jacksonian allegations that he associated with the upper class, at a time when white males without property had the right to vote and wanted someone more like themselves. The Whigs nominated a war hero in 1840, and emphasized that William Henry Harrison had given up the high life to live in a log cabin on the frontier—Harrison won.

In the 1836 elections, the party was not yet sufficiently organized or unified to run one nationwide candidate. Instead, William Henry Harrison was its candidate in the Northern and border states, Hugh Lawson White ran in the South, Daniel Webster ran in his home state of Massachusetts, and Willie P. Mangum ran in South Carolina. Whigs hoped that four candidates would amass enough Electoral College votes among them to deny a majority to Martin Van Buren. That would move the election to the House of Representatives, allowing the ascendant Whigs to select their most popular man as president.

Van Buren won 170 ballots in the Electoral College, with only 148 ballots needed to win, but the Whig strategy came very close to succeeding. In Pennsylvania, which had 30 ballots in the Electoral College, Harrison got 87,235 votes to Van Buren's 91,457. A change of just a few thousand votes in that state would have reduced Van Buren's ballot count to only 140, eight short of winning.

In late 1839, the Whigs held their first national convention and nominated William Henry Harrison as their presidential candidate. In March 1840, Harrison pledged to serve only one term as President if elected, a pledge that reflected popular support for a constitutional limit to presidential terms among many in the Whig Party. Harrison went on to victory in 1840, defeating Van Buren's re-election bid largely as a result of the Panic of 1837 and subsequent depression. Harrison served only 31 days and became the first President to die in office. He was succeeded by John Tyler, a Virginian and states' rights absolutist. Tyler vetoed the Whig economic legislation and was expelled from the Whig party in September 1841.

The Whigs' internal disunity and the nation's increasing prosperity made the party's activist economic program seem less necessary, leading to a disastrous showing in the 1842 Congressional election.

The central issue in the 1840s was expansion, with proponents of "manifest destiny" arguing for aggressive westward expansion, even at the risk of war with Mexico (over the annexation of Texas) and Britain (over control of Oregon). Daniel Walker Howe argues: "Nevertheless American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity." That is, most Democrats strongly supported manifest destiny and most Whigs strongly opposed it. John Mack Faragher's analysis of the political polarization between the parties is the following:

By 1844, the Whigs began their recovery by nominating Henry Clay, who lost the presidential race to Democrat James K. Polk in a closely contested race, with Polk's policy of Western expansion (particularly the annexation of Texas) and free trade triumphing over Clay's protectionism and caution over the Texas question. The Whigs, both Northern and Southern, strongly opposed expansion into Texas, which they (including Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln) saw as an unprincipled land grab.

In 1848, the Whigs, seeing no hope of success by nominating Clay, nominated General Zachary Taylor, a hero of the Mexican–American War. They stopped criticizing the war and adopted only a very vague platform. Taylor defeated Democratic candidate Lewis Cass and the anti-slavery Free Soil Party, who had nominated former President Martin Van Buren. Van Buren's candidacy split the Democratic vote in New York, throwing that state to the Whigs. However, at the same time the Free Soilers probably cost the Whigs several Midwestern states.

Taylor was firmly opposed to the proposed Compromise of 1850 (an initiative of Clay) and was committed to the admission of California as a free state. He proclaimed that he would take military action to prevent the secession of southern states. On July 9, 1850, Taylor died and Vice President Millard Fillmore, a long-time Whig, became President. Fillmore helped push the Compromise through Congress in the hopes of ending the controversies over slavery and its five separate bills became law in September 1850.

After 1850, the Whigs were unable to deal with the slavery issue. Their Southern leaders nearly all owned slaves. The northeastern Whigs, led by Daniel Webster, represented businessmen who loved national unity and a national market, but cared little about slavery one way or another. However, many Whig voters in the North thought that slavery was incompatible with a free labor, free market economy and supported the Wilmot Proviso, which did not pass Congress, but would have stopped the expansion of slavery. No one found a compromise that would keep the party united. Furthermore, the burgeoning economy made full-time careers in business or law much more attractive than politics for ambitious young Whigs; thus, the Whig Party leader in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, simply abandoned politics after 1849, instead attending to his law business.

When new issues of nativism, prohibition and anti-slavery burst on the scene in the mid-1850s, few looked to the quickly disintegrating Whig Party for answers. In the North, most ex Whigs joined the new Republican Party and in the South, they flocked to a new short-lived American Party.

The election of 1852 marked the beginning of the end for the Whigs. The deaths of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster that year severely weakened the party. The Compromise of 1850 had fractured the Whigs along pro- and anti-slavery lines, with the anti-slavery faction having enough power to deny Fillmore the party's nomination in 1852. The Whig Party's 1852 convention in New York City saw the historic meeting between Alvan E. Bovay and the "New-York Daily Tribune"'s Horace Greeley, a meeting that led to correspondence between the men as the early Republican Party meetings in 1854 began to take place.

Attempting to repeat their earlier successes, the Whigs nominated popular General Winfield Scott, who lost decisively to the Democrats' Franklin Pierce. The Democrats won the election by a large margin: Pierce won 27 of the 31 states, including Scott's home state of New Jersey. Whig Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio was particularly distraught by the defeat, exclaiming: "We are slain. The party is dead—dead—dead!." Increasingly, politicians realized that the party was dead.

In 1854, the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the new territories to slavery, was passed. Southern Whigs generally supported the Act while Northern Whigs remained strongly opposed. Most remaining Northern Whigs, like Lincoln, joined the new Republican Party and strongly attacked the Act, appealing to widespread Northern outrage over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Other Whigs joined the Know Nothing Party, attracted by its nativist crusades against so-called "corrupt" Irish and German immigrants. In the South, the Whig Party vanished—but as Thomas Alexander has shown, Whiggism as a modernizing policy orientation persisted for decades. Historians estimate that in the South in 1856 former Whig Fillmore retained 86 percent of the 1852 Whig voters when he ran as the American Party candidate. He won only 13% of the Northern vote, though that was just enough to tip Pennsylvania out of the Republican column. The future in the North, most observers thought at the time, was Republican. Scant prospects for the shrunken old party seemed extant and after 1856 virtually no Whig organization remained at the regional level. Twenty-six states sent 150 delegates to the last national convention in September 1856. The convention met for only two days and on the second day (and only ballot) quickly nominated Fillmore for President, who had already been nominated for President by the Know Nothing Party. Andrew Jackson Donelson was nominated for Vice President. Some Whigs and others adopted the mantle of the Opposition Party for several years and enjoyed some individual electoral successes.

The Whig ideology combined conservatism and modernization--with appropriate policies that were usually under heavy attack by the more democratic Democrats. Nevertheless the issues they raised became part of American political thought. They were typically rooted in evangelical Christianity, as expressed in the Second Great Awakening. Whigs linked moral progress and material progress--each needed the other. They supported Protestant religiosity and missions, while being fearful of Catholics. Whigs believed that a higher stage of morality would be achieved when as America brought wealth and opportunity to everyone. Colleges and public schools would promote upward social mobility was discouraging immorality and dissipation. Rapid business expansion was good not the moral danger Democrats warned about.. Gregory Bowen notes that the two parties were polar opposite and highly ideological: "At the heart of Democratic ideology was a militant egalitarianism which contrasted sharply with the Whigs' support for equality of opportunity to produce a meritocratic society." Historian John Ashworth shows how polarized the two parties were on important questions of economic development: "It was a clash of democracy with capitalism." Democrats glorified individualism while Whigs said it was a dangerous impulse that must be subordinated to the greater good of an organic society; they called for individuals to restrain themselves and focus on doing their duty.
In 1860, many former Whigs who had not joined the Republicans regrouped as the Constitutional Union Party, which nominated only a presidential ticket. It had considerable strength in the border states, which feared the onset of civil war. Its presidential candidate, John Bell, finished third in the electoral college.

During the Lincoln Administration (1861–1865), ex Whigs dominated the Republican Party and enacted much of their American System. Later, their Southern colleagues dominated the white response to Reconstruction. In the long run, the United States adopted Whiggish economic policies coupled with a Democratic strong presidency.

During the latter part of the American Civil War and during the Reconstruction Era, many former Whigs tried to regroup in the South, calling themselves "conservatives" and hoping to reconnect with ex-Whigs in the North. Thus in Virginia and elsewhere moderate, nationalist, and economically innovative ex Whigs used the party name “Conservative” in order to avoid identification with the Democratic party. In a few years the Conservative Party merged into the Democratic Party in the South. However the ex-Whigs continued to promote modernization policies such as large-scale railroad construction and the founding of public schools.
In today's American political discourse, historians and pundits often cite the Whig Party as an example of a political party that lost its followers and reason for being, as in the expression "going the way of the Whigs." a term referred to by Donald Critchlow in his book, "The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History". Critchlow points out that the application of the term by Republicans in the Republican Party of 1974 may have been a misnomer—the old Whig party enjoyed more political support before its demise than the Republican Party in the aftermath of Nixon's resignation.

Historian Daniel Walker Howe argues the Whigs were modernizers, "who attached a great deal of importance to protecting property, maintaining social order, and preserving a distinct cultural heritage, three characteristic conservative concerns." He emphasizes their "moral absolutism, paternalism, and preoccupation for discipline." At the time and ever since, the Whigs have been called conservatives.

The Whigs suffered greatly from factionalism throughout their existence as well as weak party loyalty that stood in contrast to the strong party discipline that was the hallmark of a tight Democratic Party organization. One strength of the Whigs was a superb network of newspapers—their leading editor was Horace Greeley of the powerful "New-York Daily Tribune".

In the 1840s, Whigs won 49 percent of gubernatorial elections, with strong bases in the manufacturing Northeast and in the border states. The trend over time was for the Democratic vote to grow faster and for the Whigs to lose more and more marginal states and districts. After the close 1844 contest, the Democratic advantage widened and the Whigs could win the White House only if the Democrats split. This was partly because of the increased political importance of the Western states, where farmers and frontiersmen generally voted for Democrats—and Irish Catholic and German immigrants, who voted heavily for the Democrats.

The Whigs appealed to voters in every socio-economic category, but proved especially attractive to the professional and business classes: doctors, lawyers, merchants, ministers, bankers, storekeepers, factory owners, commercially oriented farmers, and large-scale planters. In general, commercial and manufacturing towns and cities voted Whig, save for strongly Democratic precincts in Irish Catholic and German immigrant communities. The Democrats often sharpened their appeal to the poor by ridiculing the Whigs' aristocratic pretensions. Protestant religious revivals also injected a moralistic element into the Whig ranks.

The Whigs celebrated Clay's vision of the American System that promoted rapid economic and industrial growth in the United States. Whigs demanded government support for a more modern, market-oriented economy, in which skill, expertise, and bank credit would count for more than physical strength or land ownership. Whigs sought to promote faster industrialization through high tariffs, a business-oriented money supply based on a national bank and a vigorous program of government funded "internal improvements" (what we now call infrastructure projects), especially expansion of the road and canal systems. To modernize the inner United States, the Whigs helped create public schools, private colleges, charities and cultural institutions. Many were pietistic Protestant reformers who called for public schools to teach moral values and proposed prohibition to end the liquor problem.

The Democrats harkened to the Jeffersonian ideal of an egalitarian agricultural society, believing that traditional farm life bred republican simplicity while modernization and urbanization threatened to create a politically powerful caste of rich aristocratic men who threatened to subvert republicanism. In general the Democrats enacted their policies at the national level while the Whigs succeeded in passing modernization projects in most states.

Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens, Horace Mann (1796–1859) won widespread approval from modernizers, especially among fellow Whigs, for building public schools. Indeed, most states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for normal schools to train professional teachers.

The Whig Party was never a homogeneous party. It was essentially divided into two main factions: the anti-slavery Conscience Whigs, based in Northern states, and the pro-South Cotton Whigs, also based in the industrial North, who wanted to maintain good business terms with the southern planters. While the "Consciences" were noted for their moral opposition to slavery, their Cottons counterpart's close association with the New England textile industry led them to de-emphasize the slavery issue. Notable Consciences included Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson and Charles Francis Adams while the Cottons were led by such figures as Edward Everett, Robert C. Winthrop and Abbott Lawrence.

The Consciences split from the Whig party in 1848, when the national party nominated the slave-owning General Zachary Taylor for President and played a role in the creation of the new Free Soil Party, which nominated Adams for Vice President on a ticket with anti-slavery former Democratic President Martin Van Buren.

Following the failure of the Free Soil Party in the election that year, most Conscience Whigs returned to the Whig fold, and more followed after the Compromise of 1850 temporarily neutralized the slavery issue. During the mid-1850s, several Conscience leaders played an important role in the founding of the Republican Party.

In Liberia, the True Whig Party—named in direct emulation of the American Whig party, was founded in 1869 and it dominated politics in that country from 1878 until 1980.

Occasionally, small groups in the United States form parties that take the Whig name, but they seldom last long or elect anyone. In 2006, the Florida Whig Party formed, and fielded one candidate for Congress in the elections of 2010. It disbanded in 2012. In 2008, a small group of veterans formed the Modern Whig Party.

The "Quincy Herald-Whig", a daily newspaper published as of 2018 in Quincy, Illinois, is a direct descendant of a 19th century Whig Party newspaper, the "Quincy Whig".

See also Stephen Simpson, editor of the "Philadelphia Whig", a 19th century newspaper devoted to the Whig cause.

Of the four members of the Whig Party who were president, only two were ever elected to the position. William Harrison was elected in 1840, died in 1841, and was succeeded by his vice president, John Tyler. Zachary Taylor was elected in 1848, died in 1850, and was succeeded by his vice president, Millard Fillmore. No other member of the party would be elected to the office following the end of Fillmore's term.
Additionally, John Quincy Adams, elected President as a Democratic-Republican, later became a National Republican, then an Anti-Masonic, and then a Whig after he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1831.

Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur and Benjamin Harrison were Whigs before switching to the Republican Party, from which they were elected to office.


Did the Equal Pay Act pass?

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States labor law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap). It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program. In passing the bill, Congress stated that sex discrimination:The law provides (in part) that:

Equal Pay Act of 1963

In 1942, Republican congresswoman Winifred C. Stanley from Buffalo, N.Y. introduced H.R. 5056, Prohibiting Discrimination in Pay on Account of Sex, which did not pass at the time. The issue languished until 10 June 1963, when Congress passed the Equal Pay Act ("EPA" or the "Act") as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, to "prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers."

Congress included within the text of the EPA a clear and concise policy statement and briefly described the problems it was intended to remedy. The clear statement of Congressional intent and policy guiding the EPA’s enactment indicate the Congressional desire to fashion a broad remedial framework to protect employees from wage discrimination on the basis of sex. The Supreme Court has expressly recognized the view that the EPA must be broadly construed to achieve Congress’ goal of remedying sexual discrimination. Congress passed the EPA out of "concern for the weaker bargaining position of women" to provide a remedy to discriminatory wage structures that reflect "an ancient but outmoded belief that a man, because of his role in society, should be paid more than a woman." The EPA protects both men and women. It also protects administrative, professional and executive employees who are exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The EPA, Section 206(d)(1), prohibits "employer[s]... [from] discriminat[ing] … on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees [...] at a rate less than the rate [paid] to employees of the opposite sex [...] for equal work on jobs [requiring] equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions[.]" To establish a prima facie case under the EPA, an employee must show that:

The EPA provides that the employer may not pay lower wages to employees of one gender than it pays to employees of the other gender, employees within the same establishment for equal work at jobs that require equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and that are performed under similar working conditions.

It is important to note that the EPA does not contain any intent requirement within the statutory language. Liability under the EPA is established by meeting the three elements of the prima facie case, regardless of the intention of the employer. As such, the EPA imposes strict liability on employers who engage in wage discrimination on the basis of gender.

Once a plaintiff meets her or his heavy burden and establishes a prima facie case of gender discrimination under the EPA, then the defendant may avoid liability only by proving the existence of one of four statutory affirmative defenses. The EPA’s four affirmative defenses allow unequal pay for equal work when the wages are set "pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv)... any other factor other than sex[.]"

Upon its initial enactment, the EPA was "the first step towards an adjustment of balance in pay for women.” As a part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the EPA was subject to the scope and exceptions of covered employees and employers contained within that act. On the floor of the House of Representatives, many Representatives voiced their concern that the EPA should act as the starting point for establishing pay parity for women. Subsequent to the enactment of the EPA, Congress undertook two actions which broadened the scope of federal protection against wage discrimination on the basis of sex.

First, the same 88th Congress enacted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By including sex as an element protected from discrimination, Title VII expanded the protection of women from employment discrimination, to include almost all employees working for employers with fifteen or more employees. Foreseeing the potential conflict between the administration of two statutes with overlapping restrictions, Congress included the Bennett Amendment in Title VII, which incorporates the EPA’s four affirmative defenses into Title VII.

Second, Congress expanded the EPA’s coverage to professionals and other white-collar employees. For the first nine years of the EPA, the requirement of equal pay for equal work did not extend to persons employed in an executive, administrative or professional capacity, or as an outside salesperson. Therefore, the EPA exempted white-collar women from the protection of equal pay for equal work. In 1972, Congress enacted the Education Amendments of 1972, which amended the FLSA to expand the coverage of the EPA to these employees, by excluding the EPA from the professional workers exemption of the FLSA.

The Congress did not ignore the EPA’s economic consequences on the salaries and employment opportunities for both men and women. First, as an amendment of the FLSA, the EPA is part of the same legislative structure that houses the federal minimum wage laws. The EPA acts as a wage equalizer between men and women for equal jobs, and has the potential of acting as a price floor on the salaries of men or women for particular jobs. Economists, such as Thomas Sowell have asserted the EPA causes unemployment, and additional discrimination against women by excluding them from the labor market. Second, several Representatives voiced their concerns that the negative impact of setting price floors on the wages paid to women would reduce the availability of jobs for women. With the possible side effects of the Act noted on the Congressional record, the Act passed with little opposition, and no indication that any of the four affirmative defenses were intended to remedy or limit its negative consequences.

American women’s salaries have risen relative to men's since the EPA’s enactment, from 62.3% of men’s earnings in 1979 to 80.4% in 2004. The EPA’s equal pay for equal work goals have not been completely achieved, as demonstrated by the BLS data and Congressional findings within the text of the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act.

The EPA did not originally cover executives, administrators, outside salespeople, and professionals, but the Education Amendments of 1972 amended the EPA so that it does.

As a senator, Hillary Clinton first introduced the "Paycheck Fairness Act" on April 20, 2005, which, among other provisions, proposes to amend the EPA’s fourth affirmative defense to permit only bona fide factors other than sex that are job-related or serve a legitimate business interest. Representative Rosa DeLauro first introduced an identical bill in the House of Representatives on the same day. On January 29, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which overturned the holding of a Supreme Court case, "Ledbetter v. Goodyear", regarding the applicable statute of limitations. This bill, providing that each gender-unequal paycheck is a new violation of the law, was the first signing of the Obama Presidency and came almost forty-five years after the Equal Pay Act.

However, a 2007 study commissioned by the Department of Labor cautioned against overzealous application of the EPA without closer examination of possible reasons for pay discrepancies. This study notes, for example, that men as a group earn higher wages in part because men dominate blue collar jobs, which are more likely to require cash payments for overtime work; in contrast, women comprise over half of the salaried white collar management workforce that is often exempted from overtime laws. In summary, the study stated:
"Although additional research in this area is clearly needed, this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers." But due to the fact that woman have to go on maternity leave and are mostly in charge of childcare,the wage gap still exist.

Equal Pay Act of 1963