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Thurrock

Thurrock is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames immediately east of London and has over 18 mi of riverfront including the Port of Tilbury, the principal port for London. Thurrock is within the London commuter belt and is an area of regeneration within the Thames Gateway redevelopment zone. The borough includes the northern ends of the Dartford Crossing.

The local authority is Thurrock Council, based in Grays. The borough also includes Purfleet-on-Thames, South Ockendon, Stanford-le-Hope and Tilbury, as well as other villages and surrounding areas. More than half of the borough is designated as Green Belt.

The neighbouring districts are the London Borough of Havering, Brentwood, Basildon and Castle Point. On the opposite side of the Thames are Gravesham and Dartford in Kent.

History
Mammoths once grazed in the Thurrock area and archaeologists unearthed the remains of a jungle cat. Humans have lived in the area since prehistoric times and the land has been farmed by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons. Thurrock has numerous archaeological sites including the major excavation at Mucking. The name "Thurrock" is a Saxon name meaning "the bottom of a ship".

Horndon-on-the-Hill was the site of an 11th century mint as well as the 15th century woolmarket which gives an indication of the area's wealth in the 15th century. The narrowing of the river where Tilbury now stands meant it was important in the defence of London, and Henry VIII built three blockhouses, two on the Tilbury side and another on the Gravesend side of the river, following the end of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

In 1381, villagers from Fobbing, Mucking and Stanford-le-Hope instigated the Peasants' Revolt when they were called to Brentwood to pay the poll tax. When they refused to pay, a riot ensued which was the catalyst for a mass protest across Essex and Kent.

Later, in 1588 Elizabeth I addressed her troops not far from the Tilbury blockhouse as the Spanish Armada sailed up the English Channel. Between 1670 and 1682, the Tilbury blockhouse was substantially rebuilt into a much larger fortification (Tilbury Fort) and Coalhouse Fort was built further down river, close to the second blockhouse. The importance of the forts in defending the country continued through Napoleonic times and into the two world wars. The land where Tilbury Town now stands was farmland and marsh grazing until the building of the docks in the 1890s. Thurrock includes the Bata village, built for workers of the shoe company in 1933. Eight homes and the factory are listed. Historically, the area was renowned for mineral extraction, including clay, aggregates and notably the digging of huge amounts of chalk from the West Thurrock area for use in the now defunct cement industries. When chalk extraction ceased one of the disused pits was redeveloped as Lakeside Shopping Centre. A number of former pits have been used to form the Chafford Gorges Nature Reserve, managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.

Captain Kidd
The body of Captain Kidd was displayed in Thurrock. He had been convicted of piracy and hanged on 23 May 1701, at 'Execution Dock', Wapping. His body was gibbeted — left to hang in an iron cage over the Thames at Tilbury Point — as a warning to future would-be pirates for twenty years. Some sources give the location where his body was exhibited as Tilbury Ness, but this may be an alternative name for the same place. There is some uncertainty as to whether his body was displayed at what is now called Coalhouse Point or at a site a few hundred yards up stream, close to the present Tilbury Docks.

1953 Floods
On 31 January 1953, the low-lying areas of Thurrock were inundated by the North Sea flood of 1953. The Van den Berghs and Jurgens margarine factory, which manufactured Stork margarine, was forced to stop production for many months. Since the output of this factory constituted one third of the country's ration allocation, this led to a severe strain on the supply of margarine in the UK. Most schools in Thurrock were closed, either as a direct result of the flooding or in order to use them to help the relief effort. More than 1300 people in Tilbury and other low-lying areas were evacuated to schools on the higher ground. Chadwell St Mary Primary school was used as the main welfare centre for the homeless. By 15 February, most schools had returned to normal. The last to resume were the Landsdowne school in Tilbury and the newly opened Woodside Primary School – then called Tyrell Heath School. On Friday 13 February, the flooded areas were visited by the young Queen Elizabeth II Despite severe loss of life in nearby Canvey Island, only one person in Thurrock died as a result of the floods.

Heritage plaques
In 2002, a partnership between Thurrock Council, Thurrock Heritage Forum and the Thurrock Local History Society began an initiative to place heritage plaques marking the famous people, events and organisations associated with Thurrock. By September 2021 plaques included:
 * Joseph Conrad
 * Alice Mangold Diehl (Musician and Novelist, born in Aveley)
 * Dracula's connection to Purfleet
 * The arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury on 21 June 1948
 * The training ship Exmouth
 * The Kynoch factory in the Corringham marshes
 * The shooting down of Zeppelin L15 at Purfleet in 1916
 * Philip Vincent
 * Alfred Russel Wallace and his house at the Dell
 * Arthur Young
 * The establishment of the town of Tilbury in 1912
 * John Newton's connection with Aveley and Purfleet
 * Benjamin Franklin's connection with the design of a lightning conductor for the Purfleet gunpowder magazine
 * Henry de Grey, who gave his name to Grays
 * Kate Luard, the much decorated Boer War and First World War nurse

Administrative history
The borough has its origins in the Orsett Poor Law Union, which had been created in 1835 covering a group of 18 parishes in southern Essex. Poor Law Unions subsequently formed the basis for later local government structures, with the Orsett Rural Sanitary District created in 1872 covering the same area. The parish of Grays Thurrock was made its own urban sanitary district in 1886.

Urban and rural sanitary districts were converted into urban districts and rural districts in 1894. Two further urban districts were later created from parts of the Orsett Rural District: the Tilbury Urban District in 1912 covering the parish of Chadwell St Mary, and the Purfleet Urban District in 1929 covering the three parishes of Aveley, South Ockendon and West Thurrock.

After 1929 the area therefore comprised four district-level authorities: one rural district, containing 13 civil parishes, and three urban districts:
 * Grays Thurrock Urban District
 * Purfleet Urban District
 * Tilbury Urban District
 * Orsett Rural District, with its parishes being:
 * Bulphan
 * Corringham
 * East Tilbury
 * Fobbing
 * Horndon on the Hill
 * Langdon Hills
 * Little Thurrock
 * Mucking
 * North Ockendon
 * Orsett
 * Stanford-le-Hope
 * Stifford
 * West Tilbury

In 1936 the four districts were all abolished to create the Thurrock Urban District (subject to some minor boundary changes with surrounding areas, notably at North Ockendon). All the civil parishes within the area were merged at the same time to become a single parish called Thurrock.

The present-day borough of Thurrock was created in on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, covering almost the same area as the former Thurrock Urban District, which was abolished, with just a minor change on the border with Basildon to place the whole designated area for Basildon new town in that district. The civil parish of Thurrock was also abolished as part of the reforms and the area became an unparished area. The reformed Thurrock district was given borough status at the same time, allowing the chair of the council to take the title of mayor.

Until 1998 Thurrock was a lower-tier district authority, with Essex County Council providing county-level services. Thurrock was made a unitary authority on 1 April 1998, taking over the county-level services. Thurrock remains part of the ceremonial county of Essex for the purposes of lieutenancy.

Governance
There is only one tier of local government in Thurrock, being the unitary authority of Thurrock Council. There are no civil parishes in the borough, with the whole borough being an unparished area. The local authority is Thurrock Council. Elections are held in three years out of every four.

Wider politics
Thurrock is covered by two parliamentary constituencies. Thurrock includes most of the borough while South Basildon and East Thurrock includes some wards in the east of the borough.

Geography
Thurrock has a population of 175,500 people living in 90,500 homes. The Metropolitan Green Belt covers 70% of the borough. There are 494 acres of land available for industrial use. There are seven conservation areas, 19 scheduled monuments, including the dovecote at High House Purfleet, and 239 listed buildings.

The borough contains ten Sites of Special Scientific Interest:
 * Globe Pit, Grays
 * Grays Chalk Pit
 * Lion Pit, Grays
 * Purfleet Chalk Pits
 * West Thurrock Lagoon and Marshes
 * Inner Thames Marshes
 * Vange and Fobbing Marshes
 * Basildon Meadows
 * Mucking Flats and Marshes
 * Hangman's Wood and Deneholes

Despite much of the borough being protected Green Belt land, Thurrock provides localised opportunities for further industrial and commercial development. The borough forms part of the Thames Gateway regeneration area, a corridor of opportunity that has been identified by central government as the area with greatest development and commercial potential in the country. Thurrock Development Corporation took over much of the borough's planning functions from its creation in 2005 until its demise in March 2011.

Much of the population and commercial activity is centred along the riverfront. This includes many large and important industrial sites, including two large oil refineries, manufacturing industries, a container port, cruise liner terminal, distribution warehousing and one of Britain's largest refuse disposal sites at the appropriately named settlement of Mucking. Thurrock is also home to the Lakeside Shopping Centre.

Climate
Climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).

Demography
At the census of 2011, there were 157,705 people, 62,353 households and 45,985 families residing in the borough. The population density was 9.7 people per hectare. There were 63,869 housing units. The racial makeup of the borough was 86% White, 3.8% Asian, 7.8% Black, 2% Mixed Race, 0.6% other.

There were 62,353 households, out of which 30.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 72.7% were married couples living together, 52.5% of all households were made up of individuals, 10.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

The median age in the borough was 42. 25.5% of residents were under the age of 18; 7.3% of residents were between the ages of 19 and 24; 30.3% were from 25 to 44; 24.2% were from 45 to 64; and 38.2% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 49.3% male and 50.6% female.

Economy
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Thurrock at current basic prices published (pp. 240–253) by the Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Culture and film
Thurrock has been the scene of several major films. St Clement's Church and street scenes at West Thurrock were used in the making of the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Thurrock can also be seen in 28 Days Later. Scenes from the films Alfie (2004), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were shot at Tilbury docks. The opening scenes from Batman Begins (2005) were shot at Coalhouse Fort in East Tilbury. Some filming also took place for the film Essex Boys in and around the Bata estate at East Tilbury. The State Cinema, where Eddie met Roger in the classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit, can be found in Grays.

Art Deco architecture in Thurrock
There are a number of examples of Art Deco architecture in Thurrock. The baggage hall at Tilbury was opened in 1930. It has an art deco interior, designed by Sir Edwin Cooper and is a grade II listed building. The State cinema is also a listed building and dates from 1938. It is one of the few surviving examples of 1930s cinema architecture. It has the original cinema organ which can still be played. However, in the early 21st century the building became disused and faced dereliction. In September 2015 it was announced that J D Wetherspoon had bought the property for conversion to a public house.( Building of the Bata Shoes estate in East Tilbury was begun in 1933, and this is now a conservation area.JD Wetherspoon have since put the State Cinema building up for sale after announcing they would no longer be converting it to a public house January 2023

Chadwell St Mary has one of the few examples of a "Sunspan" house designed by the architect Wells Coates. Although built in the 1950s, Woodside Primary School's architecture has been described as the slightly earlier "ocean liner" style of Art Deco. The building features a number of bricked curves and circular windows, while the wrought-iron banisters on the stairs are deliberately set to lean out at an angle.

Attractions

There is one multiplex cinema attached to the Lakeside Shopping Centre, and the Thameside Theatre in Grays. Live shows are held at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet. Open space includes Chafford Gorges Nature Park, Langdon Hills Country Park and Grove House Wood, managed by Essex Wildlife Trust. Museums and historic buildings include Coalhouse Fort at East Tilbury, Tilbury Fort in Tilbury, Purfleet Heritage and Military Centre, High House, Purfleet with its historic farm buildings, the Royal Opera House's Bob and Tamar Manoukian Production Workshop, The Backstage Centre and ACME artists' studios, Thurrock Museum and Walton Hall Farm Museum.

Next to Lakeside Shopping Centre is Arena Essex, a former motor sports complex, where speedway, banger and stock car racing took place. This site is now to be redeveloped for housing.

Transport
Being on the river and close to London, Thurrock is served with good communication links. The M25 London Orbital Motorway, the railway line between Southend and London Fenchurch Street which provides direct access to Central London, the Port of Tilbury, and the nearby London City Airport make Thurrock an important international trade centre. There is a grass airstrip south of Bulphan village. A ferry for passengers on foot connects Tilbury with Gravesend on the southern bank of the River Thames.

Rail transport in the borough is provided by c2c with stations at:

 * Chafford Hundred railway station
 * East Tilbury railway station
 * Grays railway station
 * Ockendon railway station
 * Purfleet railway station
 * Stanford-le-Hope railway station
 * Tilbury Town railway station
 * West Horndon railway station (on northern boundary)

Bus services within the Thurrock urban area are mostly provided by Ensignbus.

 * Arriva has a depot at West Thurrock, but all of its work is Transport for London contracts and has only one route running into Thurrock, the 370.

Other operators are First Essex, Stagecoach London and NIBS Buses.

Education
Thurrock has 55 schools; 39 of them are primary schools, 13 are secondary, two are special and one is alternative. All but one have free school or academy status, with Grays Convent High School instead having voluntary aided status. Five schools, including Grays Convent High School and four primary schools, are Catholic faith schools while two primary schools are Anglican faith schools. 44 schools in Thurrock are operated by one of 13 multi-academy trusts, which include major chains such as the Harris Federation and Ormiston Trust and the country's first cooperative academy trust. Since 2007, all secondary schools in Thurrock have had specialist school status. Some schools, such as William Edwards School and Orsett Heath Academy, utilise their right as specialist schools to select 10% of their pupils in specialist subject aptitude every year.

Thurrock has no grammar schools, although Thurrock Council has tried to introduce them. Historically Thurrock had three grammar schools, Grays Thurrock School, Palmer's School for Boys and Palmer's School for Girls. In 1931, the Palmer's schools became public schools with boarding, reverting back to grammar school status in 1944 under voluntary control. Grays Convent High School was an independent day school from its formation until 1969. There were also two selective secondary technical schools, Grays County Technical High School which is now an academy status comprehensive and Aveley County Technical High School, which merged with the Palmer's schools in 1971 to form Palmer's College.

Palmer's College, now one half of USP College, is Thurrock's local sixth form college for generalised further education, whilst the Thurrock Campus of South Essex College is the local sixth form college for vocational education. Palmer's also offers courses at higher education. Other institutions of further education in Thurrock include the Thurrock Adult Community College, Osborne Sixth Form and Ortu Sixth Form Centre Stanford & Corringham.

Partnerships
The Tilbury and Chadwell St Mary Excellence Cluster brought together Chadwell St Mary Primary School, ORTU Corringham Primary School, Grays Convent High School, Hassenbrook Academy, Herringham Primary School, Landsdowne Primary School, Manor Infant School, Manor Junior School, St Mary's RC Primary School, Woodside Primary School and The Gateway Academy. Senior members of the schools' councils also sat on the cluster's student council before its dissolution.

ORTU Gable Hall School has had a long partnership with Pro Arte Alphen Park School in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa for almost 10 years – the two schools have held exchange programmes with each other and the students sampling life in each other's respective countries.

Woodside Primary is linked with a school in Nepal, through the charity Gorkha Learning for Life, which was founded by a member of school staff.

Television
Thurrock is served by BBC London and ITV London with television signals are received from Crystal Palace TV transmitter, BBC South East and ITV Meridian can also be received from Bluebell Hill TV transmitter.

Radio
Radio stations that broadcast to the area are:
 * BBC Essex
 * BBC Radio London can also be heard
 * BBC Radio Kent can also be heard
 * Heart Essex
 * Radio Essex
 * Time 107.5
 * Gateway 97.8, a community based station

Newspapers
The area is served by these local newspapers:
 * The Thurrock Gazette
 * The Evening Echo

Sport and leisure
Thurrock has several Non-League football clubs in the area:
 * Tilbury F.C. the oldest surviving football club in Thurrock having been formed in 1889. They have played at Chadfields since 1947.
 * Thurrock F.C. which played at Ship Lane and was dissolved in 2018
 * Aveley F.C. which plays at Parkside
 * Grays Athletic F.C. which played in at the New Recreation Ground in central Grays until 2010, but now plays at Parkside
 * East Thurrock United F.C. which plays at Rookery Hill

Thurrock Yacht Club is based in the centre of Grays on the Thames foreshore. It offers a range of competitive and recreational boating opportunities.

List of places in the borough

 * Aveley
 * Bulphan
 * Chadwell St Mary
 * Chafford Hundred
 * Corringham
 * Coryton Refinery
 * East Tilbury
 * Fobbing
 * Grays
 * Horndon-on-the-Hill
 * Linford
 * Little Thurrock
 * Mucking
 * Orsett
 * Purfleet-on-Thames
 * Shell Haven
 * South Ockendon
 * Stanford-le-Hope
 * Stifford
 * Thames Haven
 * Thurrock Village
 * Tilbury
 * West Thurrock

Historic buildings

 * Coalhouse Fort
 * St Clement's Church
 * The State Cinema
 * Tilbury Fort
 * The Woolmarket, Horndon
 * Palmer's College
 * Orsett Hall
 * St Peter & St Paul’s Church, Grays

Freedom of the Borough
The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Borough of Thurrock.

Individuals

 * Dorothy Coker: 26 September 2001.
 * Reverend John Guest: 30 September 2021.
 * Canon Brian O’Shea: 30 September 2021.
 * Father Paul Dynan: 30 September 2021.
 * The Reverend Canon Darren Barlow: 31 January 2024.

Military Units

 * 215 (Essex) Squadron, RLC: 28 June 1986.
 * The Royal Anglian Regiment: 18 July 1990.
 * The Port of Tilbury Police: 25 September 2002.
 * The Burma Star Association (Thurrock Branch): 26 November 2008.

title: Thurrock


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Halloween costume

Halloween costumes are costumes worn on Halloween, an annual celebration on October 31.

Description
Halloween costumes are traditionally based on frightening supernatural or folkloric beings. However, by the 1930s, costumes based on characters from mass media such as film, literature, and radio gained popularity. Halloween costumes have tended to be worn mainly by young people but since the mid-20th century, they have been increasingly worn by adults as well.

An early reference to wearing costumes on Halloween comes from Scotland in 1585. There are many references to the custom during the 18th and 19th centuries in the Celtic countries of Scotland, Ireland, Mann, and Wales. It has been suggested that the custom comes from the Celtic festivals of Samhain and Calan Gaeaf, or from the practice of "souling" during the Christian observance of Allhallowtide. The Christian tradition of acknowledging the danse macabre is also suggested as the origin of dressing up on Halloween. Dressing up is not strictly restricted to Halloween among Christians, with similar practices being observed on holidays like Christmas.

History of Halloween costumes
The fun, enjoyable festivities of wearing costumes on Halloween were believed to be from the idea that paranormal beings and souls from the underworld drifted the earth at this time. The practice may have originated in a Celtic festival held on 31 October to mark the beginning of winter. It was called Samhain in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, and Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. The festival is believed to have pre-Christian roots. After the Christianization of Ireland in the 5th century, some of these customs may have been retained in the Christian observance of All Hallows' Eve in that region—which continued to be called Samhain/Calan Gaeaf—blending the traditions of their ancestors with Christian ones. It was seen as a liminal time when the spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí) and the souls of the dead could more easily come into our world. It was believed that the Aos Sí needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter.

From at least the 16th century, the festival included mumming and guising, which involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them. It is suggested that the mummers and guisers "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune". F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient pagan festival included people wearing masks or costumes to represent the spirits, and that faces were marked (or blackened) with ashes taken from the sacred bonfire. In parts of southern Ireland, a man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses—some of which had pagan overtones—in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune. In 19th century England, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted, or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed. In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod, while in some places, young people cross-dressed. Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and costumes were part of other yearly festivals. However, in the Celtic-speaking regions, they were "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers".

It has also been suggested that the wearing of Halloween costumes developed from the custom of souling, which was practiced by Christians in parts of Western Europe from at least the 15th century. At Allhallowtide, groups of poor people would go door-to-door, collecting soul cakes – either as representatives of the dead or in return for saying prayers for them. One 19th-century English writer said it "used to consist of parties of children, dressed up in fantastic costume, who went round to the farmhouses and cottages, singing a song, and begging for cakes (spoken of as "Soal-cakes"), apples, money, or anything that the good wives would give them". The soulers typically asked for "mercy on all Christian souls for a soul cake". Shakespeare mentioned the practice in his play The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593). Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh wrote on the wearing of costumes: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. To avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities". In the Middle Ages, statues and relics of martyred saints were paraded through the streets at Allhallowtide. Some churches that could not afford these things had people dress as saints instead. Some believers continue the practice of dressing as saints, biblical figures, and reformers in Halloween celebrations today. Many Christians in continental Europe, especially in France, believed that on Halloween, "the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival," known as the danse macabre, which has often been depicted in church decoration. An article published by Christianity Today claimed the danse macabre was enacted at village pageants and court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society" and suggested this was the origin of Halloween costume parties.

The custom of guising at Halloween in North America was first recorded in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood. In 19th century America, Halloween was often celebrated with costume parades and "licentious revelries." However, efforts were made to "domesticate" the festival to conform with Victorian era morality. Halloween was made into a private rather than public holiday, celebrations involving liquor and sensuality de-emphasized, and only children were expected to celebrate the festival. Early Halloween costumes emphasized the gothic nature of Halloween and were aimed primarily at children. Costumes were also made at home or using items (such as make-up) that could be purchased and utilized to create a costume. But in the 1930s, A.S. Fishbach, Ben Cooper, Inc., and other firms began mass-producing Halloween costumes for sale in stores as trick-or-treating became popular in North America. Halloween costumes are often designed to imitate supernatural and scary beings. Costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, skeletons, witches, goblins, trolls, devils, etc., or in more recent years, such science fiction-inspired characters as aliens and superheroes. There are also costumes of pop culture figures like presidents, athletes, celebrities, or characters in film, television, literature, etc. Another popular trend is for women (and, in some cases, men) to use Halloween as an excuse to wear sexy or revealing costumes, showing off more skin than would be socially acceptable otherwise. Young girls often dress as entirely non-scary characters for Halloween, including princesses, fairies, angels, cute animals, and flowers. Halloween costume parties generally take place on or around October 31, often on the Friday or Saturday before the holiday. Halloween parties are the 3rd most popular party type held in the United States, falling behind only to Super Bowl and New Year's Eve parties.

Economics of Halloween costumes
Researchers surveyed for the National Retail Federation in the United States and found that 53.3% of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up $10 from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.3 billion the previous year. The troubled economy has caused many Americans to cut back on Halloween spending. In 2009, the National Retail Federation anticipated that American households would decrease Halloween spending by as much as 15% to $56.31. In 2013, Americans spent an estimated $6.9 billion to celebrate Halloween, including a predicted $2.6 billion on costumes (with more spent on adult costumes than for children's costumes) and $330 million on pet costumes. In 2017, it was estimated that Americans would spend $9.1 billion on Halloween merchandise with $3.4 billion of that towards Halloween costumes. Another survey by NRF showed that 67% of Halloween shoppers would buy Halloween costumes, spending $3.2 billion in 2019. It was estimated that the Halloween spending in 2022 would reach $10.6 billion.

Criticism of Halloween costumes
Halloween costumes in the contemporary Western world sometimes depict people and things from present times and are sometimes read in terms of their political and cultural significance. Halloween costumes are sometimes denounced for cultural appropriation when they uncritically use stereotypical representations of other groups of people such as gypsies and Native Americans. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Secretary Julie Myers was involved in a scandal when she awarded "Best Costume" at the ICE Halloween party to an 'escaped Jamaican prisoner' dressed in dreadlocks and blackface.

Sexism
Halloween costumes can also generate controversy through the overt sexualization of many women's costumes, even those intended for young girls. While costumes of various occupations like student, police officer, academia, clergy, or nursing do exist for men, they are often at least relatively accurate to the clothing a man employed in any of the fields would wear. Costumes for women are often far from what would be considered accurate of the clothing worn by women in those fields and focus on the sexualization of the wearer and often the concept portrayed.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Halloween costume


text:
Dolley Madison

Dolley Todd Madison (née Payne; May 20, 1768 – July 12, 1849) was the wife of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. She was noted for holding Washington social functions in which she invited members of both political parties, essentially spearheading the concept of bipartisan cooperation. Previously, founders such as Thomas Jefferson would only meet with members of one party at a time, and politics could often be a violent affair resulting in physical altercations and even duels. Madison helped to create the idea that members of each party could amicably socialize, network, and negotiate with each other without violence. By innovating political institutions as the wife of James Madison, Dolley Madison did much to define the role of the President's spouse, known only much later by the title First Lady—a function she had sometimes performed earlier for the widowed Thomas Jefferson.

Madison also helped to furnish the newly constructed White House. When the British set fire to it in 1814, she was credited with saving Gilbert Stuart's classic 1796 portrait of George Washington; she directed her personal slave Paul Jennings to save it. In widowhood, she often lived in poverty aggravated by her son John Payne Todd's alcoholism and mismanagement of their Montpelier plantation. To relieve her debts, she sold off the plantation, its remaining enslaved people, and her late husband's papers.

Surveys of historians conducted periodically by the Siena College Research Institute since 1982 have consistently found Madison to rank among the six most highly regarded first ladies by the assessments of historians.

Early life and first marriage (1768–1793)
Madison was born as Dolley Payne on May 20, 1768, in a log cabin in New Garden, Guilford County (present-day Greensboro), North Carolina, to Mary Coles and John Payne Jr. Her parents had married in 1761, uniting two prominent Virginian families. Little is known about the family's life before 1793, when Madison was 25, because few documents have survived; Madison's earliest known letter dates to 1783. Mary Coles was from a Quaker family and two years after their marriage the couple applied for membership in the Cedar Creek meeting. The application was considered for a very lengthy time before they were admitted in 1765. He would become a fervent member of the faith. The family had moved to New Garden, a Quaker community, in 1765. Madison was the family's third child and first daughter. The family had an enslaved nursemaid.

In early 1769, the Paynes returned to Virginia for reasons that are unclear. Historians Catherine Allgor and Richard N. Côté have speculated in their biographical works on her that the family may have wanted to return to their extended family, become uncomfortable with the religion, faced local opposition, or failed at farming or business. Madison would later downplay her North Carolina birth, claiming herself to be a Virginian born when visiting an uncle in North Carolina. The family returned to Cedar Creek, where within four years they had moved at least twice. They eventually settled on a 176 acre farm several miles outside of Scotchtown. Madison grew up on the farm, working the land with the rest of her family. She was given a strict Quaker upbringing and education, which Côté describes her as "chafing" under.

Madison grew close to her extended family in the area. She had three younger sisters (Lucy, Anna, and Mary) and four brothers (Walter, William Temple, Isaac, and John), two of whom were younger. Her father did not participate in the American Revolutionary War, as his faith practiced pacifism, and Allgor writes that Madison was seemingly little affected by it. By 1783 John Payne had emancipated his enslaved people, as did numerous slaveholders in the Upper South. Payne, as a Quaker, had long encouraged manumission, but the act was not legal in Virginia until 1782.

When Madison was 15, Payne moved his family to Philadelphia, at the time the second largest American city. They lived at 57 North Third Street, and transferred to the local Northern District Meeting. While living there, Madison often visited Haddonfield, New Jersey, where many Quakers lived. She also met Eliza Collins and Dorothea Abrahams in Philadelphia, with whom she became lifelong friends. During her early years, Payne likely received formal education, though it is not known what this was. Allgor concludes that it was likely better than most Americans at the time, while Côté notes that it was probably "no more than a basic" one. Madison grew into a young woman who Côté writes was described "as one of the fairest of the fair".

Upon the family's move to Philadelphia, John had attempted to build a career as a starch manufacturer, but the business failed in 1789. This was seen as a "weakness" at his Quaker meetings, for which he was expelled. He was devastated by this failure and died on October 24, 1792. Mary Payne initially made ends meet by opening her home as a boardinghouse beginning in 1791. Before his death, John had arranged Madison's marriage to John Todd, a Philadelphia lawyer. According to Allgor, Madison had rejected marriage with Todd previously and John's marriage arrangement was "manipulation". Conversely, Côté considers their marriage to have been "for love, not just duty". They were married on January 7, 1790, at a Quaker meeting house. Madison's friend Eliza Collins was her bridesmaid. The couple moved several blocks away into a high-quality neighborhood.

Marriage and family
Madison and Todd had two sons, John Payne (called Payne, born February 29, 1792) and William Temple (born July 4, 1793). According to Allgor, their marriage grew into a "a loving happy partnership." Madison's sister Anna Payne moved in with them.

In August 1793, a yellow fever epidemic broke out in Philadelphia, killing 5,019 people in four months. Madison was hit particularly hard, losing her husband, son William, mother-in-law, and father-in-law. Two of her older brothers died just two years later, and Côté writes that she was "never fully recovered" from the emotional toll of these deaths.

While undergoing the loss of much of her family, she also had to take care of her surviving son without financial support. While her husband had left her money in his will, the executor, her brother-in-law, withheld the funds and she sued him for what she was owed. Aaron Burr, who had once stayed at the boarding house of Madison's mother, assisted her in these efforts, offering legal advice. In a will, written around that time, Burr was named the guardian of Madison's only surviving child.

Second marriage (1794–1800)

Madison, at the time named Dolley Todd, soon met James Madison. Their relationship was facilitated by Aaron Burr, a longtime friend of Madison. In May 1794, Burr made the formal introduction between the young widow and Madison, who at 43 was a longstanding bachelor 17 years her senior. A brisk courtship followed and, by August, Dolley Madison accepted his marriage proposal. As he was not a Quaker, she was expelled from the Society of Friends for marrying outside her faith, after which Dolley Madison began attending Episcopal services. Despite her Quaker upbringing, there is no evidence that she disapproved of James as a slaveholder. They were married on September 15, 1794, and lived in Philadelphia for the next three years.

In 1797, after eight years in the House of Representatives, James Madison retired from politics. He returned with his family to Montpelier, the Madison family plantation in Orange County, Virginia. There they expanded the house and settled in. When Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third president of the United States in 1800, he asked James Madison to serve as his secretary of state. James Madison accepted and moved with Dolley Madison, her son Payne, her sister Anna, and their domestic enslaved people to Washington on F Street. They took a large house, as Dolley Madison believed that entertaining would be important in the new capital.

In Washington (1801–1817)
Madison worked with the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe to furnish the White House, the first official residence built for the president of the United States. She sometimes served as widower Jefferson's hostess for official ceremonial functions. Madison would become a crucial part of the Washington social circle, befriending the wives of numerous diplomats like Sarah Martinez de Yrujo, wife of the ambassador of Spain, and Marie-Angelique Turreau, the wife of the French ambassador. Her charm precipitated a diplomatic crisis, called the Merry Affair, after Jefferson escorted Madison to the dining room instead of the wife of Anthony Merry, English diplomat to the U.S., in a major faux pas.

In the approach to the 1808 presidential election, with Thomas Jefferson ready to retire, the Democratic-Republican caucus nominated James Madison to succeed him. He was elected the fourth President of the United States, serving two terms from 1809 to 1817, and Madison became the official White House hostess. Madison had often been the unofficial hostess at the White House during Jefferson's presidency. While the term "first lady" was not yet in use, Madison's role as hostess became official when her own husband assumed the presidency. Madison helped to define the official functions, decorated the Executive Mansion, and welcomed visitors in her drawing room. She was renowned for her social graces and hospitality, and contributed to her husband's popularity as president. She was the only First Lady given an honorary seat on the floor of Congress, and the first American to respond to a telegraph message. In 1812, James was re-elected. Later that year, he delivered a war request to Congress, signalling the beginning of the War of 1812.

Burning of Washington (1814)
After the United States declared war in 1812 and attempted to invade Canada in 1813, a British force attacked Washington in 1814. As it approached and the White House staff hurriedly prepared to flee, Madison ordered Paul Jennings, her personal enslaved servant, to save the Stuart painting, a copy of the Lansdowne portrait, of George Washington. She wrote in a letter to her sister at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of August 23:

"Our kind friend Mr. Carroll has come to hasten my departure, and in a very bad humor with me, because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. The process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken and the canvas taken out ... It is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen from New York for safe keeping. On handing the canvas to the gentlemen in question, Messrs. Barker and Depeyster, Mr. Sioussat cautioned them against rolling it up, saying that it would destroy the portrait. He was moved to this because Mr. Barker started to roll it up for greater convenience for carrying."

Popular accounts during and after the war years tended to portray Madison as the one who removed the painting, and she became a national heroine. An 1865 memoir by Jennings stated that she had ordered him to save the painting, and that Jean Pierre Sioussat and a gardener, McGraw, were the ones to remove it from the wall. Early twentieth-century historians noted that Sioussat had directed the servants, many of whom were enslaved people, in the crisis, and that they were the ones who actually preserved the painting.

Dolley Madison hurried away in her waiting carriage, along with other families fleeing the city. They went to Georgetown and the next day they crossed over the Potomac into Virginia. When the couple returned to Washington, the White House was uninhabitable and Dolley and James Madison moved into The Octagon House.

In Montpelier (1817–1837)

On April 6, 1817, a month after his retirement from the presidency, Dolley and James Madison returned to the Montpelier plantation in Orange County, Virginia.

In 1830, Madison's son Payne Todd, who had never found a career, went to debtors' prison in Philadelphia and the Madisons sold land in Kentucky and mortgaged half of the Montpelier plantation to pay his debts.

James died at Montpelier on June 28, 1836. He was 85 years old. Madison remained at Montpelier for a year. Her niece Anna Payne moved in with her, and Todd came for a lengthy stay. During this time, Madison organized and copied her husband's papers. Congress authorized $55,000 as payment for editing and publishing seven volumes of the Madison papers, including his unique notes on the 1787 convention.

In the fall of 1837, Madison returned to Washington, charging Todd with the care of the plantation. She and her sister Anna moved into a house, bought by Anna and her husband Richard Cutts, on Lafayette Square. Madison took Paul Jennings with her as a butler, and he was forced to leave his wife and children in Virginia.

In Washington (1837–1849)

While Dolley Madison was living in Washington, Payne Todd was unable to manage the plantation, due to alcoholism and related illness. She tried to raise money by selling the rest of the president's papers, but was unable to find a buyer. Jennings attempted to negotiate purchasing his freedom; she had previously written a will in 1841 which would free Jennings after her death, though not her other slaves. She instead sold him to an insurance agent for $200 (~$ in ) in 1846. Six months later, Senator Daniel Webster intervened to buy him from the new owner and gave Jennings his freedom, for which he repaid the senator in work. Madison sold Montpelier, its remaining enslaved people, and the furnishings to pay off outstanding debts. Jennings later recalled in his memoir,

"In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her."

In 1848, Congress agreed to buy the rest of James Madison's papers for the sum of $22,000 or $25,000.

In 1845, Dolley Madison was baptized into St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.

On February 28, 1844, Madison was with President John Tyler while aboard the USS Princeton when a "Peacemaker" cannon exploded in the process of being fired. While Secretaries of State and Navy Abel P. Upshur and Thomas Walker Gilmer, Tyler's future father-in-law David Gardiner and three others were killed, Tyler and Madison escaped unharmed.

She was photographed on at least two occasions, making her the earliest First Lady to have a surviving photograph, with four daguerreotypes known to survive as of 2021. Three photographs were taken on July 4, 1848, including one featuring her niece, Anna Payne; the final one was taken in 1849, featuring President James Polk, his wife Sarah Polk, future President James Buchanan and future First Lady Harriet Lane.

Dolley Madison died at her home in Washington in 1849, at the age of 81. She was first buried in the Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C., but later was re-interred at Montpelier next to her husband. She was buried in an air-tight Fisk metallic burial case with a glass window plate for viewing the face of the deceased.

Honors
During World War II the Liberty ship SS Dolly Madison was built in Panama City, Florida, and named in her honor.

Madison was a member of the inaugural class of Virginia Women in History in 2000.

Spelling of her name
In the past, biographers and others stated that her given name was Dorothea, after her aunt, or Dorothy, and that Dolley was a nickname. But her birth was registered with the New Garden Friends Meeting as Dolley, and her will of 1841 states "I, Dolly P. Madison". Based on manuscript evidence and the scholarship of recent biographers, Dollie, spelled "ie", appears to have been her given name at birth. On the other hand, the print press, especially newspapers, tended to spell it "Dolly": for example, the Hallowell (Maine) Gazette, February 8, 1815, p. 4, refers to how the Congress had allowed "Madame Dolly Madison" an allowance of $14,000 to purchase new furniture; and the New Bedford (MA) of March 3, 1837, p. 2 referred to a number of important papers from her late husband, and said that "Mrs. Dolly Madison" would be paid by the Senate for these historical manuscripts. Several magazines of that time also used the "Dolly" spelling, such as The Knickerbocker, February 1837, p. 165; as did many popular magazines of the 1860s–1890s. She was referred to as "Mistress Dolly" in an essay from Munsey's Magazine in 1896. Her grandniece Lucia Beverly Cutts, in her Memoirs and letters of Dolly Madison: wife of James Madison, president of the United States (1896) uses "Dolly" consistently throughout.

Representation in other media

 * Cecil B. DeMille, The Buccaneer, 1938 film, played by Spring Byington
 * Irving Stone, Magnificent Doll (1946), film directed by Frank Borzage, Universal Pictures, played by Ginger Rogers
 * Brown, Rita Mae, Dolley: A Novel of Dolley Madison in Love and War, New York: Bantam Books, 1994; reprint (Presidential Wives Series), Huntington, NY: Nova History Publications, 2001
 * 1999 Dolley Madison silver dollar, made to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Dolley Madison’s death

Legacy

 * In 2024, the National Portrait Gallery obtained a daguerreotype of Dolley Madison, taken about 1846 by John Plumbe Jr., that is the earliest known photograph of any U.S. First Lady.
 * Virginia State Route 123 is named Dolley Madison Boulevard from McLean, Virginia to George Washington Memorial Parkway.

Regard by historians
Since 1982 Siena College Research Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. Consistently, Madison has ranked among the six-most highly regarded first ladies in these surveys. In terms of cumulative assessment, Madison has been ranked:
 * 4th-best of 42 in 1982
 * 4th-best of 37 in 1993
 * 3rd-best of 38 in 2003
 * 6th-best of 38 in 2008
 * 4th-best of 39 in 2014

In the 2008 Siena Research Institute survey, Madison was ranked in the top-four of all criteria, ranking the 4th-highest in value to the country and 5th-highest in public image. In the 2014 survey, Madison and her husband were ranked the 5th-highest out of 4th first couples in terms of being a "power couple".

title: Dolley Madison


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Deliverance

Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film produced and directed by John Boorman, and starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox, with the latter two making their feature film debuts. The screenplay was adapted by James Dickey from his 1970 novel of the same name. The film was a critical and box office success, earning three Academy Award nominations and five Golden Globe Award nominations.

Widely acclaimed as a landmark picture, the film is noted for a music scene near the beginning, with one of the city men playing "Dueling Banjos" on guitar with a banjo-picking country boy. It is also notorious for its brutal depiction of a sodomous rape. In 2008, Deliverance was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot
Four Atlanta businessmen—Lewis Medlock, Ed Gentry, Bobby Trippe, and Drew Ballinger—decide to canoe down a river in the remote northern Georgia wilderness before it is dammed. Lewis, an avid outdoorsman, is the leader; Ed has been on several trips but lacks Lewis's ego, while Bobby and Drew are novices. En route to their launch site, the men, in particular Bobby, are rude toward the locals, who are hostile to the "city boys". At a local gas station, Drew, with his guitar, engages a young banjo-playing boy in a musical duel. The duel is mutually enjoyable, and some of the locals break into dance at the sound of it. However, the boy does not acknowledge Drew when prompted for a friendly handshake.

The four friends travel in pairs and their two canoes become separated. Ed and Bobby encounter a pair of mountain men emerging from the woods, one carrying a shotgun and missing two front teeth. Following an argument, Bobby is forced by the men to undress and the unarmed man rapes him, demanding he "squeal like a pig", while Ed is tied to a tree and held at gunpoint. Lewis sneaks up and kills the rapist using his bow and arrow; Ed retrieves the gun and the other mountain man flees into the woods. After a heated debate between Lewis and Drew, Ed and Bobby vote to side with Lewis's plan to bury the body and continue on as if nothing had happened. The four continue downriver but the canoes reach a dangerous stretch of rapids. As Drew and Ed reach the rapids in the lead canoe, Drew falls into the water.

The canoes collide on the rocks, throwing the three remaining men into the river. One of the canoes is smashed. Lewis breaks his femur and the others are washed ashore alongside him in a gorge. Lewis, who believes Drew has been shot, encourages Ed to climb to the top of the gorge and ambush the other mountain man, whom they believe to be stalking them from above. Ed reaches an overhang and hides out until morning, when a man appears above him with a rifle; Ed clumsily shoots and manages to kill him, but falls backwards, stabbing himself with one of his own arrows in the process. The dead man seemingly has all his teeth, but on closer inspection, is revealed to be wearing dentures. Ed and Bobby weigh down the body in the river to ensure it will never be found, and when they encounter Drew's body downriver, they do the same.

Upon finally reaching the small town of Aintry, they take Lewis to the hospital. The men carefully concoct a cover story for the authorities about Drew's death, lying about their adventure to Sheriff Bullard in order to escape a possible double murder charge. The sheriff does not believe them, but has no evidence to arrest them and tells the men to not do this kind of thing again and to never come back. The trio vow to keep their story of death and survival a secret for the rest of their lives.

Some time after, a bloated hand rises from the lake - only to be revealed as a nightmare from the experience that has tormented Ed.

Cast

 * Jon Voight as Ed Gentry
 * Burt Reynolds as Lewis Medlock
 * Ned Beatty as Bobby Trippe
 * Ronny Cox as Drew Ballinger
 * Bill McKinney as Mountain Man
 * Herbert "Cowboy" Coward as Toothless Man
 * James Dickey as Sheriff Bullard
 * Billy Redden as Lonnie, the banjo boy
 * Macon McCalman as Deputy Queen, whose brother-in-law is missing

Ned Beatty's wife, Belinda Beatty, and director John Boorman's son, Charley Boorman, have brief appearances as the wife and young child of Jon Voight's character.

Production
Deliverance was shot primarily in Rabun County in northeastern Georgia. The canoe scenes were filmed in the Tallulah Gorge southeast of Clayton and on the Chattooga River. This river divides the northeastern corner of Georgia from the northwestern corner of South Carolina. Additional scenes were shot in Salem, South Carolina. Filming took place from May to August 1971.

A scene was also shot at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church cemetery. This site has since been flooded and lies 130 feet under the surface of Lake Jocassee, on the border between Oconee and Pickens counties in South Carolina. The dam shown under construction is Jocassee Dam near Salem, South Carolina.

During the filming of the canoe scene, author James Dickey showed up inebriated and entered into a bitter argument with producer-director John Boorman, who had rewritten Dickey's script. They allegedly had a brief fistfight in which Boorman, a much smaller man than Dickey, suffered a broken nose and four shattered teeth. Dickey was thrown off the set, but no charges were filed against him. The two reconciled and became good friends, and Boorman gave Dickey a cameo role as the sheriff at the end of the film.

The inspiration for the Cahulawassee River was the Coosawattee River, which was dammed in the 1970s and contained several dangerous whitewater rapids before being flooded by Carters Lake.

Casting
Casting was by Lynn Stalmaster. Dickey had initially wanted Sam Peckinpah to direct the film. Dickey also wanted Gene Hackman to portray Ed Gentry whereas Boorman wanted Lee Marvin to play the role. Boorman also wanted Marlon Brando to play Lewis Medlock. Jack Nicholson was considered for the role of Ed, while both Donald Sutherland and Charlton Heston turned down the role of Lewis. Other actors who were considered for the film included Robert Redford, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott and Warren Beatty.

Stunts
The film is infamous for the cost cutting by the studio in an effort to kill it and having the actors perform their own stunts, such as Jon Voight notably climbing the cliff himself. Reynolds requested to have one scene re-shot with himself in a canoe rather than a dummy as it tumbled over a real waterfall. Reynolds recalled his shoulder and head hitting rocks and floating downstream with all of his clothes torn off, then waking up with director Boorman at his bedside. Reynolds asked "How'd it look?" and Boorman said, "It looked like a dummy falling over a waterfall." Beatty almost drowned and Reynolds cracked his tailbone.

Regarding the courage of the four main actors in the movie performing their own stunts without insurance protection, Dickey was quoted as saying all of them "had more guts than a burglar". In a nod to their stunt-performing audacity, early in the movie Lewis says, "Insurance? I've never been insured in my life. I don't believe in insurance. There's no risk".

"Squeal like a pig"
Several people have been credited with the phrase "squeal like a pig", the now-famous line spoken during the graphic rape scene. Ned Beatty said he thought of it while he and actor Bill McKinney (who played Beatty's rapist) were improvising the scene. James Dickey's son, Christopher Dickey, wrote in his memoir about the film production, Summer of Deliverance, that because Boorman had rewritten so much dialogue for the scene one of the crewmen suggested that Beatty's character should just "squeal like a pig". Boorman, in a DVD commentary he made for the film said the line was used because the studio wanted the male rape scene to be filmed in two ways: one for cinematic release and one that would be acceptable for television. As Boorman did not want to do that, he decided that the phrase "squeal like a pig", suggested by Rabun County liaison Frank Rickman, was a good replacement for the original dialogue in the script. Reynolds later recalled the scene as so uncomfortable cameramen avoided watching, and Reynolds opted to interrupt the filming. Reynolds said, "I asked John Boorman, the director, 'Why did you let it go that long?' He said, 'I wanted to take it as far as I could with the audience, and I figured you'd run in when it got too far.'"

Soundtrack and copyright dispute
The film's soundtrack brought new attention to the musical work "Dueling Banjos", which had been recorded numerous times since 1955. Only Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel were originally credited for the piece. The onscreen credits state that the song is an arrangement of the song "Feudin' Banjos", showing Combine Music Corp as the copyright owner. Songwriter and producer Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, who had written "Feudin' Banjos" in 1955, and recorded it with five-string banjo player Don Reno, filed a lawsuit for songwriting credit and a percentage of royalties. He was awarded both in a landmark copyright infringement case. Smith asked Warner Bros. to include his name on the official soundtrack listing, but reportedly asked to be omitted from the film credits because he found the film offensive.

Joe Boyd, who was producing the music for the movie Deliverance, offered "Duelling Banjos" to Bill Keith, but as Bill was travelling in Europe and wanted to visit a girl in Ireland, he turned it down suggesting Eric Weissberg instead.

No credit was given for the film score. The film has a number of sparse, brooding passages of music scattered throughout, including several played on a synthesizer. Some prints of the movie omit much of this extra music.

Boorman was given a gold record for the "Dueling Banjos" hit single; this was later stolen from his house by the Dublin gangster Martin Cahill. Boorman recreated this scene in The General (1998), his biographical film about Cahill.

Reception
Deliverance was a box office success in the United States, becoming the fifth-highest grossing film of 1972, with a domestic take of over $46 million. The film's financial success continued the following year, when it went on to earn $18 million in North American "distributor rentals" (receipts).

Critical reception
Deliverance was well received by critics and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1972. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 89% rating based on reviews from 65 critics, with an average rating of 8.40/10. The site's consensus states: "Given primal verve by John Boorman's unflinching direction and Burt Reynolds' star-making performance, Deliverance is a terrifying adventure."

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "It is a gripping horror story that at times may force you to look away from the screen, but it is so beautifully filmed that your eyes will eagerly return." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "an engrossing adventure, a demonstrable labor of love" carried by Voight and Reynolds. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film was "certainly a distinctive and gripping piece of work, with a deliberately brooding, ominous tone and visual style that put you in a grave, fearful frame of mind, almost in spite of yourself."

Not all reviews were positive. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a mixed 2.5 stars out of a possible 4. He declared the film was "admittedly effective on the level of simple adventure" and had good performances, particularly from Voight and Reynolds. However, Ebert also wrote Deliverance "totally fails [in] its attempt to make some kind of significant statement about its action [...] It's possible to consider civilized men in a confrontation with the wilderness without throwing in rapes, cowboy-and-Indian stunts and pure exploitative sensationalism."

Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote that the setting was "majestic" but it was "in the fleshing out that the script fumbles, and with it the direction and acting." Vincent Canby of The New York Times was also generally negative, calling the film "a disappointment" because "so many of Dickey's lumpy narrative ideas remain in his screenplay that John Boorman's screen version becomes a lot less interesting than it has any right to be."

"Dueling Banjos" won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance. The film was selected by The New York Times as one of The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, while the viewers of Channel 4 in the United Kingdom voted it #45 on a list of The 100 Greatest Films. Reynolds later called it "the best film I've ever been in". However, he stated that the rape scene went "too far".

American Film Institute lists

 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills—#15

Legacy
Following the film's release, Governor Jimmy Carter established a state film commission to encourage television and movie production in Georgia. The state has "become one of the top five production destinations in the U.S". Tourism increased to Rabun County by the tens of thousands after the film's release. By 2012, tourism was the largest source of revenue in the county, and rafting had developed as a $20 million industry in the region. Jon Voight's stunt double for this film, Claude Terry, later purchased equipment used in the movie from Warner Brothers. He founded a whitewater rafting adventure company on the Chattooga River, Southeastern Expeditions. Payson Kennedy, the stunt double for Ned Beatty, established the Nantahala Outdoor Center with his wife and Horace Holden along the Nantahala River in Swain County, North Carolina, in 1972, the same year that Deliverance was released.

title: Deliverance


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Musical instrument classification

In organology, the study of musical instruments, many methods of classifying instruments exist. Most methods are specific to a particular cultural group and were developed to serve that culture's musical needs. Culture-based classification methods sometimes break down when applied outside that culture. For example, a classification based on instrument use may fail when applied to another culture that uses the same instrument differently.

In the study of Western music, the most common classification method divides instruments into the following groups:
 * String instruments (often subdivided between plucked and bowed instruments);
 * Wind instruments (often subdivided between woodwinds and brass);
 * Percussion instruments; and
 * Electronic instruments

Classification criteria
The criteria for classifying musical instruments vary depending on the point of view, time, and place. The many various approaches examine aspects such as the physical properties of the instrument (shape, construction, material composition, physical state, etc.), the manner in which the instrument is played (plucked, bowed, etc.), the means by which the instrument produces sound, the quality or timbre of the sound produced by the instrument, the tonal and dynamic range of the instrument, the musical function of the instrument (rhythmic, melodic, etc.), and the instrument's place in an orchestra or other ensemble.

European and Western
2nd-century Greek grammarian, sophist, and rhetorician Julius Pollux, in the chapter called De Musica of his ten-volume Onomastikon, presented the two-class system, percussion (including strings) and winds, which persisted in medieval and postmedieval Europe. It was used by St. Augustine (4th and 5th centuries), in his De Ordine, applying the terms rhythmic (percussion and strings), organic (winds), and adding harmonic (the human voice); Isidore of Seville (6th to 7th centuries); Hugh of Saint Victor (12th century), also adding the voice; Magister Lambertus (13th century), adding the human voice as well; and Michael Praetorius (17th century).

The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion. It is of Greek origin (in the Hellenistic period, prominent proponents being Nicomachus and Porphyry). The scheme was later expanded by Martin Agricola, who distinguished plucked string instruments, such as guitars, from bowed string instruments, such as violins. Classical musicians today do not always maintain this division (although plucked strings are grouped separately from bowed strings in sheet music), but distinguish between wind instruments with a reed (woodwinds) and those where the air is set in motion directly by the lips (brass instruments).

Many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The serpent, for example, ought to be classified as a brass instrument, as a column of air is set in motion by the lips. However, it looks more like a woodwind instrument, and is closer to one in many ways, having finger-holes to control pitch, rather than valves.l.

Keyboard instruments do not fit easily into this scheme. For example, the piano has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. For this reason, keyboard instruments are often regarded as inhabiting a category of their own, including all instruments played by a keyboard, whether they have struck strings (like the piano), plucked strings (like the harpsichord) or no strings at all (like the celesta).

It might be said that with these extra categories, the classical system of instrument classification focuses less on the fundamental way in which instruments produce sound, and more on the technique required to play them.

Various names have been assigned to these three traditional Western groupings:
 * Boethius (5th and 6th centuries) labelled them intensione ut nervis, spiritu ut tibiis ("breath in the tube"), and percussione;
 * Cassiodorus, a younger contemporary of Boethius, used the names tensibilia, percussionalia, and inflatilia;
 * Roger Bacon (13th century) dubbed them tensilia, inflativa, and percussionalia;
 * Ugolino da Orvieto (14th and 15th centuries) called them intensione ut nervis, spiritu ut tibiis, and percussione;
 * Sebastien de Brossard (1703) referred to them as enchorda or entata (but only for instruments with several strings), pneumatica or empneousta, and krusta (from the Greek for hit or strike) or pulsatilia (for percussives);
 * Filippo Bonanni (1722) used vernacular names: sonori per il fiato, sonori per la tensione, and sonori per la percussione;
 * Joseph Majer (1732) called them pneumatica, pulsatilia (percussives including plucked instruments), and fidicina (from fidula, fiddle) (for bowed instruments);
 * Johann Eisel (1738) dubbed them pneumatica, pulsatilia, and fidicina;
 * Johannes de Muris (1784) used the terms chordalia, foraminalia (from foramina, "bore" in reference to the bored tubes), and vasalia (for "vessels");
 * Regino of Prum (1784) called them tensibile, inflatile, and percussionabile.

Mahillon and Hornbostel–Sachs systems
Victor-Charles Mahillon, curator of the musical instrument collection of the conservatoire in Brussels, for the 1888 catalogue of the collection divided instruments into four groups and assigned Greek-derived labels to the four classifications: chordophones (stringed instruments), membranophones (skin-head percussion instruments), aerophones (wind instruments), and autophones (non-skin percussion instruments). This scheme was later taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classification in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is widely used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel–Sachs system (or the Sachs–Hornbostel system).

The original Sachs–Hornbostel system classified instruments into four main groups:
 * 1) idiophones, such as the xylophone, which produce sound by vibrating themselves;
 * 2) membranophones, such as drums or kazoos, which produce sound by a vibrating membrane;
 * 3) chordophones, such as the piano or cello, which produce sound by vibrating strings;
 * 4) aerophones, such as the pipe organ or oboe, which produce sound by vibrating columns of air.

Later Sachs added a fifth category, electrophones, such as theremins, which produce sound by electronic means. Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category. Within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticized and revised over the years, but remains widely used by ethnomusicologists and organologists. One notable example of this criticism is that care should be taken with electrophones, as some electronic instruments like the electric guitar (chordophone) and some electronic keyboards (sometimes idiophones or chordophones) can produce music without electricity or the use of an amplifier.

In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of musical instruments, lamellophones are considered plucked idiophones, a category that includes various forms of jaw harp and the European mechanical music box, as well as the huge variety of African and Afro-Latin thumb pianos such as the mbira and marimbula.

André Schaeffner
In 1932, comparative musicologist (ethnomusicologist) André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was "exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments".

Schaeffner's system has only two top-level categories which he denoted by Roman numerals:
 * I: instruments that make sound from vibrating solids:
 * I.A: no tension (free solid, for example, xylophones, cymbals, or claves);
 * I.B: linguaphones (lamellophones) (solid fixed at only one end, such as a kalimba or thumb piano);
 * I.C: chordophones (solid fixed at both ends, i.e. strings such as piano or harp); plus drums
 * II: instruments that make sound from vibrating air (such as clarinets, trumpets, or bull-roarers.)

The system agrees with Mahillon and Hornbostel–Sachs for chordophones, but groups percussion instruments differently.

The MSA (Multi-Dimensional Scalogram Analysis) of René Lysloff and Jim Matson, using 37 variables, including characteristics of the sounding body, resonator, substructure, sympathetic vibrator, performance context, social context, and instrument tuning and construction, corroborated Schaeffner, producing two categories, aerophones and the chordophone-membranophone-idiophone combination.

André Schaeffner has been president of the French association of musicologists Société française de musicologie (1958–1967).

Kurt Reinhard
In 1960, German musicologist Kurt Reinhard presented a stylistic taxonomy, as opposed to a morphological one, with two divisions determined by either single or multiple voices playing. Each of these two divisions was subdivided according to pitch changeability (not changeable, freely changeable, and changeable by fixed intervals), and also by tonal continuity (discontinuous (as the marimba and drums) and continuous (the friction instruments (including bowed) and the winds), making 12 categories. He also proposed classification according to whether they had dynamic tonal variability, a characteristic that separates whole eras (e.g., the baroque from the classical) as in the transition from the terraced dynamics of the harpsichord to the crescendo of the piano, grading by degree of absolute loudness, timbral spectra, tunability, and degree of resonance.

Steve Mann
In 2007, Steve Mann presented a five-class, physics-based organology elaborating on the classification proposed by Schaeffner. This system is composed of gaiaphones (chordophones, membranophones, and idiophones), hydraulophones, aerophones, plasmaphones, and quintephones (electrically and optically produced music), the names referring to the five essences, earth, water, wind, fire and the quintessence, thus adding three new categories to the Schaeffner taxonomy.

Elementary organology, also known as physical organology, is a classification scheme based on the elements (i.e. states of matter) in which sound production takes place. "Elementary" refers both to "element" (state of matter) and to something that is fundamental or innate (physical). The elementary organology map can be traced to Kartomi, Schaeffner, Yamaguchi, and others, as well as to the Greek and Roman concepts of elementary classification of all objects, not just musical instruments.

Elementary organology categorizes musical instruments by their classical element:

Classification by tonal range
Instruments can be classified by their musical range in comparison with other instruments in the same family. These terms are named after singing voice classifications: Some instruments fall into more than one category: for example, the cello may be considered either tenor or bass, depending on how its music fits into the ensemble, and the trombone may be alto, tenor, or bass and the French horn, bass, baritone, tenor, or alto, depending on which range it is played. In a typical concert band setting, the first alto saxophone covers soprano parts, while the second alto saxophone covers alto parts.
 * Higher-than-sopranino instruments: the garklein recorder in C (also known as the sopranissimo recorder, or piccolo recorder), soprillo saxophone, piccolo
 * Sopranino instruments: sopranino recorder, sopranino saxophone, treble flute
 * Soprano instruments: concert flute, clarinet, soprano recorder, violin, trumpet, oboe, soprano saxophone
 * Alto instruments: alto flute, alto recorder, viola, French horn, natural horn, alto horn, alto clarinet, alto saxophone, English horn
 * Tenor instruments: trombone, euphonium, tenor violin, tenor flute, basset horn, tenor saxophone, tenoroon, tenor recorder, bass flute
 * Baritone instruments: cello, baritone horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, baritone saxophone
 * Bass instruments: bass recorder, bass oboe, bass tuba, bass saxophone, bass trombone
 * Lower-than-bass instruments: contrabass tuba, double bass, contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet, contrabass saxophone, subcontrabass saxophone, tubax, octobass

Many instruments include their range as part of their name: soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, baritone horn, alto flute, bass flute, bass guitar, etc. Additional adjectives describe instruments above the soprano range or below the bass, for example: sopranino recorder, sopranino saxophone, contrabass recorder, contrabass clarinet.

When used in the name of an instrument, these terms are relative, describing the instrument's range in comparison to other instruments of its family and not in comparison to the human voice range or instruments of other families. For example, a bass flute's range is from C3 to F♯6, while a bass clarinet plays about one octave lower.

Classification by function
Instruments can be categorized according to typical use, such as signal instruments, a category that may include instruments in different Hornbostel–Sachs categories such as trumpets, drums, and gongs. An example based on this criterion is Bonanni (e.g., festive, military, and religious). He separately classified them according to geography and era.

Instruments can be classified according to the role they play in the ensemble. For example, the horn section in popular music typically includes both brass instruments and woodwind instruments. The symphony orchestra typically has the strings in the front, the woodwinds in the middle, and the basses, brass, and percussion in the back.

Classification by geographical or ethnic origin
Jean-Benjamin de la Borde (1780) classified instruments according to ethnicity, his categories being Black, Abyssinian, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek.

Indian
An ancient system of Indian origin, dating from the 4th or 3rd century BC, in the Natya Shastra, a theoretical treatise on music and dramaturgy, by Bharata Muni, divides instruments (vadya) into four main classification groups: instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating strings (tata vadya, "stretched instruments"); instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating columns of air (susira vadya, "hollow instruments"); percussion instruments made of wood or metal (Ghana vadya, "solid instruments"); and percussion instruments with skin heads, or drums (avanaddha vadya, "covered instruments").

Persian
Al-Farabi, Persian scholar of the 10th century, distinguished tonal duration. In one of his four schemes, in his two-volume Kitab al-Musiki al-Kabir (Great Book of Music) he identified five classes, in order of ranking, as follows: the human voice, the bowed strings (the rebab) and winds, plucked strings, percussion, and dance, the first three pointed out as having continuous tone.

Ibn Sina, Persian scholar of the 11th century, presented a scheme in his Kitab al-Najat (Book of the Delivery), made the same distinction. He used two classes. In his Kitab al-Shifa (Book of Soul Healing), he proposed another taxonomy, of five classes: fretted instruments; unfretted (open) stringed, lyres and harps; bowed stringed; wind (reeds and some other woodwinds, such as the flute and bagpipe), other wind instruments such as the organ; and the stick-struck santur (a board zither). The distinction between fretted and open was in classic Persian fashion.

Turkish
Ottoman encyclopedist Hadji Khalifa (17th century) recognized three classes of musical instruments in his Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun (Clarification and Conjecture About the Names of Books and Sciences), a treatise on the origin and construction of instruments. This was exceptional for a Near Eastern writer, most of whom, like Near Eastern culture traditionally and early Hellenistic Greeks, ignored the percussion instruments because it regarded them as primitive.

Chinese
The oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is Chinese and may date as far back as the second millennium BC. It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. Instruments made of stone were in one group, those of wood in another, those of silk are in a third, and those of bamboo in a fourth, as recorded in the Yo Chi (record of ritual music and dance), compiled from sources of the Chou period (9th–5th centuries BC) and corresponding to the four seasons and four winds.

The eight-fold system of eight sounds or timbres (八音, bā yīn), from the same source, occurred gradually, and in the legendary Emperor Shun's time (3rd millennium BC) it is believed to have been presented in the following order: metal (金, jīn), stone (石, shí), silk (絲, sī), bamboo (竹, zhú), gourd (匏, páo), clay (土, tǔ), leather (革, gé), and wood (木, mù) classes, and it correlated to the eight seasons and eight winds of Chinese culture, autumn and west, autumn-winter and NW, summer and south, spring and east, winter-spring and NE, summer-autumn and SW, winter and north, and spring-summer and SE, respectively.

However, the Chou-Li (Rites of Chou), an anonymous treatise compiled from earlier sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order: metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd, and bamboo. The same order was presented in the Tso Chuan (Commentary of Tso), attributed to Tso Chiu-Ming, probably compiled in the 4th century BC.

Much later, Ming dynasty (14th–17th century) scholar Chu Tsai Yu recognized three groups: those instruments using muscle power or used for musical accompaniment, those that are blown, and those that are rhythmic, a scheme which was probably the first scholarly attempt, while the earlier ones were traditional, folk taxonomies.

More usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced (regardless of post-processing, i.e., an electric guitar is still a string-instrument regardless of what analog or digital/computational post-processing effects pedals may be used with it).

Indonesian
Classifications done for the Indonesian ensemble, the gamelan, were done by Jaap Kunst (1949), Martopangrawit, Poerbapangrawit, and Sumarsam (all in 1984). Kunst described five categories: nuclear theme (cantus firmus in Latin and balungan ("skeletal framework") in Indonesian); colotomic (a word invented by Kunst, meaning "interpunctuating"), the gongs; countermelodic; paraphrasing (panerusan), subdivided as close to the nuclear theme and ornamental filling; agogic (tempo-regulating), drums.

R. Ng. Martopangrawit has two categories, irama (the rhythm instruments) and lagu (the melodic instruments), the former corresponds to Kunst's classes 2 and 5, and the latter to Kunst's 1, 3, and 4.

Kodrat Poerbapangrawit, similar to Kunst, derives six categories: balungan, the saron, demung, and slenthem; rerenggan (ornamental), the gendèr, gambang, and bonang); wiletan (variable formulaic melodic), rebab and male chorus (gerong); singgetan (interpunctuating); kembang (floral), flute and female voice; jejeging wirama (tempo regulating), drums.

Sumarsam's scheme comprises
 * an inner melodic group (lagu)(with a wide range), divided as
 * elaborating (rebab, gerong, gendèr (a metallophone), gambang (a xylophone), pesindhen (female voice), celempung (plucked strings), suling (flute));
 * mediating ( between the 1st and 3rd subdivisions (bonang (gong-chimes), saron panerus(a loud metallophone); and
 * abstracting (balungan, "melodic abstraction")( with a 1-octave range), loud and soft metallophones (saron barung, demung, and slenthem);
 * an outer circle, the structural group (gongs), which underlines the structure of the work;
 * and occupying the space outside the outer circle, the kendang, a tempo-regulating group (drums).

The gamelan is also divided into front, middle, and back, much like the symphony orchestra.

An orally transmitted Javanese taxonomy has 8 groupings:
 * ricikan dijagur ("instruments beaten with a padded hammer," e.g., suspended gongs);
 * ricikan dithuthuk ("instruments knocked with a hard or semihard hammer," e.g., saron (similar to the glockenspiel) and gong-chimes);
 * ricikan dikebuk ("hand-beaten instruments", e.g., kendhang (drum));
 * ricikan dipethik ("plucked instruments");
 * ricikan disendal ("pulled instruments," e.g., genggong (jaw harp with string mechanism));
 * ricikan dikosok ("bowed instruments");
 * ricikan disebul ("blown instruments");
 * ricikan dikocok ("shaken instruments").

A Javanese classification transmitted in literary form is as follows:
 * ricikan prunggu/wesi ("instruments made of bronze or iron");
 * ricikan kulit ("leather instruments", drums);
 * ricikan kayu ("wooden instruments");
 * ricikan kawat/tali ("string instruments");
 * ricikan bambu pring ("bamboo instruments", e.g., flutes).

This is much like the pa yin. It is suspected of being old but its age is unknown.

Minangkabau musicians (of West Sumatra) use the following taxonomy for bunyi-bunyian ("objects that sound"): dipukua ("beaten"), dipupuik ("blown), dipatiek ("plucked"), ditariek ("pulled"), digesek ("bowed"), dipusiang ("swung"). The last one is for the bull-roarer. They also distinguish instruments on the basis of origin because of sociohistorical contacts, and recognize three categories: Mindangkabau (Minangkabau asli), Arabic (asal Arab), and Western (asal Barat), each of these divided up according to the five categories. Classifying musical instruments on the basis sociohistorical factors as well as mode of sound production is common in Indonesia.

The Batak of North Sumatra recognize the following classes: beaten (alat pukul or alat palu), blown (alat tiup), bowed (alat gesek), and plucked (alat petik) instruments, but their primary classification is of ensembles.

Philippines
The T'boli of Mindanao use three categories, grouping the strings (t'duk) with the winds (nawa) together based on a gentleness-strength dichotomy (lemnoy-megel, respectively), regarding the percussion group (tembol) as strong and the winds-strings group as gentle. The division pervades T'boli thought about cosmology, social characters of men and women, and artistic styles.

West African
In West Africa, tribes such as the Dan, Gio, Kpelle, Hausa, Akan, and Dogon, use a human-centered system. It derives from 4 myth-based parameters: the musical instrument's nonhuman owner (spirit, mask, sorcerer, or animal), the mode of transmission to the human realm (by gift, exchange, contract, or removal), the making of the instrument by a human (according to instructions from a nonhuman, for instance), and the first human owner. Most instruments are said to have a nonhuman origin, but some are believed invented by humans, e.g., the xylophone and the lamellophone.

The Kpelle of West Africa distinguish the struck (yàle), including both beaten and plucked, and the blown (fêe). The yàle group is subdivided into five categories: instruments possessing lamellas (the sanzas); those possessing strings; those possessing a membrane (various drums); hollow wooden, iron, or bottle containers; and various rattles and bells. The Hausa, also of West Africa, classify drummers into those who beat drums and those who beat (pluck) strings (the other four player classes are blowers, singers, acclaimers, and talkers),

title: Musical instrument classification


text:
Plectrum

A plectrum is a small flat tool used for plucking or strumming of a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick and is held as a separate tool in the player's hand. In harpsichords, the plectra are attached to the jack mechanism.

Guitars and similar instruments

A plectrum for electric guitars, acoustic guitars, bass guitars and mandolins is typically a thin piece of plastic or other material most commonly shaped like a pointed teardrop or triangle, though the size, gauge, shape and width may vary considerably. Banjo and guitar players may wear a metal or plastic thumb pick mounted on a ring, and bluegrass banjo players often wear metal or plastic fingerpicks on their fingertips. Many guitarists use fingerpicks as well.

Guitar picks are made of a variety of materials, including celluloid, metal, and rarely other exotic materials such as turtle shell, but today delrin (a synthetic thermoplastic polymer) is the most common. For other instruments in the modern day, most players use plastic plectra but a variety of other materials, including wood and felt (for use with the ukulele) are common. Guitarists in the rock, blues, jazz and bluegrass genres tend to use a plectrum, partly due to the use of steel strings wearing out the player's fingernails quickly, but also because a plectrum provides a more "clear", "focused" and "aggressive" sound. Many guitarists will also use the pick in combination with the remaining picking-hand fingers simultaneously, to combine the different advantages of flat-picking and finger picking. This technique is called hybrid picking, or more colloquially in country & bluegrass genres, as chicken pickin'.

A plectrum of the guitar type is often called a pick (or a flatpick to distinguish it from fingerpicks).

Non-Western instruments
The plectra for the Japanese biwa and shamisen can be quite large, and those used for the Arabic oud are longer and narrower, replacing the formerly used eagle feather. Plectra used for Chinese instruments such as the sanxian were formerly made of animal horn, though many players today use plastic plectra.

Plectra in harpsichords
In a harpsichord, there is a separate plectrum for each string. These plectra are very small, often only about 10 millimeters long, about 1.5 millimeters wide, and half a millimeter thick. The plectrum is gently tapered, being narrowest at the plucking end. The top surface of the plectrum is flat and horizontal and is held in the tongue of the jack; the tongue is pivoted so that the plectrum plucks the string when moving up, but is pushed away when moving down.

In the historical period of harpsichord construction (up to about 1800) plectra were made of sturdy feather quills, usually from crows or ravens. In Italy, some makers (including Bartolomeo Cristofori) used vulture quills. Other Italian harpsichords employed plectra of leather. In late French harpsichords by the great builder Pascal Taskin, peau de buffle, a chamois-like material from the hide of the European bison, was used for plectra to produce a delicate pianissimo.

Modern harpsichords frequently employ plectra made with plastic, specifically the plastic known as acetal. Some plectra are of the homopolymer variety of acetal, sold by DuPont under the name "Delrin", while others are of the copolymer variety, sold by Ticona as "Celcon". Harpsichord technicians and builders generally use the trade names to refer to these materials. In either of its varieties, acetal is far more durable than quill, which cuts down substantially on the time that must be spent in voicing (see below).

Several contemporary builders and players have reasserted the superiority of bird quill for high-level harpsichords. While the difference in sound between acetal and quill is acknowledged to be small, what difference may exist is held to be to the advantage of quill. In addition, quill plectra tend to fail gradually, giving warning by the diminishing volume, whereas acetal plectra fail suddenly and completely, sometimes in the middle of a performance.

Voicing harpsichord plectra
The plectra of a harpsichord must be cut precisely, in a process called "voicing". A properly voiced plectrum will pluck the string in a way that produces a good musical tone and matches well in loudness with all of the other strings. The underside of the plectrum must be appropriately slanted and entirely smooth, so that the jack will not "hang" (get caught on the string) when, after sounding a note, it is moved back down below the level of the string.

Normally, voicing is carried out by inserting the plectrum into the jack, then placing the jack on a small wooden voicing block, so that the top of the plectrum sits flush with the block. The plectrum is then cut and thinned on the underside with a small, very sharp knife, such as an X-Acto knife. As the plectrum is progressively trimmed, its jack is replaced in the instrument at intervals to test the result for loudness, tone quality, and the possibility of hanging.

Voicing is a refined skill, carried out fluently by professional builders, but one that usually must also be learned (at least to some degree) by harpsichord owners.

Etymology and usage
First attested in English 15th century, the word "plectrum" comes from Latin plectrum, itself derived from Greek πλῆκτρον (plēktron), "anything to strike with, an instrument for striking the lyre, a spear point".

"Plectrum" has both a Latin-based plural, plectra and a native English plural, plectrums. Plectra is used in formal writing, particularly in discussing the harpsichord as an instrument of classical music, while plectrums is more common in ordinary speech.

title: Plectrum