Louis Honore Frechette

Louis Honoré Fréchette , 1839-1908, French Canadian poet and politician, b. Lévis, Que. He worked (1865-71) as a journalist in Chicago and while there wrote a volume of poetry entitled La Voix d'un exilé [the voice of an exile] (1866-68). Returning to Canada, he served in Parliament (1874-78), tried journalism again, and in 1889 received a government clerkship, which he held until his death. His volumes of poetry include Les Oiseaux de neige [snowbirds] (1879), on old Quebec, and La Légende d'un peuple [the story of a people] (1887), an epic of the French Canadians. He was the first Canadian poet to be honored by the French Academy. His collected poems appeared posthumously in 1908.

Louis, Joe (1914–1983), boxer and heavyweight champion.Born near LaFayette, Alabama, Joe Louis moved to Detroit with his mother at the age of ten. He became an amateur boxer in 1932 and two years later turned professional. Under the guidance of his trainer and confidant Jack “Chappie” Blackburn and managers John Roxborough and Julian Black, Louis quickly established a reputation as a devastating puncher and skilled fighter. He captured the heavyweight championship from James Braddock in 1937 and went on to defend his title a record twenty‐five times. Among his many legendary fights was a first‐round knockout of the German fighter Max Schmeling in a return match in 1938, a final‐round knockout of Billy Conn in 1941, and a highly controversial defeat of Jersey Joe Walcott in 1947. His defeat of Schmeling took on symbolic importance, as many Americans viewed it as a triumph of American democracy over Nazi racism and totalitarianism. Louis retired as heavyweight champion in 1949, only to be thwarted in comeback attempts against Ezzard Charles and Rocky Marciano over the next two years. As with many former boxers, Louis's postretirement years were troubled. He married four times (twice to Marva Trotter), failed in the fast‐food business, at one time owed over a million dollars in federal taxes, and spent five months in a mental hospital. Louis spent his last years as a greeter at Caesar's Palace Casino in Las Vegas. In 1990, he was posthumously honored by election to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. An American hero, Joe Louis was especially revered in the African‐American community.
See also Boxing; Sports: Professional Sports.

Bibliography

Anthony O. Edmonds , Joe Louis, 1973.
Chris Mead , Joe Louis: Black Hero in White America, 1985.

David K. Wiggins

Daumier, Honoré (b Marseilles, 26 Feb. 1808; d Valmondois, 10 Feb. 1879). French caricaturist, painter, and sculptor. During his lifetime he was known chiefly as a political and social satirist, but since his death he has been increasingly recognized as a painter. In 1830, after learning the still fairly new process of lithography, he began to contribute political cartoons to the newly launched anti-monarchist weekly La Caricature (see Philipon). He was an ardent Republican and in 1832 was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for his attacks on King Louis-Philippe, whom he represented as ‘Gargantua swallowing bags of gold extorted from the people’. In 1835 the government prohibited political caricature and Daumier turned to social satire, mainly in Le Charivari, but at the time of the 1848 Revolution, in which Louis-Philippe was deposed, he returned to political subjects. He is said to have produced more than 4,000 lithographs, wishing each time that the one he had just made could be his last.

Daumier's paintings were probably done for the most part fairly late in his career. He had examples accepted four times by the Salon, but otherwise he never exhibited them and they remained practically unknown up to the time of an exhibition held at Durand-Ruel's gallery in 1878, the year before his death. Most of them depict contemporary life and manners with satirical overtones, but he also did a number on literary and mythological themes (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, c.1865, Courtauld Gal., London). His technique was remarkably broad and free. As a sculptor he specialized in caricature heads and figures, and these too are in a very spontaneous style. In particular he created the memorable figure of Ratapoil (meaning ‘skinned rat’), who embodied the sinister agents of the government of Louis-Philippe. (A similar political type in his graphic art was Robert Macaire, who personified the unscrupulous profiteer and swindler.)

As a caricaturist Daumier stands head and shoulders above all others of the 19th century. The essence of his satire lay in his power to interpret mental states in terms of physical absurdity, but in his directness of vision and lack of sentimentality he has affinities with the realism of Courbet. Although he never made a commercial success of his art, he was appreciated by the discriminating, his friends and admirers including Baudelaire, Degas, Delacroix, and Forain. In his final years he was almost blind and was saved from destitution by Corot.