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The Good Soldier

The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 novel by the British writer Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I, and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham and his seemingly perfect marriage, along with that of his two American friends. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique that formed part of Ford's pioneering view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator to great effect, as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads the reader to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life, specifically “the agonies Ford went through with his wife and his mistress in the six preceding years."

The novel's original title was The Saddest Story, but after the onset of World War I the publishers asked Ford for a new title. Ford suggested (sarcastically) The Good Soldier, and the name stuck.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Good Soldier 30th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2015, the BBC ranked The Good Soldier 13th on its list of the 100 greatest British novels. It has been called "the greatest French novel in English."

Plot summary
The Good Soldier is narrated by the character John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel. Dowell tells the story of those dissolutions, plus the deaths of three characters and the madness of a fourth, in a rambling, non-chronological fashion. As an unreliable narrator the reader can consider whether they believe Dowell and his description of how the events unfolded including his own role in the "saddest story ever told".

Events as narrated
The novel opens with the famous line: "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." Dowell explains that for nine years he, his wife Florence and their friends Captain Edward Ashburnham (the "good soldier" of the book's title) and his wife Leonora, had an ostensibly normal friendship while Edward and Florence sought treatment for their heart ailments at a spa in Nauheim, Germany.

As it turns out, nothing in the relationships or in the characters is as it first seems. Florence's heart ailment is a fiction she perpetrated on John to ensure that he did not seek intimacy from her as it would seemingly be too stressful for her heart, and so to keep him out of her bedroom at night in order that she could continue her affair with an American artist named Jimmy. Edward and Leonora have an unbalanced marriage broken by his constant infidelities (both of body and heart) and by Leonora's attempts to control Edward's affairs (both financial and romantic). Dowell is an innocent American who is coming to realise how much he has been fooled as Florence and Edward had an affair under his nose for nine years without his knowing until Florence was dead.

Dowell tells the story of Edward and Leonora's relationship which appears normal to others but which is a power struggle that Leonora wins. Dowell narrates several of Edward's affairs and peccadilloes including his possibly innocent attempt to comfort a crying servant on a train, his affair with the married Maisie Maidan, the one character in the book whose heart problem was unquestionably real, and his bizarre tryst in Monte Carlo and Antibes with a kept woman known as La Dolciquita. Edward's philandering ends up costing them a fortune in bribes, blackmail and gifts for his lovers leading Leonora to take control of Edward's financial affairs. She gradually gets him out of debt.

Florence's affair with Edward leads her to commit suicide when she realises both that Edward is falling in love with his and Leonora's young ward, Nancy Rufford, and that Dowell has found out about her affair with Jimmy. Florence sees Edward and Nancy in an intimate conversation and rushes back to the resort where she sees John talking to a man she used to know (and who knows of her affair with Jimmy). Assuming that her relationship with Edward and her marriage to John are over, Florence takes prussic acid—which she has carried for years in a vial that John thought held her heart medicine—and dies.

Edward's last affair is his most scandalous as he becomes infatuated with Nancy. Nancy came to live with the Ashburnhams after leaving a convent where her parents had sent her; her mother was a violent alcoholic and her father (it is later suggested that this man may not be Nancy's biological father) may have abused her. Edward, tearing himself apart because he does not want to spoil Nancy's innocence, arranges to have her sent to India to live with her father, even though this frightens her terribly. Once Leonora knows that Edward intends to keep his passion for Nancy chaste, only wanting Nancy to continue to love him from afar, she torments him by making this wish impossible. She pretends to offer to divorce him so he can marry Nancy but informs Nancy of his sordid sexual history, destroying Nancy's innocent love for him. After Nancy's departure, Edward receives a telegram from her that reads, "Safe Brindisi. Having a rattling good time. Nancy." He asks Dowell to take the telegram to his wife, pulls out his pen knife, says that it's time he had some rest and slits his own throat. When Nancy reaches Aden and sees the obituary in the paper, she becomes catatonic.

The novel's last section has Dowell writing from Edward's old estate in England where he takes care of Nancy whom he cannot marry because of her mental illness. Nancy is only capable of repeating two things—a Latin phrase meaning "I believe in an omnipotent God" and the word "shuttlecocks." Dowell states that the story is sad because no one got what they wanted. Leonora wanted Edward but lost him and ended in marrying the normal (but dull) Rodney Bayham. Edward wanted Nancy but gave her up then lost her. Dowell wanted a wife but ended up a nurse to two women.

Dowell ends up generally unsure about where to lay the blame, but expressing sympathy for Edward because he believes himself similar to Edward in nature. The fact is he has been disengaged, a voyeur. While the other characters are flawed, he has never participated in life. He is revealed as less than the foolish innocent he represents himself as, when he walks away, leaving Edward to slit his throat with a very small pen knife.

Textual analysis
The novel has potential narrative inconsistencies that suggest different, hidden plot elements. For example, Dowell marries an heiress who ostensibly has a bad heart. He states repeatedly that he has no need or interest in her money—one might argue that he protests his lack of interest rather too much. Florence eventually dies, stated by Dowell to be suicide. If readers suspend their trust in the narrator, some may be left with the impression that the narrator is happy his wife dies, as he does little to prevent it; just as he does little throughout the entire book. Thus, behind the more or less explicit narrative lurks a possible counter-narrative in which Dowell is something of a sociopath, caring for no one but himself, an observer of others who are living more fully while never actively engaging very intensely in life himself, and indeed, perhaps a voyeur relishing the demise of others. This would be the story of a manipulative man trying to elicit the sympathy of the audience he speaks/writes to, which must decide whether he is a deluded victim or a heartless manipulator of the reader's emotions.

Florence supposedly poisons herself in a possibly painful manner, and Edward supposedly cuts his own throat, but as always in this novel, we only have Dowell's word for it, and he epitomises the "unreliable narrator." The reader must decide just how much of the truth Dowell reveals. Some commentators have even suggested that Dowell, who presents himself as considered by all to be passive, murders both Florence and Edward. In this view the entire story is his justification for doing so without his admitting his guilt.

Religious references are omnipresent throughout the book. Leonora is an Irish Catholic who cannot contemplate divorce. She is taunted about Catholicism by Florence when they all visit a castle near Nauheim which holds a relic of Martin Luther's Protest. Ashburnham is an Anglican by birth who wants to build a Catholic chapel on his property for Leonora and who would have converted to Catholicism had he been spurred to it by his wife, who remains indifferent.

Major characters

 * John Dowell: The narrator, husband to Florence. Dowell is an American Quaker; he is either a gullible and passionless man who cannot read the emotions of the people around him or a master manipulator who plays the victim.
 * Florence Dowell: John Dowell's wife and a scheming, manipulative, unfaithful woman who uses Dowell for his money while pursuing her affairs on the side. She fakes a heart ailment to get what she wants out of her husband and has a lengthy affair with Edward Ashburnham.
 * Edward Ashburnham: Friend of the Dowells and husband of Leonora. Ashburnham is a hopeless romantic who keeps falling in love with the women he meets; he is at Nauheim for the treatment of a heart problem, but the ailment is not real, he used it as an excuse to follow a female heart patient to Nauheim. He is Dowell's opposite, a virile, physical, passionate man.
 * Leonora Ashburnham: Edward's wife by a marriage that was more or less arranged by their fathers. Leonora comes to resent Edward's philandering as much for its effect on her life as on her marriage and asserts more and more control over Edward until he dies.
 * Nancy Rufford: The young ward of the Ashburnhams; Edward falls in love with Nancy after he tires of Florence. Eventually, Edward arranges for Nancy to be sent to India to live with her father, but she goes mad en route when she learns of Edward's death.
 * La Dolciquita: A Spanish dancer (The Grand Duke's mistress) who is Edward's first sexual affair. Although he believes himself to be romantically attached to her, he quickly becomes disillusioned by her thirst for his money.
 * Maisie Maidan: A young, pretty, married woman with whom Edward fell in love. Leonora pays for her treatment for a weak heart at Nauheim, knowing that Edward would follow her there. Maisie's heart gives way after she hears Florence and Edward talking about her disparagingly and she dies.

Character analysis
How well can we judge the characterisations in the novel when Dowell is such an unreliable narrator? A question to consider is whether he presented himself in a true light or manipulated his description of events to prevent the reader from discovering his true character. However"'by the end of the novel Dowell has tested the limits of rational explanation. He has interpreted character by religion, nationality, gender and the calendar. Dowell's disillusionment follows the arc of modernism; he begins with presuppositions typical of much Victorian characterization: the individual conditioned by circumstance, composed of intelligible motives, susceptible to moral analysis-the justified self. Then, confronted with the singularity of desire, his 'generalizations' totter and fall.'"Dowell admits that his assumptions and characterisations of the people in his life may be flawed.

Adaptations
The novel was adapted into the television film of the same title by Granada Television in 1981. It starred Jeremy Brett, Vickery Turner, Robin Ellis and Susan Fleetwood. It was directed by Kevin Billington and written by Julian Mitchell. In the US it aired as part of the Masterpiece Theatre series.

The novel was adapted as a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime by Lu Kemp in 2008, read by Toby Stephens and produced by Kirsty Williams.

In 2020 the novel was adapted by Sebastian Baczkiewicz as a one hour radio play as part of the BBC Radio 4 Electric Decade season of classic titles that influenced and characterised the Jazz Age of the 1920s.

title: The Good Soldier


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The Golden Bowl

The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James's career. The Golden Bowl explores the tangle of interrelationships between a father and daughter and their respective spouses. The novel focuses deeply and almost exclusively on the consciousness of the central characters, with sometimes obsessive detail but also with powerful insight.

Plot summary
Prince Amerigo, an impoverished but charismatic Italian nobleman, is in London for his marriage to Maggie Verver, only child of the widower Adam Verver, the fabulously wealthy American financier and art collector. While there, he re-encounters Charlotte Stant, another young American and a former mistress from his days in Rome; they had met in Mrs. Assingham's drawing room. Charlotte is not wealthy, which is one reason they did not marry. Although Maggie and Charlotte have been dear friends since childhood, Maggie does not know of Charlotte's and Amerigo's past relationship. Charlotte and Amerigo go shopping together for a wedding present for Maggie. They find a curiosity shop where the shopkeeper offers them an antique gilded crystal bowl. Charlotte lacks the money to buy the bowl and the Prince declines to purchase it, as he suspects it contains a hidden flaw.

After Maggie has married, afraid that her father has become lonely, as they had been close for years, she persuades him to propose to Charlotte, who accepts Adam's proposal. Soon after the wedding, Charlotte and Amerigo are thrown together, because their respective spouses seem more interested in their father-daughter relationship than in their marriages. Amerigo and Charlotte kiss and later spend a day together visiting a cathedral and an inn but whether or not they have sex remains ambiguous.

Maggie begins to suspect the pair. She happens to go to the same shop and buys the golden bowl they had rejected. Regretting the high price he has charged her, the shopkeeper visits Maggie and confesses to overcharging. At her home, he sees photographs of Amerigo and Charlotte. He tells Maggie of the pair's shopping trip on the eve of her marriage and their intimate conversation in his shop. (They had spoken Italian, but he understands the language.)

Maggie confronts Amerigo. She begins a secret campaign to separate him and Charlotte while never revealing their affair to her father. Also concealing her knowledge from Charlotte and denying any change to their friendship, she gradually persuades her father to return to America with his wife. After previously regarding Maggie as a naïve, immature American, the Prince seems impressed by his wife's delicate diplomacy. The novel ends with Adam and Charlotte Verver about to depart for the United States. Amerigo says he can "see nothing but" Maggie and embraces her.

Main characters

 * Maggie Verver
 * Prince Amerigo
 * Charlotte Stant
 * Adam Verver
 * Fanny Assingham
 * Colonel Robert Assingham

Literary significance and criticism
The Golden Bowl's intense focus on its four main characters gives the novel both its tremendous power and its peculiar feeling of claustrophobia. Henry James himself had a high regard for his last work, describing it to his American publisher as "distinctly the most done of my productions ― the most composed and constructed and completed...I hold the thing the solidest, as yet, of all my fictions."

Created during what critics label James's third phase of writing, The Golden Bowl showcases the dense prose (often called James's "late style") that characterises his final novels. Although the narrative is very focused compared to his earlier works, with minimal characters, the writing is complex and elaborate. Gore Vidal attributed this verbosity in part to James's habit at the time of dictating his novels to stenographers rather than typing the manuscript himself. Vidal thought the style of The Golden Bowl, as well as The Wings of the Dove (1902) and The Ambassadors (1903), mimicked James's own rhetorical manner, which was "endlessly complex, humorous, unexpected - euphemistic where most people are direct and suddenly precise where avoidance or ellipsis is usual..."

Robert McCrum included the novel in The Guardian's list of 100 Best Novels, describing it as an "amazing, labyrinthine, terrifying and often claustrophobic narrative." Author Colm Toibin called The Golden Bowl Henry James's best work, in part because James "stripped down" the number of characters to four. He describes James's style of expressing consciousness as "a system of clauses, sub-clauses, modifications, qualifications and in some cases ruminations", which anticipates the later styles of stream of consciousness writing by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. John Banville also compared James's modernist stream of consciousness technique, which characterises The Golden Bowl, to James Joyce, summarising it as "a style designed to catch, with immense, with fiendish, subtlety, and in sentences of labyrinthine intricacy, the very texture of conscious life."

The author Rebecca West, on the other hand, said of it that "winter had fallen on [James'] genius in The Golden Bowl." Critics have noted the overbearing symbolism of the golden bowl, which is eventually broken in a scene that may not be fully effective.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Golden Bowl 32nd on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Some critics believe that The Golden Bowl was an inspiration for Iris Murdoch, a known fan of James, and, in particular, her novel A Severed Head.

The title is taken from Ecclesiastes 12: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity."

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
In 1972, the BBC produced a six-hour televised version that was highly praised, with a screenplay by Jack Pulman, Gayle Hunnicutt as Charlotte, Barry Morse as Adam Verver, Jill Townsend as Maggie, Daniel Massey as the Prince, and Cyril Cusack as Bob Assingham, ingeniously presented as the narrator, commenting on the development of the story very much in the style of Henry James. This version, presented on Masterpiece Theatre, was more faithful to the book than the later Merchant-Ivory film in the U.S.

In 2000, The Golden Bowl was filmed by Merchant Ivory Productions, directed by James Ivory, and starred Uma Thurman, Nick Nolte, Kate Beckinsale and Jeremy Northam. In some ways Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's adaptation differs from James's novel. In the book, Charlotte is a calculating, amoral character who manipulates and manages those around her with a glance or a smile; however, in the movie, Charlotte appears to suffer from some mental disorder, exhibiting symptoms of paranoia and obsessive love.

Critical editions
Henry James, The Golden Bowl (Wordsworth Classics, 2000), ed. Nicola Bradbury, ISBN 978-1840224320

title: The Golden Bowl


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Guwahati

Guwahati is the largest city of the Indian state of Assam, and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the seat of the Government of Assam. Its airport is the 12th busiest in India, the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport. A major riverine port city along with hills, and one of the fastest growing cities in India, Guwahati is situated on the south bank of the Brahmaputra. The city is known as the "gateway to North East India".

The ancient cities of Pragjyotishpura and Durjaya (North Guwahati) were the capitals of the ancient state of Kamarupa. Many ancient Hindu temples like the Kamakhya Temple, Ugratara Temple, Basistha Temple, Doul Govinda Temple, Umananda Temple, Navagraha Temple, Sukreswar Temple, Rudreswar Temple, Manikarneswar Devalaya, Aswaklanta Temple, Dirgheshwari Temple, Lankeshwar Temple, Bhubaneswari Temple, Shree Ganesh Mandir, Shree Panchayatana Temple, Noonmati, and the like, are situated in the city, giving it the title of "The City of Temples".

Guwahati lies between the banks of the Brahmaputra River and the foothills of the Shillong plateau, with LGB International Airport to the west and the town of Narengi to the east. The North Guwahati area, to the northern bank of the Brahmaputra, is being gradually incorporated into the city limits. The noted Madan Kamdev is situated 30 km from Guwahati. The Guwahati Municipal Corporation, the city's local government, administers an area of 216 km2,. At the same time, the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) is the planning and development body of Greater Guwahati Metropolitan Area. Guwahati is the largest city in Northeast India.

The Guwahati region hosts diverse wildlife including rare animals such as Asian elephants, pythons, tigers, rhinoceros, gaurs, primate species, and endangered birds.

Etymology
Guwahati derives its name from the Assamese word "Guwa" (গুৱা) derived from the Sanskrit word Guvaka, meaning areca nut and its plant and "Hati" (হাটী) meaning rows, the rows of areca nut trees.

Ancient history
The 10th-12th century Kalika Purana mention that Kamrup was inhabited by strong, cruel Kirata people. As per the legends constructed in the Yogini Tantra, the tank Dighalipukhuri located in the heart of the city was dug by King Bhagadatta of Kamrup on the occasion of the wedding of his daughter Bhanumati with Duryodhan. Located within Guwahati is the Shakti temple of Goddess Kamakhya in Nilachal hill (an important seat of Tantric and Vajrayana Buddhism), the ancient and unique astrological temple Navagraha in Chitrachal Hill, and archaeological remains in Basistha and other archaeological locations of mythological importance.

The Ambari excavations trace the period of the city of Guwahati between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE, in the Shunga-Kushana period of Indian history. Descriptions by Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) reveal that during the reign of the Varman king Bhaskaravarman (7th century CE), the city stretched for about 30 li (15 km). Archaeological evidence by excavations in Ambari, and excavated brick walls and houses discovered during construction of the present Cotton College's auditorium suggest the city was of economic and strategic importance until the 9th–11th century CE.

Medieval history
Koch King Parikshit had his capital at Pragjyotishpur near the Aswatirtha during the conflicts with Mughals. It came under Mughal occupation between (1633–59, 1662–69, 1679–81), their vestige was completely removed after the Battle of Itakhuli.

Guwahati was the headquarters of the Borphukan, Ahom governor of Lower Assam till 1824.The Borphukan's residence was in the present Fancy Bazaar area and his council-hall, called Dopdar, was about 300 yards (270 m) to the west of the Bharalu stream.The Majindar Baruah, the personal secretary of the Borphukan, had his residence in the present-day deputy commissioner's residence. During Ahom period Guwahati was fortified strongly and connected with the country with a number of roads. The Dighalipukhuri was used as a boatyard during this period. During the time of splendor, since the reign of Gadadhar Singha; the Ahom rulers paid their attention to building several temples in various religious sites at Guwahati.

Colonial history
On the cession of Assam to the British in 1826 it was made the seat of the British administration of Assam, and so continued till 1874, when the headquarters were removed to Shillong in the Khasi hills.

Modern history
The Gauhati High Court (formerly known as the High Court of Assam) was promulgated on 1 March 1948 by the then Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, in accordance with the Government of India Act 1935. It became effective on 5 April 1948 and was initially established for the Province of Assam. R.F. Lodge was the inaugural Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court, taking office on 5 April 1948.

The Saraighat Bridge, notable for its role in connecting Northeast India with the rest of the country, was constructed between 1959 and 1962 by the Hindustan Construction Company at a cost of approximately ₹ 106 million at the time. It was completed in September 1962, and the first engine crossed it on 23 September 1962.

In 1972, due to separation of Meghalaya from Assam, the capital of Assam was moved to Dispur, a neighbourhood in Guwahati from the erstwhile capital of Shillong.

Geography

The Brahmaputra river flows to the north of the metropolis. The city is bordered on the south by the foothills of the Shillong plateau and to the east by the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary. The Bharalu River, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, flows right through the heart of the city. To the south-west of the city lies Dipor Bil, a permanent freshwater lake with no prominent inflows apart from monsoon run-off from the hills to the south of the lake. The lake drains into the Brahmaputra, 5 km to the north, and acts as a natural stormwater reservoir for the city. There are also multiple hills within the city limits.

Urban morphology

Guwahati's 'urban form' radiates from a central core with growth corridors radiating and extending towards the south, east, and west. In the past few decades, southern Guwahati areas such as Ganeshguri, Beltola, Hatigaon, Six Mile, and Panjabari began forming a southern sub-center surrounding the capital complex at Dispur. The core area consists of the old city with Pan Bazaar, Paltan Bazaar, Fancy Bazaar and Uzan Bazaar, with each area facilitating unique urban activities.

Among the city corridors, the most important is the corridor formed along the Guwahati-Shillong (GS) Road towards the south (almost 15 km from the city-center). The GS Road corridor is an important commercial area with retail, wholesale and commercial offices developed along the main road; it is also a densely built residential area in the inner parts. The capital complex of Assam at Dispur is situated in this corridor. This corridor has facilitated the growth of a southern city sub-center at Ganeshguri, along with other residential areas to the south developed during the past few decades.

The corridor extending towards the west (around 30 km from the city center) contains a rail-road linking not only Guwahati but also other parts of the northeastern region east of Guwahati to western Assam and the rest of India. The corridor links residential and historically important areas such as Nilachal Hill (Kamakhya), Pandu, and Maligaon (headquarters of Northeast Frontier Railways) before it separates into two – one towards North Guwahati via the Saraighat Bridge and the other continuing west towards LGB International Airport via Gauhati University (Jalukbari). There are also many river ports/jetties along this corridor.

The third major corridor extends towards the east (around 15 km from the city-center) linking Noonmati (Guwahati Refinery) and Narengi, and has facilitated residential growth along with it. Highway NH-37, which encircles the city's southern parts and links the southern corridor in Noumile to the western corridor in Jalukbari is currently supporting rapid development. Similarly, the VIP Road linking Zoo Road with the eastern corridor and recently completed Hengerabari-Narengi Road are also supporting massive residential development to the east.

Guwahati is one among 98 Indian cities proposed to become Smart Cities under a project embarked on by Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.

Climate
Guwahati has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cwa), falling just short of a tropical savanna climate (Köppen climate classification Aw).

Highest recorded temperature: 40.6 C on 24 April 2014.

Lowest recorded temperature: 3.0 C on 30 January 1964.

Infrastructure
The city has a comparatively high quality of life. A 2006 survey ranked Guwahati 17th among all the large and medium-sized Indian cities. The city provides competitive residential and working environments with beautiful landscapes, pleasant climate, modern shopping areas, modern apartments, and bungalows, and considerably developed social infrastructure. A centrally funded four-lane, ambitious East-West Corridor will pass through Guwahati and connect all the state capitals of Northeast India. Completion of the project will boost the vital upliftment of the whole region.

The city still needs attention to improve its infrastructure. Funding from the Asian Development Bank is providing assistance to improve Guwahati's transportation infrastructure along with a substantial amount from Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for its development.

Administration and governance
Dispur, the capital of Assam, lies in Guwahati. The passing of the North Eastern (Reorganization Areas) Act in 1971 by the Indian Parliament accorded Meghalaya the status of a full-fledged state. After the creation of Meghalaya as a separate state, Shillong continued to be the joint capital of both Assam and Meghalaya. However, in 1972, the Government of Assam decided to shift the capital to Dispur. Accordingly, the first sitting of the Budget Session of the Assam Legislative Assembly was held at Dispur on 16 March 1973. Dispur houses the Secretariat of Assam Government, the Assam Assembly House, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) Regional Office, the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd (NEDFi) House and the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC).

Guwahati Municipal Corporation is the local body responsible for governing, developing and managing the city. It is divided into 31 municipal wards. Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) is an agency responsible for planning and development of the greater Guwahati Metropolitan Area and for revising the Guwahati Master Plan and Building Bylaws to cover an area of 3214 km2 by 2025.

Guwahati consists of four assembly constituencies: Jalukbari, Dispur, Gauhati East and Gauhati West, all of which are part of Gauhati (Lok Sabha constituency).

Police
Guwahati is the headquarters of Assam Police.

The city is under the Police Commissionerate of Guwahati headed by the Commissioner of Police, Guwahati. It is divided into three districts: East Police District, Central Police District, and West Police District, each headed by a Deputy Commissioner of Police. Each police district consists of officers, not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police, functioning as executive magistrates within a said metropolitan area.

Judiciary
Guwahati is the principal seat of the Gauhati High Court. It acts as the High Court of Assam and also of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh with their outlying benches of Kohima, Aizawl and Itanagar, respectively. Gauhati High Court came in effect from 5 April 1948. It initially had its sittings at Shillong but was shifted to Gauhati from 14 August 1948.

Guwahati also houses the Court of the District and Sessions Judge, Kamrup established in 1920. It is a lower court of the district judiciary having territorial jurisdiction over the greater Guwahati area only.

Increase in population
In recent years, Guwahati has experienced rapid population growth due to migration for education and employment opportunities. This population increase has led to undesirable expansion of the city and has resulted in various collateral problems, such as the rise in the number of slums. It is projected that the population of Guwahati will reach 1.5 million by 2035, up from an estimated 1.1 million in 2020.

Inflation
One of the economic problems that the citizens of Guwahati have to put up with is the hike in prices of many essentials, chiefly vegetables, poultry, and fish. The prices of these commodities keep escalating at an inordinate rate because of which the buyers find it difficult to buy these items. Vegetables are transported into Assam from West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra and Meghalaya and the truckers en route have to pay considerable amount of money as tax at various check posts. It is one of the causes of rise in prices of vegetables in the markets of Guwahati. The prices of locally available vegetables and fruits undergo large markup because of transportation expenses grounds, besides intra-State check posts taxes. In addition to these, the wholesale dealers, as well as the retail sellers, augment the prices of the commodities according to their own desires.

The price of poultry, mainly chicken, that reaches the city markets from places like Chaygaon and Barpeta have been soaring rapidly because of similar factors. There has been steep rise in the price of fish as well, the prominent varieties of which being Rohu ("Rou"), Catla ("Bahu"), Walking catfish ("Magur") and Monopterus ("Kuchia") among many others.

The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated inflation, causing food prices to rise.

Flooding
According to experts, urban flooding in Guwahati in the near future is expected to worsen to the point where residents of certain areas may be forced to relocate. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the alteration of drainage channels and wetlands due to rapid urbanization has exacerbated the problem of flooding.

Professor Abani Kumar Bhagawati of Gauhati University stated that since before there were sufficient wetlands to absorb rainwater and channels to carry excess water to the Brahmaputra, the city did not experience floods. However, human interference has disrupted the natural topography, leading to the current situation where "just half an hour of rain" can cause flooding in the city. Encroachment and concretization, which reduce open areas for natural water absorption, are the primary causes of floods according to Bhagawati.

Population
Guwahati is one of the fastest-growing cities in India. Guwahati has a population of 962,334 as per the 2011 census. Population of Guwahati in 2021 is estimated to be 11 lakhs (approx). It is estimated that Guwahati metro will house 2.8 million residents by 2025. Below Graph shows Population of Guwahati (1950-2040): -

Literacy and sex ratio
The percentage of the child population (0-14) in Guwahati was 9.40% in 2011. The average literacy rate was stated to be 91.47% with male literacy at 94.24% and female literacy at 88.50%. The sex ratio was recorded to be 933 females per 1000 males and child sex ratio to be 940 girls per 1000 boys.

Languages
According to the 2011 census, there were around 962,334 people living in Guwahati city, of which around 57.80% spoke Assamese, 20.40% Bengali, 12.29% Hindi, 1.92% Nepali, 1.69% Boro, 0.91% Manipuri and 0.90% Bhojpuri as their first language.

Education
Guwahati is the central educational hub of Northeast India. Among the esteemed institutions is the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT), an autonomous institute dedicated in the field of technical studies in India. Cotton University, erstwhile Cotton College is yet another century-old institution in the fields of Science and Arts.

Guwahati has numerous educational institutes and colleges such as Gauhati University, Cotton University, Srimanta Sankaradeva University of Health Sciences, Assam Science and Technology University, Dakshin Kamrup College, Dakshin Kamrup Girls' College, Gauhati Commerce College, Arya Vidyapeeth College (Autonomous), K.C. Das Commerce College, Handique Girls College, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati, NETES Institute of Technology and Science Mirza, B. Borooah College, Dispur College, Regional Dental College, Guwahati, N.E.F Law College, National Law University and Judicial Academy, Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, Government Ayurvedic College, Guwahati, Assam Engineering College, Assam Institute of Management, Assam Don Bosco University, Assam Down Town University, Royal Global University, Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education NE Regional Centre, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati Campus and Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Guwahati and Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology.

There are various private schools too like Delhi Public School, Sanskriti the Gurukul, Holy Child School, St. Mary's English High School, YWCA English High School and Faculty Higher Secondary School.

Economy
Pandu, located on the banks of the Brahmaputra at the western part of the city, is an ancient urban area that acted as the chief military base for the Ahoms against external invasions. Due to extensive fortification ('Gorh') surrounding Pandu, it acts as a natural river harbor and is formally called Gar-Pandu. Pandu port falls under Dhubri-Sadiya National Waterway-2 and is an important terminal and transit point for goods and cargo as well as passenger and tourist vessels. Construction of both low-level and high-level jetty of fixed terminal, capable of handling container vessels, has been completed and has further enhanced revenue generation for the city. The manufacturing sector in Guwahati contributes a substantial share to the economy of the city. Petroleum manufacturing is an important economic activity in the city. The Guwahati Refinery is the most important manufacturing industry in the city. Located at Noonmati, the refinery was set up by the Indian Oil Corporation Limited as the first public sector refinery of India as well as the refinery of Indian Oil since 1962. It was built with an initial crude processing capacity of 0.75 million tonnes per year at the time of its commission which was gradually increased to 1.0 million tonnes per year. It produces various products and supplies them to the other northeast states and also beyond to Siliguri through the Guwahati-Siliguri pipeline. The various products produced by the refinery include Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), Kerosene Oil, Turbine Fuel (aviation use), Motor Spirit, High-Speed Motor Diesel, Light Diesel Oil, and Raw Petroleum Coke. There is also an LPG bottling plant in the city.

Tea manufacturing and processing is another important activity of Guwahati. Assam is one of the highest tea-producing areas in the world, contributing 80% of India's export and 55% of the country's total tea production. So high is the production of tea in Assam that it is the biggest industry in the state. The headquarters of the Assam Branch Indian Tea Association (ABITA) is located at Guwahati. The Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC), located adjacent to the capital complex at Dispur, is the world's largest CTC tea auction center and the second largest in terms of total tea auctioned. The inaugural sale took place on 25 September 1970 and the first lot of tea was auctioned at the price of ₹ 42.50 which, during those days, was a significant achievement. In the month of August 2019, a kilogram of Maijan Orthodox Golden tea sold for a record-setting price of ₹ 70,501 at the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre.

Many centralised, private and international banks have set up their branches in the city with the Reserve Bank of India having one of its own at Pan Bazaar.

Air
Guwahati is served by the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, in Borjhar, about 20 km west from the heart of the city. With all major domestic and international airlines flying into Guwahati, it is the tenth busiest airport in India in total passenger traffic. Daily and weekly flights are available to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Kochi, Bangkok, Paro, Kathmandu etc.

Rail

The city of Guwahati and the northeastern region falls under the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) Zone of the Indian Railways, the headquarters of which is in Maligaon, near Nilachal Hills, in the northwest of the city. The Guwahati railway station, located in Paltan Bazaar area of Guwahati, is the busiest railway station in the city. It lies along the Barauni-Guwahati Line and Guwahati–Lumding section, categorised as an A-1 railway station under Lumding railway division.

There are four more railway stations in the city – the Kamakhya Junction for passenger and freight services, the New Guwahati railway station (near Noonmati) for only freight services, Narangi railway station and Azara railway station. There are regular trains connecting Guwahati to and from other major cities of the country. Rajdhani Express, Poorvottar Sampark Kranti Express, Brahmaputra Mail, Kamrup Express, Northeast Express, Saraighat Express and Vande Bharat are some significant trains running to and from Guwahati. The train with the longest route in India, Vivek Express, which runs from Dibrugarh in Upper Assam to Kanyakumari in the southern tip of India passes through Guwahati.

Road

The length of surfaced roads within the city is 218 km. National Highway 27 connects Guwahati with the states West Bengal, Bihar and rest of India. This highway connects Guwahati with Silchar in Barak Valley Assam and further connecting the city to the states of Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura. National Highway 17 from Sevoke in West Bengal terminates in Jalukbari and connects Guwahati with the major cities of Dhubri and Cooch Behar. National Highway 15 and its several secondary roads runs through both the banks of River Brahmaputra and connects the Guwahati with the cities of Tezpur, Jorhat, Dibrugarh in Upper Assam and the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.

Public transportation is well developed in the city. Buses are the major means of public transport in Guwahati. The state-owned Assam State Urban Transport Corporation, a subsidiary of Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC) and private operators provide the city bus services within the city. ASTC also operates the Volvo air-conditioned bus services within the city as well as to the LGBI airport. In addition to this, there are a number of private bus operators that regularly run day and night bus services from Guwahati to neighbouring towns and cities within Assam and the other Northeastern States. Rupnath Brahma Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT), located at Betkuchi area on NH-37, is the most significant terminal cum transit point for buses plying between Guwahati and other destinations in Assam and Northeast India. The areas of Adabari and Paltan Bazaar also act as nodal points in providing bus services to towns and cities in Assam and adjoining states.

A metro rail project has also been planned to relieve the hectic traffic conditions on the streets.

Guwahati has also seen a rise in the usage of cycling as a mode of transport and as per some unofficial estimates, there was almost a 50% increase in the number of people who took up cycling in the wake of COVID-19. The city has an active cycling community and is amongst the few Indian cities that has a Bicycle Mayor and a Junior Bicycle Mayor.

Water
The Inland Water Transport Department is headquartered at Pandu port in Guwahati. The waterways transportation services in Guwahati are used for transporting bulk goods and cargo, and for movement of passenger and tourist vessels. Ferry services are available for transportation of people from different ports along the Brahmaputra to Pandu port.

Sports

Guwahati features the multi-purpose Nehru Stadium which hosts mostly football and cricket located in the R.G. Baruah Sports Complex, one of the oldest in the city. It comprises the Kanaklata Indoor Stadium (for badminton), swimming pool and tennis courts. The North-East Frontier Railway Stadium of Maligaon, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) complex of Paltan Bazaar and the Judges Field are other prominent sporting venues of the city.

The sporting infrastructures especially constructed for the 33rd National Games in 2007 include Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium —the main stadium at Sarusajai Sports Complex, Dr. Zakir Hussain Aquatic Complex, and the Karmabir Nabin Chandra Bordoloi A.C. Indoor Stadium. Other new sports venues include Maulana Md. Tayabullah Hockey Stadium at Bhetapara, Deshbhakta Tarun Ram Phookan Indoor Stadium at Ulubari, Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium at Amingaon, Chachal Tennis Complex and the Tepesia Sports Complex. The renovated sports complexes include Ganesh Mandir Indoor Stadium at Khanapara, Rudra Singha Sports Complex at Dispur and Gauhati University Sports Stadium. The Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium was also the main venue of the 2016 South Asian Games and the Himalayan Region Games in 2017.

Guwahati is home to the professional football club of Indian Super League (ISL), NorthEast United FC. They play their home matches at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium. It presents one of the finest football atmospheres in India. The stadium also hosted matches of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2017.

The international cricket venue Assam Cricket Association Stadium at Barsapara, is the home of Assam cricket team. It is the largest cricket stadium in Northeast India with seating capacity of 40,000 and 2nd largest in East India. It hosted an India vs Australia T20I match in 2017 in its international debut. The first ODI in the stadium was held in 2018 between India and West Indies.

Media & telecommunications

Assamese daily newspapers published from the city are Dainik Agradoot, Asomiya Pratidin, Asomiya Khabar, Amar Asom, Dainik Janambhumi, Janasadharan, Niyomiya Barta, Dainik Asam, Dainandin Barta and Gana Adhikar. English dailies are The Assam Tribune, The Sentinel, The Telegraph, The Times of India and Eastern Chronicle. Eclectic Northeast Magazine is a leading Guwahati-based monthly Northeast magazine with an online version. G Plus is the only English weekly tabloid published from Guwahati.

The state-owned television broadcaster DD Assam provides free-to-air satellite television services. Guwahati-based 24-hour regional satellite news channels include News Live, DY 365, Pratidin Time, Prag News, Assam Talks and News18 Assam North East.

The Guwahati Radio Station of state-owned All India Radio was inaugurated on 1 July 1948 as Shillong-Guwahati Station. The Headquarter of the Shillong-Guwahati Station was shifted from Shillong to Guwahati in 1953. It is a full-fledged Regional broadcasting station with three channels; the Guwahati A & B Channels are AM Channels, and the CBS Channel is an FM Channel. The other FM stations include 92.7 BIG FM, Radio Gup-Shup 94.3 FM, Red FM 93.5 and Radio Mirchi. Telecom services are BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Jio.

Notable places of worship

 * Kamakhya Temple
 * Rudreswar Temple
 * Doul Govinda Temple
 * Ugratara Devalaya
 * Basistha Temple
 * Sukreswar Temple
 * Lankeshwar Temple
 * Dirgheshwari temple
 * Umananda Temple
 * Navagraha temples

Notable people

 * Nabakanta Barua, poet and academician
 * Dipankar Bhattacharjee, Indian badminton player and Olympian
 * Barsha Rani Bishaya, Assamese film actor
 * Gaurav Bora. footballer
 * Ashmita Chaliha, Indian badminton player
 * Utpal Das, Assamese film actor
 * Somdev Devvarman, tennis player
 * Zubeen Garg, singer, songwriter, lyricist and actor
 * Shrinjan Rajkumar Gohain, Indian chess player
 * Arnab Goswami, journalist
 * Mamoni Raisom Goswami, novelist and academician
 * Bhupen Hazarika, singer
 * Reema Kagti, director and screenwriter
 * Durgabar Kayastha, medieval littérateur
 * Abu Nechim, cricketer
 * Nayyara Noor, singer
 * Papon, singer and composer
 * Riyan Parag, cricketer
 * Bhabendra Nath Saikia, novelist, short story writer and film director
 * Himanta Biswa Sarma, current Chief Minister of Assam
 * Jayanta Talukdar, Indian archer and Olympian
 * Shiva Thapa, boxer and Olympian

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Dick Radatz

Richard Raymond Radatz (April 2, 1937 – March 16, 2005) was an American relief pitcher in Major League Baseball. Nicknamed "The Monster", the 6 ft, 230 lb right-hander had a scorching but short-lived period of dominance for the Boston Red Sox in the early 1960s. He got his nickname by striking out several New York Yankees in a row at a game in Fenway Park in 1963.

Early years
Born in Detroit, Radatz attended Berkley High School. He was a star basketball and baseball player at Michigan State University before signing with the Red Sox as an amateur free agent in 1959. Originally a starting pitcher when he began his professional career, Radatz compiled a 16–10 record and 3.48 earned run average in his first two seasons in the Red Sox farm system.

A sore arm led Seattle Rainiers manager Johnny Pesky to convert him into a reliever in 1961 against Radatz's will. The experiment worked, as Radatz earned a job out of spring training the following season as a non-roster invitee.

Sporting News "Fireman of the Year"
Radatz was immediately dominant at the major league level, as he pitched 18.1 innings and recorded six saves before surrendering his first earned run on May 15, 1962, against the Yankees (a game which the Red Sox won, and Radatz earned his seventh save). He went on to lead the American League in saves (24), games (62) and relief wins (9), while posting a 2.24 ERA in 124.2 innings his rookie season, earning the AL's Fireman of the Year by The Sporting News.

Yankee manager Ralph Houk, who said, "For two seasons, I've never seen a better pitcher," added Radatz to his 1963 AL All-Star squad after a 33 scoreless inning streak saw his ERA dip to 0.88 on June 14. He gave up one earned run in two innings pitched, but impressed with strikeouts of Willie Mays, Dick Groat, Duke Snider, Willie McCovey and Julián Javier. For the season, he saved 23 games and went 15–6 with a 1.97 ERA, becoming the first pitcher in history to have consecutive 20-save seasons and finishing fifth in MVP voting despite Boston's seventh-place finish.

The Red Sox toyed with the idea of converting Radatz back into a starter for the 1964 season. Instead, he remained in the bullpen, and earned his second Fireman of the Year award in 1964 for his league-leading 29 saves with 16 wins and a 2.29 ERA in 79 games. Most notably, he fanned 181 batters in 157 innings, setting a record that still stands for most strikeouts by a relief pitcher in a single season. He was named to the AL's All-Star Game pitching staff again in 1964, and struck out the first two batters he faced when he entered the game in the eighth inning. He was, however, unable to hold onto the AL's 4–3 lead, as he surrendered four runs in the ninth, including a game ending three-run home run by Johnny Callison.

Boston Red Sox
Radatz got off to a poor start to the 1965 season, blowing three save opportunities and posting a 7.54 ERA through May 14. He settled down, bringing his ERA down to a far more respectable 3.91 and earning 22 saves by season's end, but his 9–11 mark was the first losing record he had posted in his major league career. Radatz's only career home run came off the Kansas City Athletics' Jesse Hickman on June 5, 1965. He was selected to the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 1997.

Radatz was mentioned in trade rumors with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Braves and Minnesota Twins during the off-season, but eventually returned to the Red Sox. He was 0–2 with a 4.74 ERA before being dealt to the Cleveland Indians on June 2 for Don McMahon and Lee Stange.

Overall with Boston, Radatz saved 104 games (a team record later broken by Bob Stanley) with a 49–34 record and 646 strikeouts in 576.1 innings pitched. With the other four teams, he went only 6–20 with 26 saves in 117.2 innings.

Cleveland Indians
Radatz went 0–3 with a 4.61 ERA in Cleveland. He earned a combined 14 saves between his two teams in 1966, marking the first time in his career he failed to reach 20. He also failed to win a game as he ended the season with an 0–5 record.

Chicago Cubs
Nine games into the 1967 season, Radatz was dealt to the Chicago Cubs for a player to be named later. On June 9, Radatz pitched a scoreless ninth inning against the New York Mets at Wrigley Field to earn his first career win since September 14, 1965. But in 21.2 innings pitched with the Cubs through July 7, Radatz surrendered 12 hits, 23 walks and hit five batters. He was sent down to the minors to work on his control, but was unable to regain it. In 34 innings pitched in the minors, Radatz surrendered 25 hits and 40 walks and hit eight batters.

Detroit Tigers
The Cubs released Radatz during spring training of 1968. He signed with his hometown Detroit Tigers shortly afterwards, and spent the 1968 season with their Triple A affiliate Toledo Mud Hens. With Toledo, Dick was 6–7, 2.78 ERA, 24 GP, started 13 games, 5 CG, 3 SHO, 110.O IP, 103 K, 23 BB, and a WHIP of 0.973. He earned a spot on the major league roster out of spring training 1969, and was 2–2 with a 3.32 ERA in 11 appearances when his contract was sold to the Montreal Expos at the June 15 trade deadline. He went 0–4 with a 5.71 ERA for the Expos before he was released in August.

Later life
After leaving the game, Radatz worked at a number of jobs, had his own weekly radio show, and was a frequent guest on other sports talk radio shows. Radatz frequently suggested that contemporary relievers weren't durable enough and that his own experience was that when he didn't get used as much, he lost his edge. A resident of Farmington Hills, Michigan, Radatz moved back to the Greater Boston area in 1984, living in Easton, Massachusetts, where former teammate Jerry Moses had found him a job at a corrugated packaging company, Triple P Packaging. "I felt I had formed a love affair with this town, that I was appreciated by the fans here." Before his death in 2005, Radatz worked as pitching coach for the North Shore Spirit, an independent league team based in Lynn, Massachusetts. The team was managed by former Red Sox infielder John Kennedy who was expecting Radatz to return for the 2005 season.

Radatz died on March 16, 2005, after falling down a flight of stairs at his home in Easton, Massachusetts. He left behind a wife and three children. The Red Sox held a moment of silence during their 2005 home opener in his honor.

title: Dick Radatz


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Ma Barker

Kate Barker (born Arizona Donnie Clark; October 8, 1873 – January 16, 1935), better known as Ma Barker (and sometimes known as Arizona Barker and Arrie Barker), was the mother of several American criminals who ran the Barker–Karpis Gang during the "public enemy era" when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the Midwestern United States gripped the American people and press. She traveled with her sons during their criminal careers.

Barker gained a reputation as a ruthless crime matriarch who controlled and organized her sons' crimes. J. Edgar Hoover described her as "the most vicious, dangerous, and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade". She has been presented as a monstrous mother in films, songs, and literature. Those who knew her insisted that she had no criminal role and that Hoover created the allegations to justify her shooting by the FBI in 1935. Later reports consistently conclude that Kate Barker's role in her sons' crimes was falsely created by the media to increase newspaper and media sales.

Family life
Barker was born Arizona Donnie Clark in Ash Grove, Missouri, the daughter of John and Emaline (Parker) Clark; her family called her "Arrie". In 1892, she married George Barker in Lawrence County, Missouri, and the couple had four sons: Herman (1893–1927), Lloyd (1897–1949), Arthur (1899–1939), and Fred (1901–1935). The 1910 to 1930 censuses and the Tulsa City Directories from 1916 to 1928 show that George Barker worked in a variety of generally low-paying jobs. From 1916 to 1919, he was at the Crystal Springs Water Co. In the 1920s, he was employed as a farmer, watchman, station engineer, and clerk. An FBI document describes him as "shiftless" and says the Barkers paid no attention to their sons' education, and they were all "more or less illiterate". Barker's sons committed crimes as early as 1910, when Herman was arrested for highway robbery after running over a child in the getaway car. Over the next few years, Herman and his brothers were repeatedly involved in crimes of increasing seriousness, including robbery and murder. They were inducted into major crime by the Central Park gang. Herman died on August 29, 1927, in Wichita, Kansas, after a robbery and confrontation with police that left one officer dead. He shot the officer at point-blank range in the mouth. He killed himself to avoid prosecution when he was seriously wounded after crashing his car. In 1928, Lloyd Barker was incarcerated in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Arthur "Doc" Barker was in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, and Fred was in the Kansas State Penitentiary.

George was last listed living with his wife in the 1928 Tulsa city directory. Either she threw him out, as some say, or he left when life became intolerable with his criminal family. According to writer Miriam Allen deFord, George "gave up completely and quietly removed himself from the scene" after Herman's death and the imprisonment of his other sons. The FBI claimed that George left Ma because she had become "loose in her moral life" and was "having outside dates with other men". They noted that George was not a criminal, but he was willing to profit from his sons' crimes after their deaths by claiming their assets as next of kin. However, a family friend recalled that the couple argued about their children's "dissolute life". Arrie "countenanced their wrongdoings" while George refused to accept them. The crunch came when George refused to support Lloyd after his arrest, insisting that he should be punished for his crime. Arrie did everything that she could to get her sons exonerated, no matter what they had done.

From 1928 to 1930, Ma lived in "miserable poverty" in a "dirt-floor shack" with no husband and no job, while all her sons were in jail. This may have been when she became "loose" with local men, as the FBI suggested. By 1930, she was living with a jobless man named Arthur W. Dunlop (sometimes spelled "Dunlap"). She is described as his wife on the 1930 census of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Things improved for her in 1931 after her son Fred was released from jail. He joined former prison-mate Alvin Karpis to form the Barker–Karpis Gang. After a series of robberies, Fred and Karpis killed Sheriff C. Roy Kelly in West Plains, Missouri on December 19, 1931, an act that forced them to flee the area. Ma and Dunlop traveled with them, using various false names during their itinerant crime career. A wanted poster issued at this time offered $100 reward for the capture of "Old Lady Arrie Barker" as an accomplice. After this, she was usually known to gang members as "Kate".

St. Paul and Wisconsin
Arthur was released from prison in 1932 and joined Fred and Karpis, and the core gang was supplemented by other criminal associates. The gang moved to Chicago but decided to leave because Karpis did not want to work for Al Capone. Racketeer Jack Peifer suggested that they move to St. Paul, Minnesota, which had a reputation at the time as a haven for wanted criminals. The Barker–Karpis Gang's most infamous crimes were committed after the move to St. Paul, during their residency in a string of rented houses. The gang operated under the protection of St. Paul's police chief Thomas "Big Tom" Brown, and they went from being bank robbers to kidnappers under his guidance.

Ma's common-law husband Arthur Dunlop was said to be loose-lipped when drunk, and he was not trusted by members of the gang; Karpis described him as a "pain in the ass". While at one hideout, a resident identified the gang from photographs in True Detective magazine and told the police, but Chief Brown tipped them off and they escaped. The gang apparently believed that Dunlop's loose lips had given them away, and they murdered him while traveling. His naked body was found near Webster, Wisconsin with a single bullet wound to the head. Chief Brown's involvement in the gang's escape could not be proven, but he was demoted to the rank of detective and was later dismissed from the police force altogether.

The gang relocated to Menomonie, Wisconsin, and Fred Barker hid Ma in a variety of hotels and hideouts during their stay there. The purpose was to keep her from learning much about the gang's crimes, as well as to separate her from their girlfriends, with whom she did not get along. The FBI later claimed that she would try to break up any relationships, so that "other women in the gang" did their best to avoid her. By 1933, most of the gang were back in St. Paul where they carried out two kidnappings of wealthy businessmen. They obtained $100,000 in ransom by abducting William Hamm, then arranged the kidnapping of Edward Bremer which netted them a $200,000 ransom. The FBI first connected the gang to the William Hamm kidnapping by using a new method of latent fingerprint identification. The gang decided to leave St. Paul with the FBI on the case and without Tom Brown supplying information; they moved to the Chicago area, renting apartments for Ma while they tried to launder the ransom.

Death
FBI agents discovered the hideout of Barker and her son Fred after Arthur was arrested in Chicago on January 8, 1935. A map found in his possession indicated that other gang members were in Ocklawaha, Florida. The FBI identified the house where the gang were staying from references to a local alligator known as "Gator Joe", mentioned in a letter sent to Doc. The gang had rented the property under the pseudonym "Blackburn" as a vacation retreat.

Agents surrounded the house at 13250 East Highway C-25 on the morning of January 16, 1935. The FBI were not aware that Karpis and other gang members had left three days before, leaving only Fred and Ma in the house. The agents ordered them to surrender, but Fred opened fire; both he and his mother were killed by federal agents after an intense, hours-long shootout. Allegedly, many local people came to watch the events unfolding, even holding picnics during the gunfire. Gunfire from the house finally stopped, and the FBI ordered local estate handyman Willie Woodbury to enter the house wearing a bulletproof vest. Woodbury reported that there was no one inside alive.

Both bodies were found in the same front bedroom. Fred's body was riddled with bullets, but Ma appeared to have died from a single bullet wound. According to the FBI's account, a Tommy gun was found lying in her hands. Other sources say that it was lying between the bodies of Ma and Fred. Their bodies were put on public display, and then stored unclaimed until October 1, 1935, when relatives had them buried at Williams Timberhill Cemetery in Welch, Oklahoma, next to the body of Herman Barker.

Controversy over her leadership of the Barker gang
The popular image of Ma as the gang's leader and its criminal mastermind is often portrayed in films such as Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960), Bloody Mama (1970), and Public Enemies (1996). However, this is widely regarded by historians as fictitious, and some have been skeptical that she participated in the shoot-out in which she died. Karpis has suggested that the story was encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover and his fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to justify his agents' killing an old woman. After her death, Hoover claimed that Ma Barker was "the most vicious, dangerous, and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade". He also claimed that she enjoyed the lifestyle that was the fruit of her sons' crimes and supposedly had a string of lovers.

Ma Barker's children were murderers and their Barker–Karpis gang committed a spree of robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes between 1931 and 1935, but there is no conclusive proof that Ma was their leader. She certainly knew of the gang's activities and even helped them before and after they committed their crimes, and this made her an accessory, but there is no evidence that she was involved in planning them. Her role was in taking care of gang members, who often sent her to the movies while they committed crimes. According to Claire Bond Potter, "Her age and apparent respectability permitted the gang to hide out 'disguised' as a family. As 'Mrs. Hunter' and 'Mrs. Anderson', she rented houses, paid bills, shopped, and did household errands." Alvin Karpis was probably the real leader of the gang, and he later said that Ma was just "an old-fashioned homebody from the Ozarks … superstitious, gullible, simple, cantankerous and, well, generally law abiding". He concluded:"The most ridiculous story in the annals of crime is that Ma Barker was the mastermind behind the Karpis–Barker gang. … She wasn't a leader of criminals or even a criminal herself. There is not one police photograph of her or set of fingerprints taken while she was alive… she knew we were criminals but her participation in our careers was limited to one function: when we traveled together, we moved as a mother and her sons. What could look more innocent?"This view of Ma Barker is corroborated by notorious bank robber Harvey Bailey, who knew the Barkers well. He observed in his autobiography that Ma Barker "couldn't plan breakfast" let alone a criminal enterprise. Writer Tim Mahoney argues that the real force behind the gang was the corrupt St. Paul law-enforcement system, especially under Police Chief Tom Brown. Before they met him, the gang were nothing more than a "bumbling band of hillbilly burglars" who would have been captured or killed long before becoming nationally notorious. "Had the Barker gang never come under Brown's protection, Ma Barker might have died lonesome in the Ozarks, an impoverished obscure widow."

1900–1920

 * 1910 – Herman Barker arrested for highway robbery in Webb City, Missouri.
 * March 5, 1915 – Herman Barker arrested for highway robbery in Joplin, Missouri. (Herman and Lloyd Barker reportedly involved with the Central Park Gang of Tulsa, Oklahoma.)
 * July 4, 1918 – Arthur "Doc" Barker involved in US automobile theft in Tulsa, Oklahoma; arrested (#841) (escaped).

1920–1929

 * February 19, 1920 – Arthur Barker arrested in Joplin, Missouri (#1740); returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
 * 1921 – Lloyd "Red" Barker arrested for vagrancy in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
 * January 15, 1921 – Arthur Barker aka "Claude Dade" involved in attempted bank robbery in Muskogee, Oklahoma; arrested (#822).
 * January 30, 1921 – Arthur Barker aka "Bob Barker" received at the Oklahoma State Prison (#11059); released June 11, 1921.
 * August 16, 1921 – Arthur Barker and Volney Davis involved in killing of night watchman Thomas J. Sherrill in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (According to other sources, Thomas J. Sherrill. was a night watchman at St. John's Hospital in Tulsa.)
 * January 8, 1922 – Central Park Gang involved in attempted burglary in Okmulgee, Oklahoma; shootout results in one burglar dead while police Captain Homer R. Spaulding dies of his wounds on January 19, 1922. One gang member is sentenced to life in prison while another had his sentence overturned.
 * January 16, 1922 – Lloyd Barker received at Leavenworth Prison (#17243) after arrest for robbing mail at Baxter Springs, Kansas and sentenced to 25 years; released 1938.
 * February 10, 1922 – Arthur "Doc" Barker received (#11906) at Oklahoma State Prison for the murder of Sherrill.
 * 1926 – Fred Barker robbed bank in Winfield, Kansas; arrested.
 * March 12, 1927 – Fred Barker admitted to Kansas State Prison.
 * August 1, 1927 – Herman Barker cashed stolen bank bonds at the America National Bank in Cheyenne, WY. Sheriff Deputy Arthur Osborn flagged down Barker's car. Barker picked up a gun from the vehicle's seat and shot Osborn.  Osborn died as a result.
 * August 29, 1927 – Herman Barker commits suicide in Wichita, Kansas, after being pulled over by a motorcycle cop with a sidecar. (Wichita Policeman J.E. Marshall had been killed on August 9, 1927, by the Kimes–Terrill Gang that Herman was associated with. Five other policemen were killed by the Kimes gang. See ODMP).

1930–1939
(Of Barker–Karpis Gang/associates: 19 arrested; 4 killed by lawmen; 3 killed by gangsters)
 * March 30, 1931 – Fred Barker released from Kansas State Prison after serving time for burglary; met Alvin Karpis in prison.
 * June 10, 1931 – Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis (alias George Heller) arrested by Tulsa, Oklahoma Police investigating burglary. Karpis sentenced to 4 years but paroled after restitution made; Fred Barker also avoided jail sentence.
 * November 8, 1931 – Fred Barker killed an Arkansas police chief Manley Jackson.
 * December 19, 1931 – Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis robbed a store in West Plains, Missouri and involved in the killing of Howell County, Missouri sheriff C. Roy Kelly.
 * January 18, 1932 – Lloyd Barker received at Leavenworth Prison.
 * April 26, 1932 – Body of A.W. Dunlap found at Lake Franstead, Minnesota; killed by Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis.
 * June 17, 1932 – Fred Barker, Karpis and five accomplices robbed Fort Scott, Kansas Bank.
 * July 26, 1932 – Fred Barker, Karpis (with an augmented gang) robbed Cloud County bank at Concordia, Kansas.
 * August 13, 1932 – Attorney J. Earl Smith of Tulsa, Oklahoma found killed at Indian Hills Country Club north of Tulsa; he had been retained to defend Harvey Bailey over the Fort Scott bank robbery, but the man was convicted.
 * September 10, 1932 – Arthur "Doc" Barker released from prison.
 * December 16, 1932 – Fred and Arthur Barker, Alvin Karpis and gang robbed Third Northwestern National Bank in Minneapolis, killing policemen Ira Leon Evans and Leo Gorski and one civilian. (One gang member Lawrence DeVol in this shooting was also involved in four other police killings-two police officers, Sheriff William Sweet and City Marshal Aaron Bailey, in Washington, Iowa in June 1930 and Marshall John W. Rose in Kirksville, MO on November 17, 1930, and killing officer Cal Palmer and wounding another officer before being gunned down in Enid, OK in 1936.)
 * April 4, 1933 – Fred and Arthur Barker, Alvin Karpis and gang members Eddie Green (criminal) of the Dillinger Gang, Jess Doyle, Earl Christman, Frank "Jelly" Nash, Volney Davis, robbed a bank in Fairbury, Nebraska. Christman was badly wounded during the robbery and Green drove him to Verne Miller's house in Kansas City to recover. Christman eventually died from his wounds and was buried in an unmarked grave outside town.
 * June 1933 – William Hamm of the Hamm's Brewery family kidnapped by Barker–Karpis Gang; Hamm released June 19, 1933, after ransom paid. It is believed by some that the gang turned over half of the Hamm ransom money to the Chicago Mob under Frank Nitti after Nitti discovered that they were hiding Hamm in suburban Chicago and demanded half the ransom as "rent".
 * August 30, 1933 – Barker–Karpis Gang robs a payroll at Stockyards National Bank of South St. Paul, Minnesota, in which one policeman Leo Pavlak is coldly executed and one disabled for life.
 * September 22, 1933 – Two bank messengers held up by five men identified as Barker–Karpis Gang; Chicago policeman Miles A Cunningham is killed by the gang after their car crashed during the getaway. (Barker–Karpis Gang associate Vernon Miller was allegedly involved in the killing, and reportedly also involved in the Kansas City Massacre in which four lawmen were killed).
 * January 17, 1934 – Gang kidnaps Edward George Bremer, Jr.; Bremer released on February 7, 1934, after ransom paid.
 * January 19, 1934 – Gang wounds M.C. McCord of Northwest Airways Company, thinking he was a policeman.
 * March 10, 1934 – Barker gang member Fred Goetz (also known as "Shotgun George" Ziegler, a participant in the Bremer kidnapping) killed by fellow gangsters in Cicero, Illinois.
 * April 1934 – Doc Barker and associate Volney Davis get a surprise visit from John Dillinger and Homer Van Meter, helping them bury their comrade John "Red" Hamilton after Hamilton died from gunshot wounds sustained in a shootout in St. Paul, Minnesota.
 * July 1934 – Underworld doctor Joseph Moran last seen alive.
 * January 6, 1935 – Barker gang member William B. Harrison killed by fellow gangsters at Ontarioville, Illinois.
 * January 8, 1935 – Arthur "Doc" Barker arrested in Chicago; Barker gang member Russell Gibson killed and his colleague Byron Bolton captured at another address.
 * January 16, 1935 – Fred and Ma Barker killed by FBI in Ocklawaha, Florida (Marion County). The FBI found Ma Barker by tracking her letters sent to her other son. She was writing to him to tell him about a large gator in Lake Weir that everyone had called "Gator Joe", which led to the name of the local restaurant known as "Gator Joe's".
 * September 26, 1935 – The supposed body of underworld doctor Joseph Moran found in Lake Erie; believed killed by Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis. (However, Karpis himself said that Moran had been buried.)
 * November 7, 1935 – Karpis and five accomplices robbed an Erie Railroad mail train at Garrettsville, Ohio.
 * May 2, 1936 – Karpis and accomplice Fred Hunter arrested in New Orleans, Louisiana.
 * October 29, 1938 – Lloyd Barker released from prison.
 * January 13, 1939 – Arthur Barker killed trying to escape from Alcatraz Prison. Among his accomplices in unsuccessful escape is Dale Stamphill who was involved in the killing of Oklahoma State Reformatory Guard James Payton Jones February 17, 1935

1940–1949

 * During World War II – Lloyd Barker was a US Army cook, ironically, he was employed at POW camp Fort Custer, Michigan; received a US Army Good Conduct Medal and an Honorable Discharge.
 * On March 18, 1949 – Lloyd Barker was killed by his wife; he was the manager of the Denargo Market in Denver, Colorado. She was sent to the Colorado State Insane Asylum.

In popular culture
Film and television
 * "Ma Webster", played by Blanche Yurka in the 1940 film Queen of the Mob is based on Barker. Changes in the names and depiction of events were at the request of the FBI.
 * The character of "Ma Jarrett" in the 1949 James Cagney film White Heat is thought to be based on Ma Barker.
 * Ma was played by Jean Harvey in 2 episodes of the TV series Gang Busters (1952).
 * In the 1957 docudrama Guns Don't Argue Ma is portrayed by Jean Harvey.
 * "Ma Barker and Her Boys", an episode of the 1959 TV series The Untouchables, pits Federal Agent Eliot Ness against the Barker clan, and depicts Ness as leading the assault on Ma Barker and her sons at their Florida hide-out. In this version, Lloyd, Fred and Doc are all present at the final shootout. Ma was played by Claire Trevor. In real life Ness worked for the Bureau of Prohibition, not the FBI, and he had nothing to do with the Barker/Karpis case. The FBI objected to the fact that Ness was depicted as the leader of the attack on the gang.
 * The 1959 movie The FBI Story, starring Jimmy Stewart, portrayed a number of deaths of 1930s-era criminals, including Ma Barker. In the scene, she was shown firing at law officers before finally being shot. (She was portrayed by Jane Crowley, though the role was uncredited.)
 * Lurene Tuttle portrayed Ma Barker in the low-budget feature film Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960). The film's scrolling text refers to her as a "sadistic ... master of crime" and "evil genius". It portrays her controlling a gang that includes John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, and constantly outwitting their rival Machine Gun Kelly.
 * Ma was played by Joan Blondell in an episode of the 1961 TV series The Witness, which took the form of a mock-trial of historical individuals before a "committee" of lawyers. Her son Lloyd and various accomplices appear as witnesses.
 * In the 1966 Batman series, one of the villains in series one was "Ma Parker" (played by Shelley Winters), a villainous mob boss who was based on Ma Barker. Ma Parker along with her three sons and one daughter almost managed to defeat the Dynamic Duo in the series.
 * Barker's story was also adapted in the low-budget film Bloody Mama (1970). The movie starred Shelley Winters as Ma Barker. In this film her criminality is the result of childhood sexual abuse by her family.
 * "The Ma Gantry Gang", featured in the first episode of the 1974 TV series The Manhunter was based on Barker and her sons. Ma Gantry was played by Ida Lupino.
 * Eileen Heckart played Ma in the 1974 film The FBI Story: the FBI Versus Alvin Karpis, Public Enemy Number One.
 * The DuckTales version of Disney's Beagle Boys (the series lasted from 1987 to 1990), a gang of criminals, is led by their mother Ma Beagle, who is based on Ma Barker. She is absent from the original comics which were written by Carl Barks.
 * In the 1978 film Stingray, Lieutenant Hershal stated to one of his colleagues that Abigail Britowski, played by Sherry Jackson, made Ma Barker look like a nun, in a reference to the notorious alleged criminal.
 * In the 1985 film The Goonies Ma Fratelli is loosely based on Ma Barker.
 * Another retelling of the legend occurred in the 1996 movie Public Enemies starring Theresa Russell. As in Bloody Mama, she is depicted as a victim of sexual abuse which brutalizes her.
 * In the 2007 film Resident Evil: Extinction
 * In Ben 10 Ma Vreedle is a recurrent antagonist, leader of a criminal gang with her children.

Literature
 * Maw Famon and her thug sons who battle it out with Dick Tracy in a December 1935 comic strip are based on Ma Barker and her boys.
 * While The Daltons of the Lucky Luke comic book series were originally based on the real Dalton Gang, their mother, Ma Dalton, is clearly inspired by Ma Barker. Coincidentally, their gang consists of four instead of three Dalton brothers.
 * Crime author James Hadley Chase based some of the characters in his first novel, No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939), on Ma Barker and her sons.

Music
 * John Eaton composed an opera, Ma Barker, in 1955, to a libretto by Arthur Gold.
 * In 1977, disco band Boney M. released a hit single titled "Ma Baker" (Barker was changed into Baker because it sounded better), which was later covered by German Comedy Rock band Knorkator, and has since been covered by German heavy metal band Axxis, Milli Vanilli in 1988, and sampled by Lady Gaga in her single "Poker Face". The song's title and lyrics are clearly about Ma Barker.
 * The band Maylene and the Sons of Disaster (formed in 2004) are named after the group of criminals and their songs are based on the gang's history. Band member Dallas Taylor has said: "Maylene and the Sons of Disaster is made up of five dudes who play the role of the Barker sons, and in these songs we speak as though we were them, telling any who would listen that a life lived unjustly will meet divine justice on the other side. We also wanted to think of the most crazy backwoods theme possible for this band. Since Ma was backwoods, and we are backwoods, this is the way it had to be."
 * The former wife of gangsta rap pioneer Kool G Rap is an MC who goes under the name of Ma Barker. They had at one point formed a group called 5 Family Click, releasing a collective album and surfacing on mixtapes.
 * Composer Michel Wintsch and writer Gérald Chevrolet adapted the writings of Marguerite Yourcenar to create the opera "Ma Barker" in 1996.

Other
 * The Lake Weir Chamber of Commerce stages an annual "Ma Barker Shootout" on "Ma Barker Day" in a building near the actual location of her death.
 * The Barker death house in Ocklawaha, Florida, was listed for sale on August 16, 2012. The bidding began at one million dollars and included the original furnishings, but the house ultimately went unsold. In 2015, the Florida state senate proposed a bill for $500,000 to repair and preserve the house as an historic landmark, but the bill was rejected. The house was subsequently taken off the market.
 * In October 2016, the Barker death house was relocated via barge across Lake Weir to Carney Island in Marion County in preparation for being opened to the public as a museum in late 2017 or 2018. The land where it had sat since 1930 was sold by its owners. Just prior to the relocation of the house, a vintage ring which bears the initials, "F.B" was found when a team using metal detectors gained permission to scan the location. The ring is presumed to have been owned by Fred Barker and it has been added to the collection along with several bullet casings and assorted paraphernalia.

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