Strapping Young Lad

Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. By 1997, he had recruited permanent members; this line-up, which consisted of Townsend on vocals and guitar, Jed Simon on guitar, Byron Stroud on bass, and Gene Hoglan on drums, lasted until the band's dissolution.

Strapping Young Lad's music was characterized by the use of polyrhythmic guitar riffing and drumming, blast beats and wall of sound production. The band's musical direction was mainly determined by Townsend, whose battle with mental health and dark sense of humor were major influences on his songwriting. Townsend was also noted for his eccentric appearance and on-stage behavior, which greatly contributed to the band's intense live performances.

The band gained critical success and a growing underground fan base from their 1997 album City. After a hiatus between 1999 and 2002, the band released three more albums, reaching their commercial peak with the 2006 effort, The New Black. Townsend disbanded Strapping Young Lad in May 2007, announcing his decision to retreat from public view while continuing to record solo albums.

## History

### Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing and City (1994–1998)

Strapping Young Lad began in 1994 as a solo project of Canadian musician Devin Townsend. Following his work as vocalist on Steve Vai's 1993 album Sex & Religion and its 1994 tour, Townsend believed he had been a "musical whore", spending "the first five years of [his] career working at the behest of other people". During a brief stint as touring guitarist for The Wildhearts, Townsend received a phone call from an A&R representative for Roadrunner Records, expressing an interest in his demos and an intention to sign him. The offer was ultimately rescinded by the head of Roadrunner, who regarded Townsend's recordings as "just noise". He faced further rejection by Relativity Records, the label behind Vai's Sex & Religion, who saw no commercial appeal in his music. Century Media Records subsequently contacted the musician, offering him a contract to "make us some extreme albums". Townsend agreed to a five-album deal with the record label.

Following his tour with The Wildhearts, Townsend began recording and producing his debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, under the moniker Strapping Young Lad. According to Townsend, the recording process took "about a week". Embracing The Wildhearts' anarchist approach, "while focusing on dissonance and just being as over-the-top as [he] could", Townsend sang on the record and performed the majority of its instrumental tracks (with the assistance of a drum machine). A few songs, however, featured local session musicians, including guitarist Jed Simon, Townsend's future bandmate.

Released on April 4, 1995, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing was not widely recognized in the metal community. The album sold 143 copies in its first six months, but received favorable reviews from the heavy metal press. Its unusual musical ideas—a synthesis of death, thrash, and industrial metal influences—prompted Andy Stout from Metal Hammer to call it "one of the most disturbing albums you'll hear for a very long time". Nevertheless, Townsend has repeatedly expressed his distaste for the recording. He dismissed the album in the liner notes of the record's 2006 reissue, contending it contained only two great songs. He also deemed its production poor in interviews, referring to the album as "basically a collection of demos that were remixed". When Century Media advertised the reissue of Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing as the "rebirth of a genre-defying classic", Townsend called it "record company bullshit".

Townsend recruited a permanent line-up for the second album: Jed Simon on guitar, Byron Stroud on bass, and Gene Hoglan on drums. City was released on February 11, 1997, and received highly favorable critical reception. Kerrang! praised the album for its heaviness, claiming it sounded like "sticking your head into the jet nozzle of a Stealth Bomber", while Metal Hammer ranked it No. 13 on its "Top 20 Albums of 1997" list. The album soon gained a cult following and a loyal fan base for the band. City is considered to be the band's best effort by a large number of fans and critics alike. In 2002, the album was No. 45 on Revolver magazine's "69 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time" list, and also appeared on their "Must Have Metal Albums" list in 2005. It also appeared on the "100 Most Important Albums of the Nineties" list conducted by Terrorizer. Townsend himself stated City "is the real Strapping record. That's the ultimate one out of all of them".

The band embarked on a world tour in 1997 to promote the album, which included dates in Europe, the US and Australia. On May 30, 1998, they performed at the Dynamo Open Air festival in Eindhoven, Netherlands, then continued touring the next month in Europe. In June 1998, the group released No Sleep 'till Bedtime, a live album containing songs performed at a 1997 performance at the HiFi Bar and Ballroom in Melbourne, Australia. Century Media was not initially interested in releasing a live record, but impressed with Townsend's production, the label agreed to release it. The band closed the year playing a few more dates in Japan and Australia.

### On hiatus (1999–2002)

At the end of 1998, Townsend placed Strapping Young Lad on hiatus to concentrate on his solo career and on his work as a record producer. He had already released two solo albums, Ocean Machine: Biomech in 1997 and Infinity in 1998 and produced several other artists' albums. Townsend explained numerous conflicts with Century Media, and his struggle with bipolar disorder (for which he checked himself into a psychiatric hospital in early 1998), contributed to the curtailment of Strapping Young Lad's activities:

> What happened? I signed a shitty deal, but luckily it was non-exclusive. I got tired of doing Strapping so I said, 'I can't do it anymore.' Then I freaked out and went into a hospital. My lawyer said that I was under mental duress when I signed the contract so the contract is void. At that point it was like, 'I just won't do another Strapping record.' Yeah, I went down saying 'CM was the shittiest label ever.' And they went down as saying that I was 'a complete, arrogant psychopath.'

Townsend remained productive between 1999 and 2002, recording two more solo albums, Physicist in 2000 and Terria in 2001, and producing albums for Zimmers Hole, Stuck Mojo and Soilwork, among others. Although Strapping Young Lad was officially on hiatus, they gave occasional live performances, including an appearance on the Foot In Mouth Tour in 2001 with Fear Factory. During this period, Townsend's bandmates were active musically; both Stroud and Hoglan recorded with other bands, and all three were involved in Townsend's solo efforts as studio musicians and as part of his live band as well. Hoglan and Simon also formed a side project called Tenet with Grip Inc. bassist Stuart Carruthers and Interzone frontman Rob Urbinati in early 2002.

In December 2001 Townsend announced, contrary to his earlier public statements, a new Strapping Young Lad album would be released in 2002. He emphasized he was not "forcing" his product upon fans to generate record sales, arguing his band—and its contract with Century—was never a lucrative endeavor. Instead, Townsend's motivation was the "creative anger" sparked by the September 11, 2001 attacks and further cultivated during their 2001 tour. For the first time, the album would be a product of collaborative writing; the band wrote "about half" of the material on the 2001 Foot In Mouth Tour, and the rest at home, starting January 2002. After playing a small number of festivals in 2002, Strapping Young Lad entered the studio in September of that year, to record their third album.

### Strapping Young Lad and Alien (2003–2005)

The self-titled Strapping Young Lad was released on February 11, 2003, and became the band's first charting album, entering Billboard'''s Top Heatseekers at No. 97. The album received moderate critical success, Nate Smith from Rockzone.com called it a "solid addition to the Townsend catalog", but "not an instant classic", Xander Hoose from Chronicles of Chaos called it "a good album", but also pointed out it is inferior to City. Strapping Young Lad differed from City because it was less industrial and more reminiscent of death metal; the humor pervading the previous two albums became more subdued. The song Devour would later appear on the soundtrack for the 2005 film Alone in the Dark.

The band toured heavily throughout 2003 and 2004, making stops in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia. Although Townsend stated Strapping Young Lad might be the last album, the band re-signed with Century Media Worldwide in March 2004 and announced plans for a new album. On November 2, 2004, Strapping Young Lad released a DVD entitled For Those Aboot to Rock: Live at the Commodore, which documented the band's January 16, 2004, performance at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver. Bonus features included two music videos, "Relentless" and "Detox", and interviews with band members.

Alien was released on March 22, 2005, selling 3,697 copies in its first week. It reached No. 32 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and No. 35 on the Top Independent Albums chart. Critics praised Townsend's inventiveness and the dynamism of the songs in which "melody and discord meet midway"; Adrien Begrand of PopMatters wrote that "Strapping Young Lad have raised the bar yet again", while Blabbermouth.net's Krista G. called it one of the best albums of the year. Townsend and Hoglan were the primary writers of the album, since Simon and Stroud were busy with other commitments. Townsend explained the experimental noise track "Info Dump" is a reflection on the panicked state of mind that ensued after he stopped taking his medication. The making of Alien was documented and made viewable online on Century Media's official site in February 2005. It was also available as a bonus DVD of the limited first edition of the album.

"Love?" was chosen as the sole single from the album. Its accompanying music video, inspired by the cult horror film, The Evil Dead, was directed by Joe Lynch. The video garnered the band wider attention, and helped "Love?" become one of their most recognizable songs. Jed Simon admitted to having produced a video for this particular song because it had "the most commercial potential". "Love?" was originally one of two confirmed songs for an EP that was supposed to contain four new songs and four covers. Although planned for release in 2003, the EP was eventually canceled. A music video was also filmed for Zen; the video itself would also appear in the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up.

The band embarked on a headlining tour in the United States in April and May 2005, then went on to tour in Europe. Starting at the end of June, they toured North America as part of the Sounds of the Underground tour, then joined Fear Factory on the Transgression Tour in the U.S. Throughout the tour, Fear Factory bassist Stroud performed with both bands at every concert. Strapping Young Lad concluded the year with a tour in the UK. While on tour, the band started writing the next album, then continued the work in January 2006, and finished the album by May. In the same month, Townsend announced his intention to "take a hiatus from making records for a while" after the end of touring due to exhaustion from continuous recording and producing for the past ten years.

### The New Black (2006)

The New Black, Strapping Young Lad's fifth and final studio album, was released on July 11, 2006. Century Media imposed a strict deadline on the release date of the album; it was to be ready before the 2006 Ozzfest. Despite this, Townsend stated the recording was not rushed, and The New Black became a critical, as well as a commercial, success. It was more melodic than any of the band's previous albums and brought back the debut album's tongue-in-cheek humor. Having sold more than 4,000 copies during its first week, The New Black reached No. 200 on the Billboard 200 chart, No. 15 on the Top Independent Albums, and No. 8 on the Top Heatseekers charts. Stylus Magazine's Cosmo Lee described it as "heavy, catchy, and with no filler", and About.com's Chad Bowar was also positive, stating that "this is a CD that's dense and heavy, but also has some memorable hooks".

A music video was shot in late May to accompany the sole single from the album, "Wrong Side". In June 2006 Strapping Young Lad embarked on a short festival tour of Europe, including performances at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany and the Download Festival in England, which was followed by a second stage appearance at Ozzfest in July and August, where they played to some of their largest audiences in their career.

### Dissolution (2006)

Townsend recalls that after Alien, he already knew that he wouldn't want to continue SYL as a project, and that he already wished to abandon SYL after the release of City, considering the project's purpose fulfilled. In an interview conducted by Terrorizer in August 2006, Townsend explained why he decided to put the band on hold:

> At the end of the day, man, I'm just tired, and old, and bald, and fat, and grouchy, and bored. You know? So I was just like, I'm going to make this record, and do this stupid Ozzfest thing, and tell a bunch of stupid jokes in front of a lot of people at Download, then I'm just going to fuck off for a while. The bigger this gets, the less I care, to the point where I just need to go spend some time with my family. I don't wanna bastardise Strapping and all these other projects by doing it for the money. Strapping was about the big middle finger, and it still is, but I don't think it needs to go any further than this.

Although Hoglan initially denied the definitive break-up of the band, saying they would go on tour in March 2007, he later stated Strapping Young Lad is on "extended hiatus", and might never reunite again. In May 2007, during a press conference held to promote his new solo album, Ziltoid the Omniscient, Townsend announced his plans to retreat from public view, including giving interviews and touring, to concentrate on his family, and producing solo albums, as well as other people's music. As a result, Strapping Young Lad were effectively disbanded. Townsend discussed his future projects in a May 2007 Metal Hammer interview, where he stated "there may be some stuff I do in the future that is as brutal and heavy as Strapping, it's just not going to be Strapping". At the time, Townsend's decision to dissolve the band caused a rift between himself and the remainder of the band, who considered SYL to be at the peak of their popularity and potential at the time; according to Simon, the rest of the band remained estranged from Townsend as a result for a time.

### Re-releases and occasional performances

The remastered 10th anniversary edition of City was released on June 7, 2007, in similar vein to the 2006 remaster of Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, with bonus tracks and extended liner notes by Townsend. A career spanning best of album, entitled 1994–2006 Chaos Years, was released on March 31, 2008, with a bonus DVD of live performances and all of the band's music videos.

During his career-retrospective concert The Retinal Circus in October 2012, Townsend introduced Jed Simon on stage and performed two SYL songs, "Love?" and "Detox". Townsend has since stated that this was a one-off performance and that he is not interested in getting SYL back together or playing songs at future shows. He posted to Twitter that he no longer feels the same connection to SYL's music and that this performance was closure for him and Strapping. In an interview on the Metal Hammer podcast, Townsend said that while he still connects to the music, SYL required him to go to extremes that took a toll on him. On his own website, he reiterates that SYL was a project that he eventually perceived to be harmful to his mental and physical health. In 2013, he played Love? at concerts in Mexico and Chile as a "cover song", but later expressed regretting the decision saying it "confuses people".

Townsend would occasionally perform an acoustic version of Love? during his "An Evening with Devin Townsend" shows through the UK in 2015 and 2019. In 2016, on tour with the Devin Townsend project, he would sometimes play a humorous acoustic version of Detox. In 2019 he announced that during his touring cycle for Empath, he would also perform SYL songs, saying that "It's a big part of what I do and it's a big part of who I am, and I think I've denied that for a certain amount of time."

Townsend played several SYL songs during the 70,000 Tons of Metal festival, including "Aftermath", "Love?", "Detox", "All Hail the New Flesh" and a live debut of "Almost Again" from the 2006 album, The New Black.

## Musical style, influences and lyrical themes

Strapping Young Lad is known for their industrial thrash metal sound while also blending it with elements of black metal, death metal, groove metal, and noise. Many of the band's songs showcased Townsend's versatile vocal style, often changing from screaming and growling to clean vocals or even falsetto within the course of a single song. According to Townsend, the band functioned as his "outlet to freak out", and his two main projects, the more melodic The Devin Townsend Band and the aggressive Strapping Young Lad were "supposed to be the positive and the negative". To achieve a chaotic and cacophonic sound the band utilized complex time signatures, polyrhythmic composition, blast beats, sampling, keyboard effects and intricately layered production. Townsend used the newest technology available, such as Pro Tools, Steinberg Cubase and Logic Pro, when recording, mixing and producing the band's songs. As a self-proclaimed "fan of multitracking", he created an atmospheric, layered "wall of sound", which became a hallmark of the band's production style (with the exception of their self-titled album which featured no samples, or vocal layering). Townsend's musical ideas and production style have drawn comparisons to Phil Spector and Frank Zappa. Strapping Young Lad mostly eschewed guitar solos until The New Black, which featured a more heightened emphasis on melody than their previous albums.

### Influences

Strapping Young Lad drew influence from a wide range of music genres, most prominently, but not exclusively, heavy metal. Townsend cited, amongst others, Judas Priest, Jane's Addiction, Zoviet France, Grotus, and Frank Zappa as his influences, and also expressed his admiration for Meshuggah on several occasions, calling them "the best metal band on the planet". Simon and Stroud listed classic hard rock bands, like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Kiss, and old school thrash and death metal bands, like Exodus, Slayer and Morbid Angel among their influences, while Hoglan's influences range wildly in style from Stevie Wonder to progressive rock drummers like Neil Peart, Terry Bozzio and Nick Mason. Townsend stated his main influences for Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing were Napalm Death and Fear Factory, City was influenced by bands such as Foetus and White Noise, and The New Black's influences were Meshuggah, and "more traditional metal" like Metallica.

### Lyrical themes

Townsend was the band's primary songwriter. While the first two albums were solely his work, subsequent albums featured a minority of "riffs, lyrical ideas, and song titles" by his bandmates.

Despite the brutality of Strapping Young Lad's music, their songs contain hints of tongue-in-cheek humor and self-parody. Frequently, Townsend's lyrics approached serious personal or political issues with a morbid sense of humor. He has likened the band's sense of silliness to that of "Weird Al" Yankovic. Townsend's lyrical influences covered a wide range of themes, including warfare, mathematical theorems, and movies. He also used the technique of cross-referencing, repeating lines from his own works, such as older Strapping Young Lad, or solo material.

## Live performances

Strapping Young Lad was known for its energetic live performances, mostly owing to the eccentric appearance and persona of Devin Townsend. Adrian Begrand of PopMatters wrote "Nobody in metal today has the same kind of commanding stage presence as the self-professed Bald Bastard, Devin Townsend", and called Strapping Young Lad "one of the best live bands around". Townsend was famous for his on-stage antics; he integrated his ironic and tongue-in-cheek humor into live shows and interacted heavily with the audience. He would deliver comical, and often insulting remarks to them, organize circle pits, and parody heavy metal clichés as well as the genre itself.

The band's humorous approach was also evidenced by a song frequently performed live from 1997, entitled "Far Beyond Metal", a parody of classic heavy metal. It became a live staple and a fan favorite, with lyrics changing practically every performance. Although it was recorded live on No Sleep 'till Bedtime, and on the For Those Aboot to Rock DVD, a studio version was not recorded until 2006 during The New Black sessions. The band was also sarcastic about their own Canadian heritage, they used "Blame Canada", a comedic anti-Canada song from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut as intro music at many concerts in 2003 and 2004.

For a period of time, Strapping Young Lad also played Townsend's solo material live. In 1998, after the release of Infinity, they began performing both Strapping Young Lad and Townsend's solo songs, as two separate sets. It was not until the 2003 release of Accelerated Evolution that Townsend formed a separate band, called The Devin Townsend Band, to act as his full-fledged solo band.

## Discography

Studio albums

- Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing (1995)
- City (1997)
- Strapping Young Lad (2003)
- Alien (2005)
- The New Black (2006)

## Band members

### Final line-up

- Devin Townsend – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards (1994–2007)
- Jed Simon – guitars, backing vocals (1995–2007)
- Byron Stroud – bass, backing vocals (1996–2007)
- Gene Hoglan – drums (1996–2007)

### Former members

- Adrian White – drums (1994–1995)
- Ashley Scribner – bass (1994–1995)
- Mike Sudar – guitars (1994–1995)

### Session members

- Chris Bayes – drums (1994)
- Smokin' Lord Toot – drums (1994)
- Chris Meyers – keyboards (1992-1994)Previously of Econoline Crush (1990-1992)

Note: The pre-City'' touring line-up consisted of Townsend, Simon, White, Scribner, Sudar and Meyers.

- Dave Young – keyboards (2005) (played on Alien)
- Will Campagna – keyboards, samples,backing vocals (2002,2006) (played on Strapping Young Lad and The New Black)

### Touring members

- John Morgan – keyboards (1997)
- Dave Genn – keyboards (1997)
- Matteo Caratozzolo – keyboards (1997–1998)
- Jamie Meyer – keyboards (1998–1999)
- Jason Filipchuk – keyboards (1999)
- Chris Valagao – keyboards (2002)
- Will Campagna – keyboards (2002, 2004–2007)
- Munesh Sami – keyboards (2003)
- Jon Miller – bass (substituting Byron Stroud, July 14–31, 2005)
- James MacDonough – bass (substituting Byron Stroud, August 1–13, 2006)

### Timeline

Canadian metal band

Canadian progressive metal musical groups


Thescelosaurus

Thescelosaurus (/ˌθɛsɪləˈsɔːrəs/ THESS-il-ə-SOR-əs; ancient Greek θέσκελος- (theskelos-) meaning "godlike", "marvellous", or "wondrous" and σαυρος (sauros) "lizard") was a genus of small neornithischian dinosaur that appeared at the very end of the Late Cretaceous period in North America. It was a member of the last dinosaurian fauna before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event around 66 million years ago. The preservation and completeness of many of its specimens indicate that it may have preferred to live near streams.

This bipedal neornithischian is known from several partial skeletons and skulls that indicate it grew to between 2.5 and 4.0 meters (8.2 to 13.1 ft) in length on average. It had sturdy hind limbs, small wide hands, and a head with an elongate pointed snout. The form of the teeth and jaws suggest a primarily herbivorous animal. This genus of dinosaur is regarded as a specialized neornithischian, traditionally described as a hypsilophodont, but more recently recognized as distinct from Hypsilophodon. Several species have been suggested for this genus. Three currently are recognized as valid: the type species T. neglectus, T. garbanii and T. assiniboiensis.

The genus attracted media attention in 2000, when a specimen unearthed in 1993 in South Dakota, United States, was interpreted as including a fossilized heart. There was much discussion over whether the remains were of a heart. Many scientists now doubt the identification of the object and the implications of such an identification.

## Discovery, history, and species

The type specimen of Thescelosaurus (USNM 7757) was discovered in 1891 by paleontologists John Bell Hatcher and William H. Utterback, from beds of the late Maastrichtian-age Upper Cretaceous Lance Formation of Niobrara County (at the time part of Converse County), Wyoming, USA. The skeleton, however, remained in its shipping crates for years until Charles W. Gilmore of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History had it prepared and described it in a short paper in 1913, naming it T. neglectus (neglectus: "neglected"). At the time, he thought it was related to Camptosaurus. He provided a detailed monograph in 1915, describing the well-preserved skeleton. The type specimen was found largely in natural articulation and was missing only the head and neck, which were lost due to erosion. The name comes from the surprise Gilmore felt at finding such a good specimen that had been unattended to for so long. He considered it to be a light, agile creature, and assigned it to the Hypsilophodontidae, a family of small bipedal dinosaurs.

Other remains of similar animals were found throughout the late 19th century and 20th century. Another well-preserved skeleton from the slightly older Horseshoe Canyon Formation, in Alberta, Canada, was named T. warreni by William Parks in 1926. This skeleton had notable differences from T. neglectus, and so Charles M. Sternberg placed it in a new genus, Parksosaurus, in 1937. Sternberg also named an additional species, T. edmontonensis, based on another articulated skeleton, this time including a partial skull (NMC 8537), and drew attention to the genus' heavy build and thick bones. Due to these differences from the regular light hypsilophodont build, he suggested that the genus warranted its own subfamily, Thescelosaurinae. T. edmontonensis has, since Peter Galton's 1974 review, generally been considered a more robust individual (possibly the opposite sex of the type individual) of T. neglectus. However, Boyd and colleagues found that they could not assign it to either of their valid species of Thescelosaurus and regarded the specimen as of uncertain placement within the genus. The other point of contention regarding T. edmontonensis is its ankle, which Galton claimed was damaged and misinterpreted, but which was regarded by William J. Morris (1976) as truly different from T. neglectus.

In his paper, Morris described a specimen (SDSM 7210) consisting of a partial skull with heavy ridges on the lower jaw and cheek, four partial vertebrae, and two finger bones as an unidentified species of Thescelosaurus, from the late Maastrichtian-age Hell Creek Formation of Harding County, South Dakota, USA. He drew attention to its premaxillary teeth and deeply inset toothline which he interpreted as supporting the presence of muscular cheeks. Morris also pointed out the outwardly flaring premaxilla (which would have given it a wide beak) and large palpebrals. This skull was recognized as an unnamed hypsilophodont for many years, until Galton made it the type specimen of new genus and species Bugenasaura infernalis ("large-cheeked lizard belonging to the lower regions", infernalis being a reference to the Hell Creek Formation). Morris also named a new possible species of Thescelosaurus for specimen LACM 33542: ?T. garbanii (with a question mark because he was uncertain that it belonged to the genus). LACM 33542 comprised a large partial hindlimb ("a third larger than described specimens of T. neglectus and Parksosaurus or nearly twice as large as Hypsilophodon") including a foot, tarsus, shin bones, and partial thigh bone, along with five cervical (neck) and eleven dorsal (back) vertebrae, from the Hell Creek Formation of Garfield County, Montana, USA. The specimen was discovered by amateur paleontologist Harley Garbani, hence the name. T. garbanii would have been about 4.5 meters (15 feet) long, greater than average specimens of T. neglectus. Aside from the size, Morris drew attention to the way the ankle was constructed, which he considered to be unique except in comparison with Thescelosaurus edmontonensis, which he regarded as a separate species. Because Morris believed that the ankles of T. garbanii compared favorably to those of T. edmontonensis, he tentatively assigned it to Thescelosaurus. However, the scientific literature has favored Galton's view that T. edmontonensis was not different from T. neglectus (see above). In the same paper that he described Bugenasaura, Galton demonstrated that the features Morris had thought connected T. garbanii and T. edmontonensis were the result of damage to the latter's ankle, so T. garbanii could also be considered distinct from Thescelosaurus. To better accommodate this species, Galton suggested that it belonged to his new genus Bugenasaura as B. garbanii, although he also noted that it could be belong to the similarly sized pachycephalosaurid Stygimoloch, or be part of a third, unknown dinosaur.

Clint Boyd and colleagues published a reassessment of Thescelosaurus, Bugenasaura, and Parksosaurus in 2009, using new cranial material as a starting point. They found that Parksosaurus was indeed distinct from Thescelosaurus, and that the skull of Bugenasaura infernalis was essentially the same as a skull found with a postcranial skeleton that matched Thescelosaurus. Because B. infernalis could not be differentiated from Thescelosaurus, they regarded the genus as a synonym of Thescelosaurus, the species as dubious, and SDSM 7210 as an example of T. sp. They found that LACM 33542, although fragmentary, was a specimen of Thescelosaurus, and agreed with Morris that the ankle structure was distinct, returning it to T. garbanii. Finally, they noted that another specimen, RSM P.1225.1, differed from T. neglectus in some anatomical details, and may represent a new species. Thus, Thescelosaurus per Boyd et al. (2009) is represented by at least two, and possibly three valid species: type species T. neglectus, T. garbanii, and a possible unnamed species. In December 2011, RSM P.1225.1 was assigned to its own species, Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis. It was named by Caleb M. Brown, Clint A. Boyd and Anthony P. Russell and is known only from its holotype, a small, articulated and almost complete skeleton from the Frenchman Formation (late Maastrichtian stage) of Saskatchewan. In April 2022, it was reported that a specimen of Thescelosaurus was found at the Tanis fossil site, supposedly dating to the exact day of the K-Pg extinction, making it the first non-avian dinosaur fossil recovered from that date.

## Description

Overall, the skeletal anatomy of this genus is well documented, and restorations have been published in several papers, including skeletal restorations and models. The skeleton is known well enough that a detailed reconstruction of the hip and hindlimb muscles has been made. The animal's size has been estimated in the 2.5–4.0 m range for length (8.2–13.1 ft) for various specimens, and a weight of 200–300 kilograms (450–660 pounds), with the large type specimen of T. garbanii estimated at 4–4.5 meters (13.1–14.8 feet) long. As discussed more fully under "Discovery, history, and species", it may have been sexually dimorphic, with one sex larger than the other. Juvenile remains are known from several locations, mostly based on teeth.

Thescelosaurus was a heavily built bipedal animal, probably herbivorous, but potentially not. There was a prominent ridge along the length of both maxillae (the tooth-bearing "cheek" bones), and a ridge on both dentaries (tooth-bearing bone of the lower jaw). The ridges and position of the teeth, deeply internal to the outside surface of the skull, are interpreted as evidence for muscular cheeks. Aside from the long narrow beak, the skull also had teeth in the premaxilla, or upper beak (a primitive trait among neornithischians). Long rod-like bones called palpebrals were present over the eyes, giving the animal heavy bony eyebrows. Its teeth were of two types: small pointed premaxillary teeth, and leaf-shaped cheek teeth. Six small teeth were present in both premaxillae, with a toothless section at the tip of the beak.

Thescelosaurs had short, broad, five-fingered hands, four-toed feet with hoof-like toe tips, and a long tail braced by ossified tendons from the middle to the tip, which would have reduced the flexibility of the tail. The rib cage was broad, giving it a wide back, and the limbs were robust. The animals may have been able to move on all fours, given its fairly long arms and wide hands, but this idea has not been widely discussed in the scientific literature, although it does appear in popular works. Charles M. Sternberg reconstructed it with the upper arm oriented almost perpendicular to the body, another idea that has gone by the wayside. As noted by Peter Galton, the upper arm bone of most ornithischians articulated with the shoulder by an articular surface that consisted of the entire end of the bone, instead of a distinct ball and socket as in mammals. The orientation of the shoulder's articular surface also indicates a vertical and not horizontal upper arm in dinosaurs.

Large thin flat mineralized plates have been found next to the ribs' sides. Their function is unknown; they may have played a role in respiration. However, muscle scars or other indications of attachment have not been found for the plates, which argues against a respiratory function. Recent histological study of layered plates from a probable subadult indicates that they may have started as cartilage and became bone as the animal aged. Such plates are known from several other cerapodas.

For most of its history, the nature of this genus' integument, be it scales or something else, remained unknown. Charles Gilmore described patches of carbonized material near the shoulders as possible epidermis, with a "punctured" texture, but no regular pattern, while William J. Morris suggested that armor was present, in the form of small scutes he interpreted as located at least along the midline of the neck of one specimen. Scutes have not been found with other articulated specimens of Thescelosaurus, though, and Morris's scutes could be crocodilian in origin. In his 2022 documentary, Dinosaurs: The Final Day, Sir David Attenborough reported a Thescelosaurus specimen allegedly killed on the day of the K-Pg extinction, covered in skin impressions that included elongated scales over the legs. One of the paleontologists excavating it was quoted as speculating they had a camouflage function. In a follow-up interview, Paul Barrett has noted that this means Thescelosaurus was not as feathered as hypothesized for other small neornithischians.

## Classification

Thescelosaurus has generally been allied to Hypsilophodon and other small neornithischians as a hypsilophodontid, although recognized as being distinct among them for its robust build, unusual hindlimbs, and, more recently, its unusually long skull. Peter Galton in 1974 presented one twist to the classic arrangement, suggesting that because of its hindlimb structure and heavy build (not cursorial, or built for running, by his definition), it should be included in the Iguanodontidae. This has not been followed, with Morris arguing strongly against Galton's classification scheme. At any rate, Galton's Iguanodontidae was polyphyletic and not a natural group, and so would not be recognized under modern cladistic usage.

Although Hypsilophodontidae was interpreted as a natural group in the early 1990s, this hypothesis has fallen out of favor and Hypsilophodontidae has been found to be an unnatural family composed of a variety of animals more or less closely related to Iguanodontia (paraphyly), with various small clades of closely related taxa. "Hypsilophodontidae" and "hypsilophodont" are better understood as informal terms for an evolutionary grade, not a true clade. Thescelosaurus has been regarded as both very basal and very derived among the hypsilophodonts. One issue that has potentially interfered with classifying Thescelosaurus is that not all of the remains assigned to T. neglectus necessarily belong to it. Clint Boyd and colleagues found that while the clade Thescelosaurus included the genus Bugenasaura and the species that had been assigned to that genus, there were at least two and possibly three species within Thescelosaurus, and several specimens previously assigned to T. neglectus could not yet be assigned to a species within the genus. It appears to be closely related to Parksosaurus.

The dissolution of Hypsilophodontidae has been followed by the recognition of the distinct family Thescelosauridae. This area of the dinosaur family tree has historically been complicated by a lack of research, but papers by Clint Boyd and colleagues and Caleb Brown and colleagues have specifically addressed these dinosaurs. Boyd et al. (2009) and Brown et al. (2011) found North American "hypsilophodonts" of Cretaceous age to sort into two related clusters, one consisting of Orodromeus, Oryctodromeus, and Zephyrosaurus, and the other consisting of Parksosaurus and Thescelosaurus. Brown et al. (2013) recovered similar results, with the addition of the new genus Albertadromeus to the Orodromeus clade and several long-snouted Asian forms (previously described under Jeholosauridae) to the Thescelosaurus clade. They also formally defined Thescelosauridae (Thescelosaurus neglectus, Orodromeus makelai, their most recent common ancestor, and all descendants) and the smaller clades Orodrominae and Thescelosaurinae. The below cladogram is that of Brown et al..

## Paleobiology

Thescelosaurus would have browsed in the first meter or so from the ground, feeding selectively, with food held in the mouth by cheeks while chewing. Thescelosaurus was probably slower than other hypsilophodonts, because of its heavier build and leg structure. Compared to them, it had unusual hindlimbs, because the upper leg was longer than the shin, the opposite of Hypsilophodon and running animals in general. One specimen is known to have had a bone pathology, with the long bones of the right foot fused at their tops, hindering swift movement. Examinations of the teeth of Thescelosaurus and comparisons with the contemporary pachycephalosaur Stegoceras suggest that Thescelosaurus was a selective feeder, while Stegoceras was a more indiscriminate feeder, allowing both animals to share the same environment without competing for food.

### Supposed fossilized heart

In 2000, a skeleton of this genus (specimen NCSM 15728) informally known as "Willo", now on display at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, was described as including the remnants of a four-chambered heart and an aorta. It had been originally unearthed in 1993 in northwestern South Dakota. The authors had found the internal detail through computed tomography (CT) imagery. They suggested that the heart had been saponified (turned to grave wax) under airless burial conditions, and then changed to goethite, an iron mineral, by replacement of the original material. The authors interpreted the structure of the heart as indicating an elevated metabolic rate for Thescelosaurus, not reptilian cold-bloodedness.

Their conclusions have been disputed; soon after the initial description, other researchers published a paper where they asserted that the heart is really a concretion. As they noted, the anatomy given for the object is incorrect (for example, the "aorta" narrows coming into the "heart" and lacks arteries coming from it), it partially engulfs one of the ribs and has an internal structure of concentric layers in some places, and another concretion is preserved behind the right leg. The original authors defended their position; they agreed that it was a type of concretion, but one that had formed around and partially preserved the more muscular portions of the heart and aorta.

A study published in 2011 applied multiple lines of inquiry to the question of the object's identity, including more advanced CT scanning, histology, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. From these methods, the authors found the following: the object's internal structure does not include chambers but is made up of three unconnected areas of lower density material, and is not comparable to the structure of an ostrich's heart; the "walls" are composed of sedimentary minerals not known to be produced in biological systems, such as goethite, feldspar minerals, quartz, and gypsum, as well as some plant fragments; carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, chemical elements important to life, were lacking in their samples; and cardiac cellular structures were absent. There was one possible patch with animal cellular structures. The authors found their data supported identification as a concretion of sand from the burial environment, not the heart, with the possibility that isolated areas of tissues were preserved.

The question of how this find reflects metabolic rate and dinosaur internal anatomy is moot, though, regardless of the object's identity. Both modern crocodilians and birds, the closest living relatives of non-avian dinosaurs, have four-chambered hearts (albeit modified in crocodilians), so non-avian dinosaurs probably had them as well; the structure is not necessarily tied to metabolic rate.

## Paleoecology

### Temporal and geographic range

True Thescelosaurus remains are known definitely only from late Maastrichtian-age rocks, from Alberta (Scollard Formation) and Saskatchewan (Frenchman Formation), Canada, and Wyoming (Lance Formation), South Dakota (Hell Creek Formation), Montana (Hell Creek), and Colorado (Laramie Formation), USA. With the exception of birds, it was one of the last genera of dinosaurs, its remains being found as close as 3 meters to the boundary clay containing the iridium layer that closes the Cretaceous. The Laramie Formation is the oldest formation that Thescelosaurus is known from, and magnetostratigraphy suggests an age of 69–68 Ma for the Laramie Formation. There are reports of teeth from older, Campanian-age rocks, particularly from the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta, but these specimens are not from Thescelosaurus and are much more likely those of Orodromeus. More specimens are known than have been officially described for this genus, such as the Triebold specimen, which has been the source of several skeletal casts for museums.

When Galton revisited Thescelosaurus and Bugenasaura in 1999, he described the dentary tooth UCMP 46911 from the Upper Jurassic of Weymouth, England as cf. Bugenasaura. If it is indeed a tooth from a thescelosaur-like animal, this would significantly extend the stratigraphic range of the group.

### Habitat

Conflicting reports have been made as to its preferred habitat; two papers suggest it preferred channels to floodplains, but another suggests it preferred the opposite. The possible preference for channels is based on the relative abundance of thescelosaur fossils in sandstones, representing channel environments, in comparison to mudstones, representing floodplain environments. No bonebeds or accumulations of multiple individuals have yet been reported. Dale Russell, in a popular work, noted that Thescelosaurus was the most common small herbivore in the Hell Creek Formation of the Fort Peck area. He described the environment of the time as a flat floodplain, with a relatively dry subtropical climate that supported a variety of plants ranging from angiosperm trees, to bald cypress, to ferns and ginkgos. Although most dinosaur skeletons from this area are incomplete, possibly due to the low preservation potential of forests, Thescelosaurus skeletons are much more complete, suggesting that this genus frequented stream channels. Thus when a Thescelosaurus died, it may have been in or near a river, making it easier to bury and preserve for later fossilization. Russell tentatively compared it to the capybaras and tapirs.

Other dinosaurs that shared its time and place include the ceratopsids Triceratops and Torosaurus, hadrosaurid Edmontosaurus, ankylosaurid Ankylosaurus, pachycephalosaurian Pachycephalosaurus, and the theropods Ornithomimus, Troodon, and Tyrannosaurus. Thescelosaurus was also abundant in the Lance Formation. Toe bones from this genus are the most common finds after fossils of Triceratops and Edmontosaurus, and it may have been the most common dinosaur there in life, if the Lance Formation had a preservational bias against small animals.

Ornithischian dinosaur genus from Late Cretaceous US and Canada

Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America


Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was an American politician and women's rights advocate who became the first woman to hold federal office in the United States in 1917. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916; she served one term until she was elected again in 1940. To date, Rankin is still the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana.

Each of Rankin's congressional terms coincided with the initiation of U.S. military intervention in one of the two world wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of 50 House members who opposed the declaration of war on Germany in 1917. In 1941, she was the sole member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A suffragist during the Progressive Era, Rankin organized and lobbied for legislation enfranchising women in several states, including Montana, New York, and North Dakota. While in Congress, she introduced legislation that eventually became the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting unrestricted voting rights to women nationwide. She championed a multitude of diverse women's rights and civil rights causes throughout a career that spanned more than six decades.

## Early life

Rankin was born on June 11, 1880, near Missoula in Montana Territory, nine years before the territory became a state, to school teacher Olive (née Pickering) and Scottish-Canadian immigrant John Rankin, a wealthy mill owner. She was the eldest of six children, including five sisters (one of whom died in childhood) and a brother, Wellington, who became Montana's attorney general and later, a justice on the Montana Supreme Court. One of her sisters, Edna Rankin McKinnon, became the first Montana-born woman to pass the bar exam in Montana and was an early social activist for access to birth control.

As an adolescent on her family ranch, Rankin had many tasks, including cleaning, sewing, farm chores, outdoor work, and helping care for her younger siblings. She helped maintain the ranch machinery and once single-handedly built a wooden sidewalk for a building her father owned so it could be rented. Rankin later recorded her childhood observation that while women of the 1890s western frontier labored side by side as equals with men, they did not have an equal political voice—nor a legal right to vote.

Rankin graduated from high school in 1898. She studied at the University of Montana and, in 1902, received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. Before her political and advocacy career, she explored a variety of careers, including dressmaking, furniture design, and teaching. After her father died in 1904, Rankin took on the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings.

## Activism and suffrage movement

At the age of 27, Rankin moved to San Francisco to take a job in social work, a new and developing field. Confident that she had found her calling, she enrolled in the New York School of Philanthropy in New York City from 1908 to 1909. After a brief period as a social worker in Spokane, Washington, Rankin moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington, and became involved in the women's suffrage movement. In November 1910, Washington voters approved an amendment to their state constitution to permanently enfranchise women, the fifth state in the Union to do so. Returning to New York, Rankin became one of the organizers of the New York Woman Suffrage Party, which joined with other suffrage organizations to promote a similar suffrage bill in that state's legislature. During this period, Rankin also traveled to Washington to lobby Congress on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

Rankin returned to Montana and rose through the ranks of suffrage organizations, becoming the president of the Montana Women's Suffrage Association and the national field secretary of NAWSA. In February 1911, she became the first woman to speak before the Montana legislature, arguing in support of enfranchisement for women in her home state. In November 1914, Montana became the seventh state to grant women unrestricted voting rights. Rankin coordinated the efforts of a variety of grassroots organizations to promote her suffrage campaigns in New York and Montana (and later in North Dakota as well). Later, she would draw from the same grassroots infrastructure during her 1916 congressional campaign.

Rankin later compared her work in the women's suffrage movement to promoting the pacifist foreign policy that defined her congressional career. She believed, as did many suffragists of the period, that the corruption and dysfunction of the United States government resulted from the lack of women's participation. At a disarmament conference during the interwar period, she said, "The peace problem is a woman's problem."

## House of Representatives

### First congressional term

Rankin's campaign for one of Montana's two at-large House seats in the congressional election of 1916 was financed and managed by her brother Wellington, an influential member of the Montana Republican Party. She traveled long distances to reach the state's widely scattered population. Rankin rallied support at train stations, street corners, potluck suppers on ranches, and remote one-room schoolhouses. She ran as a progressive, emphasizing her support of suffrage, social welfare, and prohibition.

In the Republican primary, Rankin received the most votes of the eight Republican candidates. In the at-large general election on November 7, the top two vote-getters won the seats. Rankin finished second in the voting, defeating Frank Bird Linderman, among others, to become the first woman elected to Congress. During her victory speech, she said, "I am deeply conscious of the responsibility resting upon me" as the only woman in the nation with voting power in Congress. Her election generated considerable nationwide interest, including, reportedly, several marriage proposals.

Shortly after her term began, Congress was called into an extraordinary April session in response to Germany declaring unrestricted submarine warfare on all Atlantic shipping. On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson, addressing a joint session, asked Congress to "make the world safe for democracy" by declaring war on Germany. After intense debate, the war resolution came to a vote in the House at 3:00 am on April 6; Rankin cast one of 50 votes in opposition. "I wish to stand for my country," she said, "but I cannot vote for war." Years later, she would add, "I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war, she should say it." Although 49 male Representatives and six Senators also voted against the declaration, Rankin was singled out for criticism. Some considered her vote a discredit to the suffragist movement and her authority in Congress; but others applauded it, including Alice Paul of the National Woman's Party and Representative Fiorello La Guardia of New York.

Rankin used her office to push for better working conditions for laborers. On June 8, 1917, the Speculator Mine disaster in Butte left 168 miners dead. Workers called a massive protest strike over working conditions. Rankin tried to intervene, but mining companies refused to meet with her or the miners, and her proposed legislation to end the strike was unsuccessful. She had greater success pushing for better working conditions in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Rankin listened to the grievances of federal workers in the bureau, which included long hours and an excessively demanding work pace. She hired investigative reporter Elizabeth Watson to investigate. As a result of her efforts to draw attention to the working conditions of the bureau, Treasury Secretary William McAdoo convened his own investigation and ultimately limited the work day to eight hours.

By 1917, women had been granted some form of voting rights in about forty states. Rankin continued to lead the movement for unrestricted universal enfranchisement. She was instrumental in the creation of the Committee on Woman Suffrage and became one of its founding members. In January 1918, the committee delivered its report to Congress, and Rankin opened congressional debate on a Constitutional amendment granting universal suffrage to women. The resolution passed in the House but was defeated by the Senate. The following year—after Rankin's congressional term had ended—the same resolution passed both chambers. After ratification by three-fourths of the states, it became the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

During Rankin's term, Montana's state legislature voted to replace the state's two at-large Congressional seats with two single-member districts. With little chance of reelection in the overwhelmingly Democratic western district, Rankin chose instead to run for the Senate in 1918. After losing the Republican primary to physician Oscar M. Lanstrum, she accepted the nomination of the National Party and finished third in the general election behind Lanstrum and incumbent Democrat Thomas J. Walsh.

### Between terms

After leaving Congress, Rankin worked as a field secretary for the National Consumers League and as a lobbyist for various pacifist organizations. She argued for the passage of a Constitutional amendment banning child labor and supported the Sheppard–Towner Act, the first federal social welfare program created explicitly for women and children. The legislation was enacted in 1921 but repealed eight years later, though many of its key provisions were incorporated into the Social Security Act of 1935.

In 1924, Rankin bought a small farm in Georgia. She lived a simple life there, without electricity or plumbing, although she also maintained a residence in Montana. Rankin made frequent speeches around the country on behalf of the Women's Peace Union and the National Council for the Prevention of War (NCPW). In 1928 she founded the Georgia Peace Society, which served as headquarters for her pacifism campaign until its dissolution in 1941, on the eve of the U.S. involvement in World War II.

In 1937, Rankin opposed President Franklin Roosevelt's proposals to intervene on the British side against Germany and its allies, arguing that both sides wished to avoid a second European war and would pursue a diplomatic solution. She testified before multiple Congressional committees in opposition to various preparedness measures. When it became clear that her lobbying efforts were largely ineffective, Rankin resigned from her NCPW position and declared her intention to regain her seat in the House of Representatives.

### Second congressional term

Rankin began her campaign for Congress in 1939 with a tour of high schools in Montana. She arranged to speak in 52 of the First Congressional District's 56 high schools to reestablish her ties to the region after years of spending much of her time in Georgia. Once again, Rankin enjoyed the political support of her well-connected brother Wellington, even though the siblings had increasingly divergent lifestyles and political views.

In the 1940 race, Rankin—at age 60—defeated incumbent Jacob Thorkelson, an outspoken antisemite, in the July primary, and former Representative Jerry J. O'Connell in the general election. She was appointed to the Committee on Public Lands and the Committee on Insular Affairs. While members of Congress and their constituents had been debating the question of U.S. intervention in World War II for months, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, galvanized the country and silenced virtually all opposition.

On December 8, Rankin was the only member of either chamber of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan. Hisses could be heard in the gallery as she cast her vote; several colleagues, including Rep. (later Senator) Everett Dirksen, asked her to change it to make the resolution unanimous—or at very least, to abstain—but she refused. "As a woman I can't go to war," she said, "and I refuse to send anyone else."

After the vote, a crowd of reporters pursued Rankin into a cloakroom. There, she was forced to take refuge in a phone booth until Capitol Police arrived to escort her to her office, where she was inundated with angry telegrams and phone calls. One cable from her brother read, "Montana is 100 percent against you". A wire service photo of Rankin sequestered in the phone booth, calling for assistance, appeared the following day in newspapers across the country.

While her action was widely ridiculed in the press, Progressive leader William Allen White, writing in the Kansas Emporia Gazette, acknowledged her courage in taking it:

> Probably a hundred men in Congress would have liked to do what she did. Not one of them had the courage to do it. The Gazette entirely disagrees with the wisdom of her position. But Lord, it was a brave thing! And its bravery someway discounted its folly. When, in a hundred years from now, courage, sheer courage based upon moral indignation is celebrated in this country, the name of Jeannette Rankin, who stood firm in folly for her faith, will be written in monumental bronze– not for what she did but for the way she did it.

Three days later, a similar war declaration against Germany and Italy came to a vote; Rankin abstained. With her political career effectively over, she did not run for reelection in 1942. Asked years later if she ever regretted her action, Rankin replied, "Never. If you're against war, you're against war regardless of what happens. It's a wrong method of trying to settle a dispute." John F. Kennedy would write about Rankin's decisions, “Few members of Congress have ever stood more alone while being true to a higher honor and loyalty.”

## Later life

Over the next twenty years, Rankin traveled the world, frequently visiting India, where she studied the pacifist teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. She maintained homes in both Georgia and Montana.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of pacifists, feminists, and civil rights advocates found inspiration in Rankin and embraced her efforts in ways that her generation had not. She mobilized again in response to the Vietnam War. In January 1968, the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, a coalition of women's peace groups, organized an anti-war march in Washington, D.C.—the largest march by women since the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. Rankin led 5,000 participants from Union Station to the steps of the Capitol Building, where they presented a peace petition to House Speaker John McCormack. Simultaneously, a splinter group of activists from the women's liberation movement created a protest within the Brigade's protest by staging a "Burial of True Womanhood" at Arlington National Cemetery to draw attention to the passive role allotted to women as wives and mothers. In 1972, Rankin—by then in her nineties—considered mounting a third House campaign to gain a wider audience for her opposition to the Vietnam War, but longstanding throat and heart ailments forced her to abandon that final project.

## Personal life

Rankin never married. While she maintained a lifelong, close friendship with the noted journalist and author Katherine Anthony, the women were never romantically involved. Rankin's biographers disagree on her sexual orientation but generally agree that she was too consumed by her work to pursue committed personal relationships.

## Death and legacy

Rankin died on May 18, 1973, at age 92, in Carmel, California. There is a memorial stone dedicated to her in the Missoula Cemetery. She bequeathed her estate, including the property in Watkinsville, Georgia, to help "mature, unemployed women workers". Her Montana residence, known as the Rankin Ranch, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The Jeannette Rankin Foundation (now the Jeannette Rankin Women's Scholarship Fund), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, awards annual educational scholarships to low-income women 35 and older across the United States. Beginning with a single \$500 scholarship in 1978, the fund has since awarded more than \$1.8 million in scholarships to more than 700 women.

A statue of Rankin by Terry Mimnaugh, inscribed "I Cannot Vote For War", was placed in the United States Capitol's Statuary Hall in 1985. At its dedication, historian Joan Hoff-Wilson called Rankin "one of the most controversial and unique women in Montana and American political history". A replica stands in Montana's capitol building in Helena. In 1993, Rankin was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

In 2004, peace activist Jeanmarie Simpson produced and starred in the one-woman play A Single Woman, based on the life of Rankin, to benefit peace organizations. Simpson also starred in a film adaptation that was directed and produced by Kamala Lopez, narrated by Martin Sheen, and featuring music by Joni Mitchell.

Opera America commissioned a song cycle about Rankin called Fierce Grace that premiered in 2017. In 2018, the Kalispell Brewing Company commissioned a mural on the side of its building in Kalispell, Montana, featuring a Rankin caricature and quotation.

Rankin is the subject of the musical We Won't Sleep (formerly Jeannette) with music and lyrics by Arianna Afsar and a book by Lauren Gunderson. Under the title Jeannette, the musical was part of the 2019 summer series at the National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut.

Although her legacy rests almost entirely on her pacifism, Rankin told the Montana Constitutional Convention in 1972 that she would have preferred otherwise. "If I am remembered for no other act", she said, "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote."

## See also

- History of the Republican Party (United States)
- List of peace activists
- Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
- Women in the United States House of Representatives
- Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against American military response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
- A Single Woman (2004 play)
- A Single Woman (2008 film)

First woman elected to U.S. Congress

Columbia University School of Social Work alumni

Female members of the United States House of Representatives

People from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Montana

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom people


William P. Halliday

William Parker Halliday (July 21, 1827 – September 22, 1899) was an American steamboat captain, banker, printer, hotel owner, vast landowner and businessman. Halliday began his professional career working on steamboats on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and eventually became a captain of a steamboat based out of Louisville, Kentucky. A pioneer in the river and railroad transportation businesses, Halliday was responsible for the expansion of Cairo, Illinois, following the American Civil War.

Before the war, Halliday predicted that it would greatly impact river and railroad transportation and moved to Cairo, Illinois, a town at a critical position, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Soon after relocating, Halliday established many businesses that focused on river transportation and general merchandise. During the war, Halliday became good friends with General Ulysses S. Grant, and this relationship increased his personal fortune considerably through favorable military contracts.

After the Civil War, Halliday, his four brothers, and other family members rapidly expanded their business interests in the region. Halliday purchased real estate, businesses, hotels, mines, railroads, lumber yards, steamboats, and furniture companies, and took advantage of many other business opportunities. His business success led to the advancement of the region and specifically contributed to the development of Cairo, Illinois, and Hallidayboro, Illinois.

## Early years

Halliday was born to Samuel Halliday and Eliza Parker in Ohio in 1827, the eldest of seven children. His father, an immigrant from Scotland, had graduated from the University of Edinburgh at the age of 19 and immigrated to America in 1818 to receive a professorship at the University of Ohio. However, his travel was difficult, and he became stranded in the small village of Rutland, where he was convinced to stay and open a school. Eventually, Samuel surveyed and planned a town with William Parker, Halliday's grandfather. Samuel held the position of county auditor in Meigs County, Ohio, for 25 years.

Halliday received a general education in Ohio and was first employed as a printer. His first job was as proprietor of Meigs County Gazette and later he worked at the Cincinnati Gazette. Sometime before 1857 Halliday became a surveyor working for the United States Department of the Interior under Marcus Baker and other surveyors. The purpose of the surveying group was to determine the northwesternmost boundary of the United States. Halliday worked on the surveying teams that surveyed the Poteau Mountain Quadrangle (Arkansas-Indian Territory), Tuskahoma Quadrangle, Antlers Quadrangle, Clarksville Quadrangle (Indian Territory-Texas), and other areas.

After a short time he switched careers and became a clerk on a steamboat, frequently working alongside Charles T. Hinde, who later married his sister. Halliday gradually advanced in the steamboat business until he was made a captain. In 1860, he relocated with his family to Cairo and initially worked as a commission merchant. Later, he was a merchant, cotton planter, lumberman, banker, miller, coal mine operator, owner of vast tracts of coal and farm lands, owned salt mines in Illinois, and was a pioneer lumber dealer in Cairo. Halliday was a very successful businessman and by the end of his life was a multimillionaire. He owned steamboats, hotels, commercial shipping businesses, and other investments.

## Civil War

Before the Civil War, Halliday lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and owned a grain business. In 1860, Halliday moved to Cairo, Illinois, predicting that war would come to Cairo thanks to its strategic location, and he set up businesses to benefit from the conflict. By February 1861, Halliday had established Halliday, Graham, & Co. and moved his "mammoth wharf boat" from Mound City, Illinois, down river to Cairo. Once the wharf boat arrived, journalists predicted that Halliday's company would be the most extensive forwarder in the Mississippi Valley, and Halliday organized a citywide celebration to mark the boat's arrival.

Halliday and his partner, N. W. Graham, signed a contract with Ulysses S. Grant for the Union Army's use of the wharf boat during the war. The contract compensated Halliday and Graham \$1,000 per month and did not have an expiration date. Some commentators have suggested that the contract was a result of the close personal friendship of General Grant and Halliday, instead of sound military strategy. For a short time, General Grant made his military headquarters in the Halliday hotel in Cairo, Illinois.

During the war, Halliday and Grant became close friends. Grant commandeered one of Halliday's wharf boats for use in the Union Commissary Department, and soon after the boat was commandeered Halliday signed up to work as the commissary agent. Halliday gained the trust of Grant and, though he never enlisted in the army, Halliday accompanied General Grant to numerous battles and expeditions. In addition to the military uses Halliday's wharf boats were also used to connect the Mobile and Ohio Railroad with the Illinois Central Railroad at Cairo.

## Civil War ends

In 1865, at the close of the Civil War, Halliday established several railroads with his close associates. On February 15, 1865, Halliday, Asa Eastman, S. Staats Taylor, N. R. Casey, Isham N. Haynie, Henry W. Webb, and John Q. Harman were granted a charter by the State of Illinois legislature to incorporate the Cairo and Mound City Railroad and were authorized to have \$200,000 in capital stock. The next day the Illinois legislature approved the railroad charter for the Cairo and St. Louis Railroad on February 16, 1865, and Sharon Tyndale, Isham N. Haynie, Samuel Staats Taylor, John Thomas, William H. Logan, Halliday, and Tilman B. Cantrell were the original incorporators and were authorized to have \$3,000,000 in capital stock. Also in 1865, Halliday and his brothers established the First Bank and Trust Company and bought the largest hotel in Cairo, renaming it after the family name.

## Riverlore Mansion

Halliday built the Riverlore Mansion in 1865 in Cairo, Illinois, across the street from the Magnolia Manor. The brick mansion has 11 rooms, three floors, and a basement. When the mansion was completed in 1865, it spanned the entire city block.

The first floor of the mansion has the front entry, sitting area, family room, parlor, kitchen, sunroom, dining room, hallway and powder room. An oval central stairway with a curved cherry balustrade winds more than three stories, encompassing some 38 feet to the slate mansard roof, which is capped by an ornamental iron railing. The second floor has three guest bedrooms, a guest bath, a sitting room, a master bedroom, and a luxurious bath complete with a sunken tub. The third floor has a sitting area, an office, a library, and a theater complete with a stage and 18 movie seats.

Part of the original design of the Riverlore is the distinctive river boat theme of the house. There is a glassed-in pilothouse with a sliding hatch that serves as the entrance to the roof. The roof was designed to be flat and resemble the deck of a steamboat, so that Halliday could view the river and reminisce about his early days working as a steamboat captain while standing on his roof. Captain Halliday lived at the Riverlore for 34 years.

## Business career following the Civil War

Halliday and his brothers achieved substantial business success following the Civil War through a variety of businesses and investments. One commentator has stated that by the 1880s the Halliday family was among the most powerful in the region, and Halliday was the significant figure in the family. Halliday the driving force behind the firm of Halliday Bros in Cairo had four brothers, the brothers together operated as members of the firm Halliday Bros. The brother's character in business and personal life has been noted in many writings, publications, and books, one such book A History of the City of Cairo Illinois by John M. Lansden speaks of the brothers:

There were five of them, a somewhat exceptional number: William P. Halliday, Samuel B. Halliday, Edwin W. Halliday, Henry L. Halliday, and Thomas W. Halliday. Of them all, I may be permitted to say that while they all differed from each other, they all exhibited features of character and conduct that would have given them prominence anywhere in the business world. No doubt in some one or two important respects, each one excelled the others. This was shown in those matters and things to which they gave their chief attention. Speaking of them and their families, so well represented here with us and elsewhere, it can be said that they have always stood for better things, not with assumption or pharisaically, but openly and firmly. They pushed their business enterprises with diligence, and had there been more of such men it would have been better for the city and for them also, I have no doubt.

The Halliday business empire following the Civil War comprised numerous businesses in Cairo, cotton lands in Arkansas, a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, furniture companies in Memphis and New Orleans, coal mines in southern Illinois, salt wells in southern Illinois and Indiana, numerous large farms, and many other investments. Halliday and his brothers dealt heavily in flour following the Civil War.

In order to keep updated on their daily business activities Halliday and his brothers installed private telegraph lines between their residences and their business offices. In the early 1870s Halliday held the public office of city councilman for the city of Cairo Illinois, for the city at large ward with Daniel Hurd.

On March 5, 1867, Halliday, David J. Baker Jr., Alfred B. Safford, Daniel Hurd, and George D. Williamson were granted permission by the Illinois legislature to incorporate The Valley Iron Company.

The capital stock of the company was \$200,000 and the company headquarters were in Cairo, Illinois. The company's purpose was to mine and manufacture iron and other metals, with the stated purpose of supplying railroads. Also at this time, Halliday, Hurd, Safford, and others served on the transportation committee of the Illinois Central Railroad.

During the Civil War Halliday was associated with the Mobile and Ohio Railroad through the railroad's use of his wharf boats. After the war, Halliday became a major investor in the railroad along with William Butler Duncan I, Charles Walsh, and Charles Edward Tracy. Halliday's investments centered around the railroad's expansion to Cairo in the late 1870s. On April 22, 1874, the shareholders of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad elected Halliday to the board of directors.

As Halliday's business interests grew, he began investing in businesses that supported his railroad and steamboat businesses, primarily coal mines. Halliday purchased his first coal mine in St. John, Illinois, to supply his steamships and coal depots.

Due to the success of the coal mines, Halliday began to purchase property in the area to search for oil. He was unsuccessful in locating oil deposits but did find one of the most productive salt mines in the region. Haliiday's brother-in-law, Marion Wright, ran and oversaw the Halliday coal and salt mines.

Although Halliday had originally invested in the Cairo and Vincennes Railway in 1865, it was not completed and incorporated until July 9, 1880. In the 15 years in between, Halliday was able to attract many influential and important investors to the project. Banking tycoon, J. P. Morgan served as president and as a director of the railroad with Halliday. In 1869, Halliday spent eight weeks in New York City with co-investors Burnside, Hurd, and Raum trying to get investment for the Cairo and Vinncennes Railway project. During the trip, Halliday was able to gain the support and investment of the United States railroad construction company.

## William P. Halliday and the town of Hallidayboro Illinois

The town of Muddy Valley, Illinois, which was located in Jackson County, Illinois, was renamed Hallidayboro in 1894 in honor of Halliday. Halliday was a major investor and owner of the Muddy Valley Mining and Manufacturing Company located in the town. The company remained in Halliday's estate for over 30 years after his death. When the company was sold, it consisted of 5,700 acres of coal lands, numerous mine buildings and property, and several farms. The town was planned by Halliday based on his friend George Pullman's ideas developed from a similar industrial mining town he had founded earlier. Halliday wanted to avoid the labor and capital disputes that plagued the era by creating a model town for his mine workers and their families. At the height of the mine's production, Halliday employed over 500 men. White and black families lived and worked together, and it was one of the first towns in southern Illinois to have electricity.

`William Parker Halliday became acquainted with George Pullman through his many business interests which took him to Chicago, Springfield, and Washington, D.C. Halliday owned his own Pullman Palace Car, a personal gift from George Pullman.`

The town, originally named Muddy Valley, contrasted sharply with other southern Illinois coal towns, commonly referred to as "mining camps". Some aspects of Halllidayboro so closely resembled Pullman as to leave no doubt of William Halliday's intention to pattern his community after the cook county town. Tenements showing a distinctive style of architecture set in the midst of well-manicured trees and gardens caused journalists to designate the town a "Storybook Village".

Employees at Hallidayboro commonly worked a ten-hour day, but by 1898 William Halliday's mines adopted an eight-hour schedule on all shifts and agreed to pay union wage.

An interest in farming came naturally to William Halliday. Besides teaching, his father, Samuel, farmed successfully in Scotland and in the United States. Halliday owned a prosperous cotton plantation in Arkansas in addition to several thousand cultivated acres not connected with the model town. The 3500 cultivated acres surrounding the village provided important staples for the town. Forage for the mine mules as well as food for mining families came from company farms. In order to process its own meat, the company operated a slaughterhouse. By using this system the store was able to sell fresh meat at affordable prices.

George Pullman and William Halliday familiarized themselves with their industrial operations, giving attention to the minutest details. Their labor forces, tempered by the demands of industry in America, expected to work hard in exchange for the necessities of life. Cooperation between managers and workers created a higher standard of living, which in turn, encouraged better working conditions. Good housing also helped promote good work habits.

In the United States, unbearably inadequate housing and overcrowded neighborhoods pushed working men out of the home and into saloons where they congregated for drink and discussion. Wealthy capitalists wishing to strike a balance between the demands of labor and desires of capital looked to Robert Owen's example. George Pullman and William Halliday implemented a policy of tolerance in their towns identical to that of Robert Owen. The peaceful atmosphere in Pullman and Hallidayboro can be attributed in part to the absence of alcohol.

That Hallidayboro was relatively peaceful is especially significant because most coal towns in the region were prone to "heinous crime". Residents in other southern Illinois coal towns, containing no policy of temperance, often experienced murder and fatal injuries resulting from bar-room brawls. Violence sometimes took the form of wife-beating. Several southern Illinois miners died at the hands of a frustrated spouse.

Reformers reasoned that adequate housing could counter the drinking problems. George Pullman adhered to this idea. He believed that a good residential surrounding would benefit the workers and that beauty in the town would breed good character in the residents. Pullman hoped the comfortable, beautiful environment of his town would encourage cleanliness, industriousness and sobriety in the work force. Attractive housing with adequate living space did create good work habits in the towns.

William Halliday, like George Pullman, had cherished a desire to create a model company town.

Hallidayboro's housing compared favorably to that in other model company towns during this period. Not until the turn of the century did comparable company houses appear in southern Illinois, when Joseph Leiter built the town of Zeigler. In contrast to Hallidayboro's bustling, peaceful environment, coal miners never lived in the attractive houses provided by Joseph Leiter.

Until 1920, electricity was rare in southern Illinois communities, except in Hallidayboro.

Raised by teachers, William Halliday also believed in the value of education. One of the original buildings in Hallidayboro, the schoolhouse followed the overall architecture scheme of the village. Nestled at the west end of Main Street, the frame schoolhouse accommodated forty students. Typical of the period, separated entrances for boys and girls appeared under the twin bell towers. It is also likely that Halliday maintained a book collection for the use of the residents of his company town. In his home city he served on the Cairo Library Board and he endowed the Cairo Library with \$5,000.00 in his will. A high degree of literacy existed in Hallidayboro.

Towns such as Pullman and Hallidayboro supported Robert Owen's original belief that owners could profit from helping their workers.

## Later life and legacy

Towards the end of his life, Halliday was the president of the Illinois Bankers Association. In 1885, Halliday was president of the City National Bank of Cairo and his brother, Thomas W. Halliday was listed as Cashier of the bank. At the time the bank had \$772,994.34 of available funds. Based on inflation from 1885 to 2012, \$772,994.34 is the money equivalent to approx \$19,451,163 today.

Ever since moving to Cairo in 1860, Halliday was a huge force in the development of the city and region. One source describes his contributions in the following manner, "In life he was one of the city's staunchest friends. No labor in her interests was too arduous for him to undertake, no expense for her welfare or promotion too great for him too assume. Numerous monuments to his far-seeing sagacity exist to-day and will exist for centuries to come." Another source described Halliday by stating, "He is an effective worker, accomplishing more by action than a half dozen men might by talking."

In addition to the town, Halliday also named one of his steamboats the William P. Halliday. It was under the command of Sobieski Jolly and was mentioned in Mark Twain's papers. The boat was destroyed by fire on a Monday morning in February 1884 while it was next to the St. Louis City wharf.

In 1895, Halliday and other leading men were appointed to the first set of officers to direct the Ohio Valley Improvement Association. The primary purpose of the organization was to be the collection, preparation, and presentation to the United States Congress statistics and other information relating to commerce and navigation on the Ohio River. Halliday served as one of six vice presidents, and the sitting governor of West Virginia, Mac Corkle was present. The following year in 1896, Halliday was reelected as a vice president of the Ohio Valley Improvement Association at the second annual convention held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 1898, about one year before Halliday died, he and other merchants and businessmen in Cairo sponsored a boat race from Mound City, Illinois to Cairo, Illinois. The race offered a cash prize to the winner and was widely reported in the newspapers of towns and villages along the Ohio River. Halliday stood next to the Halliday House and shot a gun when the first boat crossed the finish line to announce to the crowd of people the winning boat. Halliday spent the last six months of his life residing in the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. He had been battling an illness during his stay in Chicago and died from the condition. At his death he was reputed to be worth from \$3,000,000 to \$4,000,000. Based on inflation from 1899 to 2012, \$4,000,000 is the money equivalent to approx \$108,649,539 today. After Halliday's death in 1899, his estate left the Cairo Public Library \$5,000, to be used to expand the collection of rare and fine edition books. Halliday had served as president of the library board. In 1906, Halliday's daughter Mary presented the Hewer to the city of Cairo in honor of her father. The Hewer is a historic bronze nude by George Grey Barnard that was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair and was considered to be one of the two best nudes in the United States.

Halliday and his wife, Eliza W. Halliday, separated from each other and had a legally binding separation agreement in force at the time of his death. His wife dissented from the terms of his will and instead took her dower rights under Illinois law, which at that time amounted to one third of all property and personalty in his estate. Soon after his wife was granted her dower rights, his wife and six children created the W. P. Halliday trust and funded it in 1900 with \$1,062,921.88 from Halliday's estate. In 1939 the estate was held to be an association, and tax deficiencies were levied against the trust beneficiaries for unpaid taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service. Over the course of time the trust was in existence the beneficiaries expanded the trust holdings through the purchase of stock, real estate, and businesses and the majority of these investments were very profitable.

Steamboat captain and developer in Cairo, Illinois

19th-century American railroad executives

20th-century American railroad executives