title: Burakumin

text: As early as 1922, officials of the Hisabetsu Buraku organized a campaign, the , to advance their rights. The Declaration of the encouraged the to unite in resistance to discrimination, and sought to create a positive identity for the victims of discrimination, insisting that the time had come to be "proud of being ". The declaration portrayed the ancestors as "manly martyrs of industry" and argued that to submit meekly to oppression would be to insult and profane these ancestors. Despite internal divisions among anarchist, Bolshevik, and social democratic factions, and despite the Japanese government's establishment of an alternate organization, the Yūma, designed to reduce the influence of the , the Levelers Association remained active until the late 1930s.


title: Burakumin

text: After World War II, the National Committee for Burakumin Liberation was initiated, changing its name to the during the 1950s. The league, with the endorsement of the socialist and communist parties, influenced the government into making important concessions during the late 1960s and 1970s.


title: Burakumin

text: During the 1960s, the Sayama Incident publicised the problems of the group. The incident involved the murder conviction of a member of the discriminated communities based on circumstantial evidence, which is generally given little weight vs. physical evidence in Japanese courts.


title: Burakumin

text: One concession was the passing of the "Special Measures Law for Assimilation Projects", which provided financial aid for the discriminated communities. In 1976, legislation was also approved banning third parties from investigating another person's family registry. This traditional system of registry, kept for all Japanese by the Ministry of Justice since the 19th century, would reveal an individual's ancestry if consulted. By the new legislation, these records could now be consulted only for legal cases, making it more difficult to identify or discriminate against members of the group.


title: Burakumin

text: During the 1980s, some educators and local governments, particularly in areas with relatively large populations, began special education programs which they hoped would encourage greater educational and economic success for young members of the group and decrease the discrimination they faced. rights groups exist presently in all parts of Japan except for Hokkaidō and Okinawa.


title: Burakumin

text: The Buraku Liberation League is considered one of the most militant among 's rights groups. The BLL is known for its fierce "denunciation and explanation sessions", where alleged perpetrators of discriminatory actions or speech are summoned for a public hearing before a panel of activists.


title: Burakumin

text: Early sessions were marked by occasions of violence and kidnapping, and several BLL activists have been arrested for such acts. The legality of these sessions is still disputed, but to this date the authorities have mostly ignored them except in the more extreme cases.


title: Burakumin

text: In 1990, Karel van Wolferen's criticism of the BLL in his much-acclaimed book "The Enigma of Japanese Power" prompted the BLL to demand the publisher halt publication of the Japanese translation of the book. Van Wolferen condemned this as an international scandal.


title: Burakumin

text: The other major activist group is the (or , affiliated to the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). It was formed in 1979 by BLL activists who were either purged from the organization or abandoned it during the late 1960s, due to, among other things, their opposition to the decision that subsidies to the should be limited to the BLL members only. Not all were BLL members, and not all residents of the areas targeted for subsidies were historically descended from the out-caste.


title: Burakumin

text: The often disputed the BLL, accusing them of chauvinism. The conflict between the two organizations increased during 1974 when a clash between teachers belonging to a JCP-affiliated union and BLL activists at a high school in Yoka, rural Hyōgo Prefecture, put 29 in hospital.


title: Burakumin

text: In 1988, the BLL formed the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR). The BLL sought for the IMADR to be recognized as a United Nations Non-Government Organization, but in 1991, the informed the United Nations about the alleged human rights violations committed by the BLL in the course of their 'denunciation sessions' held with accused 'discriminators'.


title: Burakumin

text: According to a BLL-funded think tank, when cases of discrimination were alleged, the often conducted denunciation sessions as fierce as those of the BLL. Nonetheless, the IMADR was designated a UN human rights NGO in March 1993.


title: Burakumin

text: On March 3, 2004, the announced that "the issue has basically been resolved" and formally disbanded. On March 4, 2004, they began a new organization known as the or .


title: Burakumin

text: Jodo Shinshu Buddhism originally patronized the lower castes. The effect of this encouragement, however, was that it resulted in a series of anti-feudal rebellions, known as the Ikkō-ikki revolts, which seriously threatened the religious and political status-quo. Accordingly, the political powers created a situation whereby the Jōdo Shinshū divided into two competing parts, the Shinshu Otani-ha and the Honganji-ha. This had the consequence that the sects became less anti-feudal.


title: Burakumin

text: Later the state also forced all people to belong to a specific Buddhist school according to the formula:


title: Burakumin

text: In consequence the Honganji, which during Rennyo's leadership of it had defiantly accepted the derogatory label of 'the dirty sect' (see Rennyo's letters known as the Ofumi/Gobunsho) now began to discriminate against its own burakumin members as it jostled for political and social status.


title: Burakumin

text: In 1922, when the National Levelers' Association (Zenkoku-suiheisha) was initiated in Kyoto, Mankichi Saiko, a founder of the society and Jodo Shinshu priest, said:


title: Burakumin

text: After many petitions from the BLL, in 1969 the Honganji changed its opinion on the burakumin issue. Zenkairen, which disassociated from the BLL in 1968, regrets this decision.


title: Burakumin

text: Religious discrimination against the burakumin was not recognized until the BLL's criticism sessions became widespread. For example, in 1979 the Director-General of the Sōtō Sect of Buddhism made a speech at the "3rd World Conference on Religion and Peace" claiming that there was no discrimination against burakumin in Japan.


title: Burakumin

text: Main text originally from Library of Congress, Country Studies. 'Religious Discrimination' and 'Jodo shinshu Honganji' sections adapted from Shindharmanet and BLHRRI.Org.


title: Autarky

text: Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states, and their economic systems.


title: Autarky

text: Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especially left-wing ideologies like African socialism, mutualism, war communism, communalism, swadeshi, syndicalism (especially anarcho-syndicalism), and left-wing populism, generally in an effort to build alternative economic structures or to control resources against structures a particular movement views as hostile. Conservative, centrist and nationalist movements have also adopted autarky in an attempt to preserve part of an existing social order or to develop a particular industry.


title: Autarky

text: Proponents of autarky have argued for national self-sufficiency to reduce foreign economic, political and cultural influences, as well as to promote international peace. Economists are generally supportive of free trade. There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth and economic stability.


title: Autarky

text: Autarky may be a policy of a state or some other type of entity when it seeks to be self-sufficient as a whole, but it also can be limited to a narrow field such as possession of a key raw material. Some countries have a policy of autarky with respect to foodstuffs and water for national-security reasons. Autarky can result from economic isolation or from external circumstances in which a state or other entity reverts to localized production when it lacks currency or excess production to trade with the outside world.


title: Autarky

text: The word "autarky" is from the , which means "self-sufficiency" (derived from αὐτο-, "self", and ἀρκέω, "to suffice"). The term is confused with autarchy (Greek: αὐταρχία – the idea of rejecting government and ruling oneself and no other). It is less likely to be confused with autocracy (Greek: αὐτoκρατία "government by single absolute ruler").


title: Autarky

text: In fact, Lexico, whose content is provided by the same publisher as that of the Oxford English Dictionary, says that "autarky" is a variant spelling of and pronounced the same as "autarchy" and that "autarchy" is another term for "autocracy".


title: Autarky

text: In Stoicism the concept of autarky represents independence from anything external, including independence from personal relationships, so as to immune one from vagaries of fortune. The Stoic sage is autarkic by being dependent only on his own virtue.


title: Autarky

text: In Epicureanism the concept of autarky represents having the fewest possible requirements for living a life of pleasure, free of pain (aponia).


title: Autarky

text: Early state societies that can be regarded as autarkic include nomadic pastoralism and palace economy, though over time these tend towards becoming less self-sufficient and more interconnected. The late Bronze Age, for example, saw formerly self-sufficient palace economies rely more heavily on trade, which may have been a contributing factor to the eventual Bronze Age Collapse when multiple crises hit those systems at once. After that collapse, the ideal of "autarkeia" formed a part of emerging Greek political culture, emphasizing economic self-sufficiency and local self-rule.


title: Autarky

text: The populist Chinese philosophy of Agriculturalism, prominent in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, supported egalitarian, self-sufficient societies as an antidote to rampant war and corruption.


title: Autarky

text: During the Late Roman Empire, some rebellions and communities pursued autarky as a reaction both to upheaval and to counter imperial power. A prominent example is the Bacaude, who repeatedly rebelled against the empire and "formed self-governing communities" with their own internal economy and coinage.


title: Autarky

text: Medieval communes combined an attempt at overall economic self-sufficiency through the use of common lands and resources with the use of mutual defense pacts, neighborhood assemblies and organized militias to preserve local autonomy against the depredations of the local nobility. Many of these communes later became trading powers such as the Hanseatic League. In some cases, communal village economies maintained their own debt system as part of a self-sufficient economy and to avoid reliance on possibly hostile aristocratic or business interests. The trend toward "local self-sufficiency" increased after the Black Plague, initially as a reaction to the impact of the epidemic and later as a way for communes and city states to maintain power against the nobility.


title: Autarky

text: There is considerable debate about how autarkic cultures that resisted the spread of early capitalism were. Golden Age pirate communities have been dubbed both heavily autarkic societies where "the marauders...lived in small, self-contained democracies" and as an "anti-autarky" due to their dependence on raiding.


title: Autarky

text: While rarer among imperial states, some autarkies did occur during specific time periods. The Ming dynasty, during its earlier, more isolationist period, kept a closed economy that prohibited outside trade and focused on centralized distribution of goods produced in localized farms and workshops. A hierarchy of bureaucrats oversaw the distribution of these resources from central depots, including a massive one located in the Forbidden City. That depot was, at the time, the largest logistical base in the world. The Incan Empire also maintained a system of society-wide autarky based on community levies of specific goods and "supply on command".


title: Autarky

text: In some areas of the antebellum South, the enslaved and free black populations forged self-sufficient economies in an effort to avoid reliance on the larger economy controlled by the planter aristocracy. In eastern North Carolina maroon communities, often based in swampy areas, used a combination of agriculture and fishing to forge a "hidden economy" and secure survival. The relative self-reliance of these maritime African-American populations provided the basis for a strongly abolitionist political culture that made increasingly radical demands after the start of the Civil War. Due to tense relations with some Union commanders and political factions during and after that war, these communities "focused their organizing efforts on developing their own institutions, their own sense of self-reliance, and their own political strength".


title: Autarky

text: Autarkic ambitions can also be seen in the Populist backlash to the exploitations of free trade in the late 19th-century and in many early Utopian Socialist movements. Mutual aid societies like the Grange and Sovereigns of Industry attempted to set up self-sufficient economies (with varying degrees of success) in an effort to be less dependent on what they saw as an exploitative economic system and to generate more power to push for reforms.


title: Autarky

text: Early socialist movements used these autarkic efforts to build their base with institutions like the Bourse de travail, socialist canteens and food assistance. These played a major role in securing workers' loyalty and building those parties into increasingly powerful institutions (especially in Europe) throughout the late 19th and early 20th-centuries. Through these cooperatives, "workers bought Socialist bread and Socialist shoes, drank Socialist beer, arranged for Socialist vacations and obtained a Socialist education."


title: Autarky

text: Local and regional farming autarkies in many areas of Africa and Southeast Asia were displaced by European colonial administrations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who sought to push smallholder villages into larger plantations that, while less productive, they could more easily control. The self-sufficient communities and societies ended by colonialism were later cited as a useful example by African anarchists in the late 20th century.


title: Autarky

text: Communist movements embraced or dismissed autarky as a goal at different times. In her survey of anarchism in the late 1800s, Voltairine De Cleyre summarized the autarkic goals of early anarchist socialists and communists as "small, independent, self-resourceful, freely-operating communes". In particular, Peter Kropotkin advocated local and regional autarky integrating agriculture and industry, instead of the international division of labor. His work repeatedly held up communities "that needed neither aid or protection from without" as a more resilient model.


title: Autarky

text: Some socialist communities like Charles Fourier's phalansteries strove for self-sufficiency. The early USSR in the Russian Civil War strove for a self-sufficient economy with War Communism, but later pursued international trade vigorously under the New Economic Policy. However, while the Soviet government during the latter period encouraged international trade, it also permitted and even encouraged local autarkies in many peasant villages.


title: Autarky

text: Sometimes leftist groups clashed over autarkic projects. During the Spanish Civil War, the anarcho-syndicalist CNT and the socialist UGT had created economic cooperatives in the Levante that they claimed were "managing the economic life of the region independent of the government". But communist factions responded by cracking down on these cooperatives in an attempt to place economic control back in the hands of the central government.


title: Autarky

text: Right-wing totalitarian governments that have also strived for autarky, developing national industry and imposing high tariffs but have crushed other autarky movements. In 1921, Italian Fascists attacked existing left-wing autarkic projects at the behest of large landowners, destroying roughly 119 labor chambers, 107 cooperatives and 83 peasant offices that year alone. Nazi Germany under economics minister Hjalmar Schacht, and later Walther Funk, still pursued major international trade, albeit under a different system, to escape the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, satisfy business elites and prepare for war. The regime would continue to conduct trade, including with countries like the United States, including connections with major companies like IBM and Coca-Cola.


title: Autarky

text: Economic self-sufficiency was pursued as a goal by some members of the Non-Aligned Movement, such as India under Jawaharlal Nehru and Tanzania, under the ideology of Ujamaa and Swadeshi. That was partly an effort to escape the economic domination of both the United States and the Soviet Union while modernizing the countries' infrastructure.


title: Autarky

text: In the case of Francoist Spain, it was both the effect of international sanctions after the Spanish Civil War (1939) and the Second World War and the totalitarian nationalist ideology of Falange.


title: Autarky

text: It was not until the capitalist reforms of 1950s with the approach to the United States that the Spanish economy recovered the levels of 1935 launching into the Spanish Miracle.


title: Autarky

text: Small-scale autarkies were sometimes used by the Civil Rights Movement, such as in the case of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Boycotters set up their own self-sufficient system of cheap or free transit to allow black residents to get to work and avoid using the then-segregated public systems in a successful effort to bring political pressure.


title: Autarky

text: Autarkic efforts for food sovereignty also formed part of the civil rights movement. In the late 60s activist Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the founders of the Freedom Farms Cooperative, an effort to redistribute economic power and build self-sufficiency in Black communities. "When you’ve got 400 quarts of greens and gumbo soup canned for the winter, nobody can push you around or tell you what to say or do," Hamer summarized as the rationale for the cooperative. The efforts were extensively targeted by segregationist authorities and the far-right with measures ranging from economic pressure to outright violence.


title: Autarky

text: After World War II, Autonomist efforts in Europe embraced local autarkic projects in an effort to craft anti-authoritarian left-wing spaces, especially influencing the social center and squatters' rights movements. Such efforts remain a common feature of Autonomist and anarchist movements on the continent today. The Micropolis social centre in Greece, for example, has gyms, restaurants, bars, meeting space and free distribution of food and resources.


title: Autarky

text: Around 1970, the Black Panther Party moved away from orthodox communist internationalism towards "intercommunalism", a term coined by Huey P. Newton, "to retain a grasp on the local when the rest of radical thought seemed to be moving global". Intercommunalism drew from left-wing autarkic projects like free medical clinics and breakfast programs, "explicitly articulated as attempts to fill a void left by the failure of the federal government to provide resources as basic as food to black communities".


title: Autarky

text: Autarky is a key part of the Communalist ideas of Murray Bookchin, who wrote that in a more liberated future "every community would approximate local or regional autarky" and referenced "autarkeia" as an essential part of the history of leftist efforts for local liberation. Bookchin's ideas, honed from the 1960s to the early 2000s, had an influence on multiple modern strains of anarchism and libertarian socialism, including the economics of Rojava.


title: Autarky

text: The influential 1983 anarchist book "bolo'bolo", by Hans Widmer, advocated the use of autarky among its utopian anti-capitalist communes (known as "bolos"), asserting "the power of the State is based on food supply. Only on the basis of a certain degree of autarky can the bolos enter into a network of exchange without being exploited". Widmer theorized that through "tactical autarky" such communes would be able to prevent the return of oppressive structures and a money economy.


title: Autarky

text: Autarkic efforts to counter the forcible privatization of public resources and maintain local self-sufficiency also formed a key part of alter-globalization efforts. The Cochabamba Water War had Bolivians successfully oppose the privatization of their water system to keep the resource in public hands.


title: Autarky

text: Today, national economic autarkies are relatively rare. A commonly-cited example is North Korea, based on the government ideology of Juche (self-reliance), which is concerned with maintaining its domestic localized economy in the face of its isolation. However, even North Korea has extensive trade with Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Vietnam, India and many countries in Europe and Africa. North Korea had to import food during a widespread famine in the 1990s.


title: Autarky

text: A better modern example at a societal level is Rojava, the autonomous northern region of Syria. Largely cut off from international trade, facing multiple enemies, and striving for a society based on communalism, Rojava's government and constitution emphasize economic self-sufficiency directed by neighborhood and village councils. Rojavan society and economics are influenced by Bookchin's ideas, including the emphasis on local and regional self governance. Under changes made in 2012 property and business belong to those who live in or use it towards these goals, while infrastructure, land and major resources are commons run by local and regional councils. Bookchin however was concerned about the effects of isolationist autarky in respect to the closing off of a community and therefore always stressed the need for a balance between localism and globalism.


title: Autarky

text: An example of a small, but true autarky is North Sentinel Island, whose native inhabitants refuse all contact with outsiders and live completely self-sufficient lives.


title: Autarky

text: An example of a contemporary effort at localized autarky, incorporating the concept's history from black nationalism, Ujamaa, African-American socialism and the civil rights movement, is Cooperation Jackson, a movement aimed at creating a self-sufficient black working class economy in Jackson, Mississippi. The movement has aimed to secure land and build self-sufficient cooperatives and workplaces "to democratically transform the political economy of the city" and push back against gentrification. Cooperation Jackson also saw a gain in electoral political power when its involvement proved pivotal to the 2013 mayoral election of Chokwe Lumumba and the 2017 election of his son, Chokwe Antar Lumumba.


title: Socialization

text: In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained".


title: Socialization

text: Socialization is strongly connected to developmental psychology. Humans need social experiences to learn their culture and to survive.


title: Socialization

text: Socialization essentially represents the whole process of learning throughout the life course and is a central influence on the behavior, beliefs, and actions of adults as well as of children.


title: Socialization

text: Socialization may lead to desirable outcomes—sometimes labeled "moral"—as regards the society where it occurs. Individual views are influenced by the society's consensus and usually tend toward what that society finds acceptable or "normal". Socialization provides only a partial explanation for human beliefs and behaviors, maintaining that agents are not blank slates predetermined by their environment; scientific research provides evidence that people are shaped by both social influences and genes.


title: Socialization

text: Genetic studies have shown that a person's environment interacts with their genotype to influence behavioral outcomes.


title: Socialization

text: Notions of society and the state of nature have existed for centuries. In its earliest usages, socialization was simply the act of socializing or another word for socialism. Socialization as a concept originated concurrently with sociology, as sociology was defined as the treatment of "the specifically social, the process and forms of socialization, as such, in contrast to the interests and contents which find expression in socialization". In particular, socialization consisted of the formation and development of social groups, and also the development of a social state of mind in the individuals who associate. Socialization is thus both a cause and an effect of association. The term was relatively uncommon before 1940, but became popular after World War II, appearing in dictionaries and scholarly works such as the theory of Talcott Parsons.


title: Socialization

text: Lawrence Kohlberg studied moral reasoning and developed a theory of how individuals reason situations as right from wrong. The first stage is the pre-conventional stage, where a person (typically children) experience the world in terms of pain and pleasure, with their moral decisions solely reflecting this experience. Second, the conventional stage (typical for adolescents and adults) is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong, even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Finally, the post-conventional stage (more rarely achieved) occurs if a person moves beyond society's norms to consider abstract ethical principles when making moral decisions.


title: Socialization

text: Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994) explained the challenges throughout the life course. The first stage in the life course is infancy, where babies learn trust and mistrust. The second stage is toddlerhood where children around the age of two struggle with the challenge of autonomy versus doubt. In stage three, preschool, children struggle to understand the difference between initiative and guilt. Stage four, pre-adolescence, children learn about industriousness and inferiority. In the fifth stage called adolescence, teenagers experience the challenge of gaining identity versus confusion. The sixth stage, young adulthood, is when young people gain insight into life when dealing with the challenge of intimacy and isolation. In stage seven, or middle adulthood, people experience the challenge of trying to make a difference (versus self-absorption). In the final stage, stage eight or old age, people are still learning about the challenge of integrity and despair. This concept has been further developed by Klaus Hurrelmann and Gudrun Quenzel using the dynamic model of "developmental tasks".


title: Socialization

text: George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) developed a theory of social behaviorism to explain how social experience develops an individual's self-concept. Mead's central concept is the self: It is composed of self-awareness and self-image. Mead claimed that the self is not there at birth, rather, it is developed with social experience. Since social experience is the exchange of symbols, people tend to find meaning in every action. Seeking meaning leads us to imagine the intention of others. Understanding intention requires imagining the situation from the other's point of view. In effect, others are a mirror in which we can see ourselves. Charles Horton Cooley (1902-1983) coined the term looking glass self, which means self-image based on how we think others see us. According to Mead, the key to developing the self is learning to take the role of the other. With limited social experience, infants can only develop a sense of identity through imitation. Gradually children learn to take the roles of several others. The final stage is the generalized other, which refers to widespread cultural norms and values we use as a reference for evaluating others.


title: Socialization

text: Behaviorism makes claims that when infants are born they lack social experience or self. The social pre-wiring hypothesis, on the other hand, shows proof through a scientific study that social behavior is partly inherited and can influence infants and also even influence foetuses. Wired to be social means that infants are not taught that they are social beings, but they are born as prepared social beings.


title: Socialization

text: The social pre-wiring hypothesis refers to the ontogeny of social interaction. Also informally referred to as, "wired to be social". The theory questions whether there is a propensity to socially oriented action already present "before" birth. Research in the theory concludes that newborns are born into the world with a unique genetic wiring to be social.


title: Socialization

text: Circumstantial evidence supporting the social pre-wiring hypothesis can be revealed when examining newborns' behavior. Newborns, not even hours after birth, have been found to display a preparedness for social interaction. This preparedness is expressed in ways such as their imitation of facial gestures. This observed behavior cannot be contributed to any current form of socialization or social construction. Rather, newborns most likely inherit to some extent social behavior and identity through genetics.


title: Socialization

text: Principal evidence of this theory is uncovered by examining Twin pregnancies. The main argument is, if there are social behaviors that are inherited and developed before birth, then one should expect twin foetuses to engage in some form of social interaction before they are born. Thus, ten foetuses were analyzed over a period of time using ultrasound techniques. Using kinematic analysis, the results of the experiment were that the twin foetuses would interact with each other for longer periods and more often as the pregnancies went on. Researchers were able to conclude that the performance of movements between the co-twins was not accidental but specifically aimed.


title: Socialization

text: The social pre-wiring hypothesis was proved correct, "The central advance of this study is the demonstration that 'social actions' are already performed in the second trimester of gestation. Starting from the 14th week of gestation twin foetuses plan and execute movements specifically aimed at the co-twin. These findings force us to predate the emergence of social behavior: when the context enables it, as in the case of twin foetuses, other-directed actions are not only possible but predominant over self-directed actions."


title: Socialization

text: Primary socialization for a child is very important because it sets the groundwork for all future socialization. Primary Socialization occurs when a child learns the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture. It is mainly influenced by the immediate family and friends. For example, if a child saw his/her mother expressing a discriminatory opinion about a minority, or majority group, then that child may think this behavior is acceptable and could continue to have this opinion about minority/majority groups.


title: Socialization

text: Secondary socialization refers to the process of learning what is the appropriate behavior as a member of a smaller group within the larger society. Basically, it is the behavioral patterns reinforced by socializing agents of society. Secondary socialization takes place outside the home. It is where children and adults learn how to act in a way that is appropriate for the situations they are in. Schools require very different behavior from the home, and children must act according to new rules. New teachers have to act in a way that is different from pupils and learn the new rules from people around them. Secondary socialization is usually associated with teenagers and adults and involves smaller changes than those occurring in primary socialization. Such examples of secondary socialization are entering a new profession or relocating to a new environment or society.


title: Socialization

text: Anticipatory socialization refers to the processes of socialization in which a person "rehearses" for future positions, occupations, and social relationships. For example, a couple might move in together before getting married in order to try out, or anticipate, what living together will be like. Research by Kenneth J. Levine and Cynthia A. Hoffner suggests that parents are the main source of anticipatory socialization in regards to jobs and careers.


title: Socialization

text: Resocialization refers to the process of discarding former behavior patterns and reflexes, accepting new ones as part of a transition in one's life. This occurs throughout the human life cycle. Resocialization can be an intense experience, with the individual experiencing a sharp break with his or her past, as well as a need to learn and be exposed to radically different norms and values. One common example involves resocialization through a total institution, or "a setting in which people are isolated from the rest of society and manipulated by an administrative staff". Resocialization via total institutions involves a two step process: 1) the staff work to root out a new inmate's individual identity & 2) the staff attempt to create for the inmate a new identity. Other examples of this are the experience of a young man or woman leaving home to join the military, or a religious convert internalizing the beliefs and rituals of a new faith. Another example would be the process by which a transsexual person learns to function socially in a dramatically altered gender role.


title: Socialization

text: Organizational socialization is the process whereby an employee learns the knowledge and skills necessary to assume his or her organizational role. As newcomers become socialized, they learn about the organization and its history, values, jargon, culture, and procedures. This acquired knowledge about new employees' future work environment affects the way they are able to apply their skills and abilities to their jobs. How actively engaged the employees are in pursuing knowledge affects their socialization process. They also learn about their work group, the specific people they work with on a daily basis, their own role in the organization, the skills needed to do their job, and both formal procedures and informal norms. Socialization functions as a control system in that newcomers learn to internalize and obey organizational values and practices.


title: Socialization

text: Group socialization is the theory that an individual's peer groups, rather than parental figures, are the primary influence of personality and behavior in adulthood. Parental behavior and the home environment has either no effect on the social development of children, or the effect varies significantly between children. Adolescents spend more time with peers than with parents. Therefore, peer groups have stronger correlations with personality development than parental figures do. For example, twin brothers, whose genetic makeup are identical, will differ in personality because they have different groups of friends, not necessarily because their parents raised them differently. Behavioral genetics suggest that up to fifty percent of the variance in adult personality is due to genetic differences. The environment in which a child is raised accounts for only approximately ten percent in the variance of an adult's personality. As much as twenty percent of the variance is due to measurement error. This suggests that only a very small part of an adult's personality is influenced by factors parents control (i.e. the home environment). Harris claims that while it's true that siblings don't have identical experiences in the home environment (making it difficult to associate a definite figure to the variance of personality due to home environments), the variance found by current methods is so low that researchers should look elsewhere to try to account for the remaining variance. Harris also states that developing long-term personality characteristics away from the home environment would be evolutionarily beneficial because future success is more likely to depend on interactions with peers than interactions with parents and siblings. Also, because of already existing genetic similarities with parents, developing personalities outside of childhood home environments would further diversify individuals, increasing their evolutionary success.


title: Socialization

text: Individuals and groups change their evaluations and commitments to each other over time. There is a predictable sequence of stages that occur in order for an individual to transition through a group; investigation, socialization, maintenance, resocialization, and remembrance. During each stage, the individual and the group evaluate each other which leads to an increase or decrease in commitment to socialization. This socialization pushes the individual from prospective, new, full, marginal, and ex member.


title: Socialization

text: This stage is marked by a cautious search for information. The individual compares groups in order to determine which one will fulfill their needs ("reconnaissance"), while the group estimates the value of the potential member ("recruitment"). The end of this stage is marked by entry to the group, whereby the group asks the individual to join and they accept the offer.


title: Socialization

text: Now that the individual has moved from a prospective member to a new member, they must accept the group's culture. At this stage, the individual accepts the group's norms, values, and perspectives ("assimilation"), and the group adapts to fit the new member's needs ("accommodation"). The acceptance transition point is then reached and the individual becomes a full member. However, this transition can be delayed if the individual or the group reacts negatively. For example, the individual may react cautiously or misinterpret other members' reactions if they believe that they will be treated differently as a newcomer.


title: Socialization

text: During this stage, the individual and the group negotiate what contribution is expected of members (role negotiation). While many members remain in this stage until the end of their membership, some individuals are not satisfied with their role in the group or fail to meet the group's expectations ("divergence").


title: Socialization

text: If the divergence point is reached, the former full member takes on the role of a marginal member and must be resocialized. There are two possible outcomes of resocialization: differences are resolved and the individual becomes a full member again ("convergence"), or the group expels the individual or the individual decides to leave ("exit").


title: Socialization

text: In this stage, former members reminisce about their memories of the group and make sense of their recent departure. If the group reaches a consensus on their reasons for departure, conclusions about the overall experience of the group become part of the group's "tradition".


title: Socialization

text: Henslin (1999:76) contends that "an important part of socialization is the learning of culturally defined gender roles." Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes considered appropriate for a given sex. Boys learn to be boys and girls learn to be girls. This "learning" happens by way of many different agents of socialization. The behaviour that is seen to be appropriate for each gender is largely determined by societal, cultural, and economic values in a given society. Gender socialization can therefore vary considerably among societies with different values. The family is certainly important in reinforcing gender roles, but so are groups including friends, peers, school, work, and the mass media. Gender roles are reinforced through "countless subtle and not so subtle ways" (1999:76). In peer group activities, stereotypic gender roles may also be rejected, renegotiated, or artfully exploited for a variety of purposes.


title: Socialization

text: Carol Gilligan compared the moral development of girls and boys in her theory of gender and moral development. She claimed (1982, 1990) that boys have a justice perspective meaning that they rely on formal rules to define right and wrong. Girls, on the other hand, have a care and responsibility perspective where personal relationships are considered when judging a situation. Gilligan also studied the effect of gender on self-esteem. She claimed that society's socialization of females is the reason why girls' self-esteem diminishes as they grow older. Girls struggle to regain their personal strength when moving through adolescence as they have fewer female teachers and most authority figures are men.


title: Socialization

text: As parents are present in a child's life from the beginning, their influence in a child's early socialization is very important, especially in regards to gender roles. Sociologists have identified four ways in which parents socialize gender roles in their children: Shaping gender related attributes through toys and activities, differing their interaction with children based on the sex of the child, serving as primary gender models, and communicating gender ideals and expectations.


title: Socialization

text: Sociologist of gender R.W. Connell contends that socialization theory is "inadequate" for explaining gender, because it presumes a largely consensual process except for a few "deviants," when really most children revolt against pressures to be conventionally gendered; because it cannot explain contradictory "scripts" that come from different socialization agents in the same society, and because it does not account for conflict between the different levels of an individual's gender (and general) identity.


title: Socialization

text: Racial socialization, or Racial-ethnic socialization, has been defined as "the developmental processes by which children acquire the behaviors, perceptions, values, and attitudes of an ethnic group, and come to see themselves and others as members of the group". The existing literature conceptualizes racial socialization as having multiple dimensions. Researchers have identified five dimensions that commonly appear in the racial socialization literature: cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, egalitarianism, and other. Cultural socialization refers to parenting practices that teach children about their racial history or heritage and is sometimes referred to as pride development. Preparation for bias refers to parenting practices focused on preparing children to be aware of, and cope with, discrimination. Promotion of mistrust refers to the parenting practices of socializing children to be wary of people from other races. Egalitarianism refers to socializing children with the belief that all people are equal and should be treated with common humanity.


title: Socialization

text: Oppression socialization refers to the process by which "individuals develop understandings of power and political structure, particularly as these inform perceptions of identity, power, and opportunity relative to gender, racialized group membership, and sexuality." This action is a form of political socialization in its relation to power and the persistent compliance of the disadvantaged with their oppression using limited "overt coercion."


title: Socialization

text: Based on comparative research in different societies, focusing on the role of language in child development, linguistic anthropologists Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schieffelin have developed the theory of language socialization.


title: Socialization

text: They discovered that the processes of enculturation and socialization do not occur apart from the process of language acquisition, but that children acquire language and culture together in what amounts to an integrated process. Members of all societies socialize children both "to" and "through" the use of language; acquiring competence in a language, the novice is by the same token socialized into the categories and norms of the culture, while the culture, in turn, provides the norms of the use of language.


title: Socialization

text: Planned socialization occurs when other people take actions designed to teach or train others. This type of socialization can take on many forms and can occur at any point from infancy onward.


title: Socialization

text: Natural socialization occurs when infants and youngsters explore, play and discover the social world around them. Natural socialization is easily seen when looking at the young of almost any mammalian species (and some birds). Planned socialization is mostly a human phenomenon; all through history, people have been making plans for teaching or training others. Both natural and planned socialization can have good and bad qualities: it is useful to learn the best features of both natural and planned socialization in order to incorporate them into life in a meaningful way.


title: Socialization

text: Positive socialization is the type of social learning that is based on pleasurable and exciting experiences. We tend to like the people who fill our social learning processes with positive motivation, loving care, and rewarding opportunities. Positive socialization occurs when desired behaviours are reinforced with a reward, encouraging the individual to continue exhibiting similar behaviours in the future.


title: Socialization

text: Negative socialization occurs when others use punishment, harsh criticisms, or anger to try to "teach us a lesson"; and often we come to dislike both negative socialization and the people who impose it on us. There are all types of mixes of positive and negative socialization, and the more positive social learning experiences we have, the happier we tend to be—especially if we are able to learn useful information that helps us cope well with the challenges of life. A high ratio of negative to positive socialization can make a person unhappy, leading to defeated or pessimistic feelings about life.


title: Socialization

text: In the social sciences, institutions are the structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of individuals within a given human collectivity. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior.


title: Socialization

text: From the late 1980s, sociological and psychological theories have been connected with the term socialization. One example of this connection is the theory of Klaus Hurrelmann. In his book "Social Structure and Personality Development",<ref name= "Hurrelmann 1989/2009">Hurrelmann, Klaus (1989, reissued 2009). "Social Structure and Personality Development". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press</ref> he develops the model of "productive processing of reality". The core idea is that socialization refers to an individual's personality development. It is the result of the productive processing of interior and exterior realities. Bodily and mental qualities and traits constitute a person's inner reality; the circumstances of the social and physical environment embody the external reality. Reality processing is productive because human beings actively grapple with their lives and attempt to cope with the attendant developmental tasks. The success of such a process depends on the personal and social resources available. Incorporated within all developmental tasks is the necessity to reconcile personal individuation and social integration and so secure the "I-dentity". The process of productive processing of reality is an enduring process throughout the life course.


title: Socialization

text: The problem of order or Hobbesian problem questions the existence of social orders and asks if it is possible to oppose them. Émile Durkheim viewed society as an external force controlling individuals through the imposition of sanctions and codes of law. However, constraints and sanctions also arise internally as feelings of guilt or anxiety. If conformity as an expression of the need for belonging, the process of socialization is not necessarily universal. Behavior may not be influenced by society at all, but instead, be determined biologically. The behavioral sciences during the second half of the twentieth century were dominated by two contrasting models of human political behavior, homo economicus and cultural hegemony, collectively termed the standard social science model. In response, the fields of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology developed notions such as dominance hierarchies, cultural group selection, and dual inheritance theory. Behavior is the result of a complex interaction between nature and nurture, or genes and culture. A focus on innate behavior at the expense of learning is termed undersocialization, while attributing behavior to learning when it is the result of evolution is termed oversocialization.


title: Musk

text: Musk (Persian: مشک, "Mushk") is a class of aromatic substances commonly used as base notes in perfumery. They include glandular secretions from animals such as the musk deer, numerous plants emitting similar fragrances, and artificial substances with similar odors. "Musk" was a name originally given to a substance with a strong odor obtained from a gland of the musk deer. The substance has been used as a popular perfume fixative since ancient times and is one of the most expensive animal products in the world. The name originates from the Late Greek μόσχος 'moskhos', from Persian 'mushk', similar to Sanskrit मुष्क muṣka ("testicle"), derived from Proto-Indo-European noun "múh₂s" meaning "mouse". The deer gland was thought to resemble a scrotum. It is applied to various plants and animals of similar smell (e.g. muskox) and has come to encompass a wide variety of aromatic substances with similar odors, despite their often differing chemical structures and molecular shapes.


title: Musk

text: Natural musk was used extensively in perfumery until the late 19th century when economic and ethical motives led to the adoption of synthetic musk, which is now used almost exclusively. The organic compound primarily responsible for the characteristic odor of musk is muscone.


title: Musk

text: Modern use of natural musk pods occurs in traditional Chinese medicine. TCMs in China, save for specially exempt drugs, use a synthetic version of undisclosed composition created in 1994. The process was given State Science and Technology Progress Award First Class in 2015.


title: Musk

text: The musk deer belongs to the family Moschidae and lives in Tibet, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Siberia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea and North Vietnam. The musk pod, a preputial gland in a pouch, or sac, under the skin of the abdomen of the male musk deer, is normally obtained by killing the male deer through traps laid in the wild. Upon drying, the reddish-brown paste inside the musk pod turns into a black granular material called "musk grain", which is then tinctured with alcohol. The aroma of the tincture gives a pleasant odor only after it is considerably diluted. No other natural substance has such a complex aroma associated with so many contradictory descriptions; however, it is usually described abstractly as animalistic, earthy and woody or something akin to the odor of baby's skin.


title: Musk

text: Musk has been a key constituent in many perfumes since its discovery, being held to give a perfume long-lasting power as a fixative. Today, the trade quantity of the natural musk is controlled by CITES, but illegal poaching and trading continues.


title: Musk

text: Muskrat ("Ondatra zibethicus"), a rodent native to North America, has been known since the 17th century to secrete a glandular substance with a musky odor. A chemical means of extracting it was discovered in the 1940s, but it did not prove commercially worthwhile.


title: Musk

text: Glandular substances with musk-like odors are also obtained from the musk duck ("Biziura lobata") of southern Australia, the muskox, the musk shrew, the musk beetle ("Aromia moschata"), the African civet ("Civettictis civetta"), the musk turtle ("Sternotherus odoratus"), the American alligator of North America, lynx musk, "lungurion" which, in antiquity, was highly valued, and from several other animals.


title: Musk

text: In crocodiles, there are two pairs of musk glands, one pair situated at the corner of the jaw and the other pair in the cloaca. Musk glands are also found in snakes.


title: Musk

text: Some plants such as "Angelica archangelica" or "Abelmoschus moschatus" produce musky-smelling macrocyclic lactone compounds. These compounds are widely used in perfumery as substitutes for animal musk or to alter the smell of a mixture of other musks.


title: Musk

text: The plant sources include the musk flower ("Mimulus moschatus") of western North America, the muskwood ("Olearia argophylla") of Australia, and the musk seeds ("Abelmoschus moschatus") from India.


title: Musk

text: Since obtaining the deer musk requires killing the endangered animal, nearly all musk fragrance used in perfumery today is synthetic, sometimes called "white musk". They can be divided into three major classes: aromatic nitro musks, polycyclic musk compounds, and macrocyclic musk compounds. The first two groups have broad uses in industry ranging from cosmetics to detergents. However, the detection of the first two chemical groups in human and environmental samples as well as their carcinogenic properties initiated a public debate on the use of these compounds and a ban or reduction of their use in many regions of the world. Macrocyclic musk compounds are expected to replace them since these compounds appear to be safer.


title: Musk

text: Musk is often associated with religious significance. In Islam for example, musk is considered to be the most fragrant of the scents. It was widely used by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and his companions, thus it is an act of sunnah for the Muslims.


title: Musk

text: Musk has been used to attract wild animals, including in man-made perfume mixtures. For example, in 2018 Indian authorities used the perfume "Obsession" by Calvin Klein to attract and thus trap a wild tiger that had attacked and killed more than a dozen humans.


title: Musk

text: Musk sticks, which are artificially flavoured with a substance that is reminiscent of musk perfume, are a popular confection in Australia.


title: Kidney bean

text: The kidney bean is a variety of the common bean ("Phaseolus vulgaris"). It resembles a human kidney and thus is named after such. Red kidney beans should not be confused with other red beans, such as adzuki beans.


title: Kidney bean

text: Kidney beans, cooked by boiling, are 67% water, 23% carbohydrates, 9% protein, and contain negligible fat (table). In a 100-gram reference amount, cooked kidney beans provide of food energy, and are a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of protein, folate (33% DV), iron (22% DV), and phosphorus (20% DV), with moderate amounts (10–19% DV) of thiamine, copper, magnesium, and zinc (11–14% DV).


title: Kidney bean

text: Red kidney beans are commonly used in chili con carne and are used in the cuisine of India, where the beans are known as "rajma". Red kidney beans are used in southern Louisiana for the classic Monday Creole dish of red beans and rice. The smaller, darker red beans are also used, particularly in Louisiana families with a recent Caribbean heritage. Small kidney beans used in La Rioja, Spain, are called "caparrones". In the Netherlands and Indonesia, kidney beans are usually served as soup called "brenebon". In the Levant, a common dish consisting of kidney bean stew usually served with rice is known as "fasoulia." To make bean paste, kidney beans are generally prepared from dried beans and boiling until they are soft, at which point the dark red beans are pulverized into a dry paste.


title: Kidney bean

text: Red kidney beans contain relatively high amounts of phytohemagglutinin, and thus are more toxic than most other bean varieties if not pre-soaked and subsequently heated to the boiling point for at least 10 minutes. The US Food and Drug Administration recommends boiling for 30 minutes to ensure they reach a sufficient temperature long enough to completely destroy the toxin. Cooking at the lower temperature of , such as in a slow cooker, can increase this danger and raise the toxin concentration up to fivefold. Canned red kidney beans, though, are safe to eat straight from the can, as they are cooked prior to being shipped. As few as five raw beans or a single undercooked kidney bean can cause severe nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pains.


title: 400 metres

text: The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor running track, it is one lap around the track. Runners start in staggered positions and race in separate lanes for the entire course. In many countries, athletes previously competed in the 440-yard dash (402.336 m)—which is a quarter of a mile and was referred to as the 'quarter-mile'—instead of the 400 m (437.445 yards), though this distance is now obsolete.


title: 400 metres

text: Like other sprint disciplines, the 400 m involves the use of starting blocks. The runners take up position in the blocks on the 'ready' command, adopt a more efficient starting posture which isometrically preloads their muscles on the 'set' command, and stride forwards from the blocks upon hearing the starter's pistol. The blocks allow the runners to begin more powerfully and thereby contribute to their overall sprint speed capability. Maximum sprint speed capability is a significant contributing factor to success in the event, but athletes also require substantial speed endurance and the ability to cope well with high amounts of lactic acid to sustain a fast speed over a whole lap. While considered to be predominantly an anaerobic event, there is some aerobic involvement and the degree of aerobic training required for 400-metre athletes is open to debate.


title: 400 metres

text: The current men's world record is held by Wayde van Niekerk of South Africa, with a time of 43.03 seconds. Van Niekerk is also the Olympic record holder. Steven Gardiner is the reigning Olympic Champion. Michael Norman is the current world champion and the world indoor record holder with a time of 44.52 seconds. The current women's world record is held by Marita Koch, with a time of 47.60 seconds. Shaunae Miller-Uibo is the reigning women's Olympic champion and world champion. Jarmila Kratochvílová holds the world indoor record at 49.59 dating back to 1982. The men's T43 Paralympic world record of 45.07 seconds is held by Oscar Pistorius.


title: 400 metres

text: An Olympic double of 200 metres and 400 m was first achieved by Valerie Brisco-Hooks in 1984, and later by Marie-José Pérec of France and Michael Johnson from the United States on the same evening in 1996. Alberto Juantorena of Cuba at the 1976 Summer Olympics became the first and so far the only athlete to win both the 400 m and 800 m Olympic titles. Pérec became the first to defend the Olympic title in 1996, Johnson became the first and only man to do so in 2000. From 31 appearances in the Olympic Games, the men's gold medalist came from the US 19 times.


title: 400 metres

text: The Olympic champion has frequently won a second gold medal in the 4 × 400 metres relay. This has been accomplished 14 times by men; Charles Reidpath, Ray Barbuti, Bill Carr, George Rhoden, Charles Jenkins, Otis Davis, Mike Larrabee, Lee Evans, Viktor Markin, Alonzo Babers, Steve Lewis, Quincy Watts, Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merritt; and 4 times by women; Monika Zehrt, Valerie Brisco-Hooks, Olga Bryzgina and Sanya Richards-Ross. All but Rhoden, Markin, Zehrt and Bryzgina ran on American relay teams. Injured after his double in 1996, Johnson also accomplished the feat in 2000 only to have it disqualified when his teammate Antonio Pettigrew admitted to doping.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt's Manufacturing Company, LLC (CMC, formerly Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company) is an American firearms manufacturer, founded in 1855 by Samuel Colt and is now a subsidiary of Czech holding company Colt CZ Group. It is the successor corporation to Colt's earlier firearms-making efforts, which started in 1836. Colt is known for the engineering, production, and marketing of firearms, most especially between the 1850s and World War I, when it was a dominating force in its industry and a seminal influence on manufacturing technology. Colt's earliest designs played a major role in the popularization of the revolver and the shift away from earlier single-shot pistols. Although Samuel Colt did not invent the revolver concept, his designs resulted in the first very successful ones.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The most famous Colt products include the Colt Walker, made in 1847 in the facilities of Eli Whitney Jr., the Colt Single Action Army or Peacemaker, the Colt Python, and the Colt M1911 pistol, which is currently the longest-standing military and law enforcement service handgun in the world and is still used today. Though they did not develop it, for a long time Colt was also primarily responsible for all AR-15 and M16 rifle production, as well as many derivatives of those firearms. The most successful and famous of these are numerous M16 carbines, including the Colt Commando family, and the M4 carbine.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In 2002, Colt Defense was split off from Colt's Manufacturing Company. Colt's Manufacturing Company served the civilian market, while Colt Defense served the law enforcement, military, and private security markets worldwide. The two companies remained in the same West Hartford, Connecticut location cross-licensing certain merchandise before reuniting in 2013. Following the loss of its M4 contract in 2013, the reunited Colt was briefly in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, starting in 2015 and emerging in January 2016. The company was bought by Česká zbrojovka Group in 2021. In April 2022, Česká zbrojovka Group announced it had changed its name to Colt CZ Group.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Samuel Colt received a British patent on his improved design for a revolver in 1835, and two U.S. patents in 1836, one on February 25 (later numbered U.S. Patent 9430X) and another on August 29 (). That same year, he founded his first corporation for its manufacture, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, Colt's Patent. The first firearm manufactured at the new Paterson plant, however, was the Colt First Model Ring Lever rifle beginning in 1837. This was followed shortly thereafter in late 1837 by the introduction of the Colt Paterson. This corporation suffered quality problems in production. Making firearms with interchangeable parts was still rather new (it had reached commercial viability only about a decade before), and it was not yet easy to replicate across different factories. Interchangeability was not complete in the Paterson works, and traditional gunsmithing techniques did not fill the gap entirely there. The Colt Paterson revolver found patchy success and failure; some worked well, while others had problems. The United States Marine Corps and United States Army reported quality problems with these earliest Colt revolvers. Production had ended at the New Jersey corporation by 1842.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt made another attempt at revolver production in 1846 and submitted a prototype to the US government. During the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), this prototype was seen by Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker who made some suggestions to Colt about making it in a larger caliber. Having no factory or machinery to produce the pistols, Samuel Colt collaborated with the Whitney armory of Whitneyville, Connecticut. This armory was run by the family of Eli Whitney. Eli Whitney Jr (born 1820), the son of the cotton-gin-developer patriarch, was the head of the family armory and a successful arms maker and innovator of the era. Colt used a combination of renting the Whitney firm's facilities and subcontracting parts to the firm to continue his pursuit of revolver manufacture.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt's new revolvers found favor with Texan volunteers (the progenitors of later Texas Rangers cavalry groups), and they placed an order for 1,000 revolvers that became known as the Colt Walker, ensuring Colt's continuance in manufacturing revolvers. In 1848, Colt was able to start again with a new business of his own, and 1855, he converted it into a corporation under the name of Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt purchased a large tract of land beside the Connecticut River, where he built his first factory in 1848, a larger factory called the Colt Armory in 1855, a manor that he called Armsmear in 1856, and employee tenement housing. He established a ten-hour day for employees, installed washing stations in the factory, mandated a one-hour lunch break, and built the Charter Oak Hall, a club where employees could enjoy games, newspapers, and discussion rooms. Colt ran his plant with a military-like discipline, he would fire workers for tardiness, sub-par work or even suggesting improvements to his designs.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In an attempt to attract skilled German workers to his plant, Colt built a village near the factory away from the tenements which he named Coltsville and modeled the homes after a village near Potsdam. In an effort to stem the flooding from the river he planted German osiers, a type of willow tree in a 2-mile long dike. He subsequently built a factory to manufacture wicker furniture made from these trees.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The 1850s were a decade of phenomenal success for the new Colt corporation. Colt was the first to widely commercialize the total use of interchangeable parts throughout a product. It was a leader in assembly line practice. It was a major innovator and training ground in manufacturing technology in this decade (and several after). Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt set out to establish a factory in Europe and chose London, England. He organized a large display of his firearms at the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Hyde Park, London and ingratiated himself by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain's Master General of the Ordnance. At one exhibit Colt disassembled ten guns and reassembled ten guns using different parts from different guns. As the world's leading proponent of mass production techniques, Colt went on to deliver a lecture on the subject to the Institution of Civil Engineers in London. The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him the Telford Gold Medal.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt's presence in the British market caused years of acrimony and lawsuits among British arms makers, who doubted the validity of Colt's British patent and the desirability of the American system of manufacturing. It took many more years and a UK government commission before the point became universally accepted that such manufacture was possible and economical. Colt opened his London plant on the River Thames at Pimlico and began production on January 1, 1853. Many English people saw Colt's advanced steam-powered machinery as proof of America's growing position as a leader in modern industrial production. On a tour of the factory, Charles Dickens was so impressed with the facilities that he recorded his favorable comments of Colt's revolvers in an 1854 edition of "Household Words". Most significant, the Colt factory's machines mass-produced interchangeable parts that could be easily and cheaply put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges by unskilled labor as opposed to England's top gunmakers.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In 1854 the British Admiralty ordered 4,000 Navy Model Colt revolvers. In 1855 the British Army placed an order for 5,000 of these revolvers for army issue. Despite a following order later in the year for an additional 9,000 revolvers, Colt failed to convince the British to adopt his revolver as the issue sidearm for the army. Colt began to realize that British sales were failing to meet his expectations. Unable to justify the London factory's expenses, Colt closed the London factory in 1856. Over the next few months his workmen crated and shipped the machinery and disassembled firearms back to America.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Though the U.S. was not directly involved in the Crimean War (1854–1856), Colt's weapons were used by both sides. In 1855 Colt unveiled new state-of-the-art armories in the Hartford and London factories stocked with the latest machine tools (some of which were of Colt's devising), many built by Francis A. Pratt and Amos Whitney, who would found the original Pratt & Whitney toolbuilding firm a few years later. For example, the Lincoln miller debuted to industry at these armories.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt had set up libraries and educational programs within the plants for his employees. Colt's armories in Hartford were seminal training grounds for several generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century. Prominent examples included F. Pratt and A. Whitney (as mentioned above); Henry Leland (who would end up at Cadillac and Lincoln); Edward Bullard Sr of the Bullard firm; and, through Pratt & Whitney, Worcester R. Warner and Ambrose Swasey (of Warner & Swasey).


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In 1852 an employee of Colt's, Rollin White, came up with the idea of having the revolver cylinder bored through to accept metallic cartridges. He took this idea to Colt who flatly rejected it and ended up firing White within a few years. Colt historian RL Wilson has described this as the major blunder of Sam Colt's professional life. Rollin White left Colt's in December 1854 and registered a patent on April 3, 1855, in Hartford, Connecticut, as patent number 12,648: "Improvement in Repeating Fire-arms". On November 17, 1856, White signed an agreement with Smith & Wesson for the exclusive use of his patent. The contract stipulated that White would be paid 25 cents for every revolver, but that it was up to him to defend his patent against infringement as opposed to Smith & Wesson.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: During the 1850s and 1860s, Rollin White had been permanently trying to keep control on his breech-loading system patent, bringing a lawsuit to any breech-loaded manufactured gun. He nevertheless obtained an advance against royalties for using his patent from Smith & Wesson, a company that not only introduced its first revolver in 1857 (Smith & Wesson Model 1, a rear-loader) but also started, as of 1858, to convert cap & ball percussion guns into rear-loaders, even with formerly Colt manufactured revolvers. But the Colt's company itself was prevented by American laws from infringing the Rollin White patent and all along the 1850s and 1860s continued manufacturing percussion guns. In 1860 it produced a new revolver model for the United States Army. This Colt Army Model 1860 appeared just in time for the American Civil War.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The American Civil War was a boon to firearms manufacturers such as Colt's, and the company thrived during the conflict. Sam Colt had carefully developed contacts within the ordnance department, signing the very first government contract for 25,000 rifles. Colt's Factory was described as "an industrial palace topped by a blue dome", powered by a 250-horsepower steam engine. During the American Civil War, Colt had 1,500 employees who produced 150,000 muskets and pistols a year. In 1861 and 1863 the company sold 107,000 of the Colt Army Model 1860 alone, with production reaching 200,500 by the end of the war in 1865.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: During the war, Colt's was still prevented by the American laws from infringing Rollin White's patent. Nevertheless, the war made a huge fortune for the company, allowing Sam Colt to become America's first manufacturing tycoon, though he did not live to see the end of the war; he died of rheumatic fever on January 10, 1862. His close friend and firearms engineer, Elisha K. Root, took over as Colt's company president. On February 4, 1864, a fire destroyed most of the factory, including arms, machinery, plans, and factory records. On September 1, 1865, Root died, leaving the company in the hands of Samuel Colt's brother-in-law, Richard Jarvis. The company's vice-president was William B. Franklin, who had recently left the Army at the end of the Civil War. With the Civil War over and having no new military contracts, Colt's Manufacturing was forced to lay off over 800 employees.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The company found itself in a precarious situation. The original revolver patents had expired, allowing other companies to produce copies of his designs. Additionally, metallic cartridge revolvers were gaining in popularity, but Colt could not produce any because of the Rollin White patent held by rival Smith & Wesson. Likewise, Colt had been so protective of its own patents that other companies had been unable to make revolvers similar to their design. As the Rollin White patent neared expiration, Colt moved to develop its own metallic cartridge revolver.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The New York Daily Tribune denounced Colt and his company by asserting, “the traitors have found sympathizers among us, men base enough to sell arms when they knew they would be… in the hands of the deadly enemies of the Union… Col. Colt’s manufactory can turn probably 1,000 a week and has been doing so for the past four months for the South.” This article even chided the Federal Government for not taking action against Colt: “Every man who makes arms should be watched, and if he will not work for a fair equivalent for the Government, his manufactory should be taken away from him.” Despite secession and growing tensions between the North and the South, “Colt’s sales to Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, and Mississippi in 1860 alone were at least $61,000 (today’s equivalent of about 3.35 million).” Until just days before the first shot at Fort Sumter, Colt received orders from various states, some participating in secession. In his memoir on Colt, written in 1866, Henry Barnard reported, “before the rebellion broke out, Col. Colt, foreseeing that his weapons must ere long be in double demand, had made all preparations to extend his factory.”


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt's first effort toward a metallic cartridge revolver was by conversion of existing percussion revolvers. The first of these conversions was patented on September 15, 1868, by Colt engineer, F. Alexander Thuer as patent number 82258. The Thuer conversion was made by milling off the rear of the receiver and replacing it with a breechplate containing six internal firing pins. The cartridges were loaded through the mouths of the chambers. Colt made 5000 of these but they were not well accepted. Colt found the mechanism so complex it included a spare percussion cylinder with each revolver.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt tasked its superintendent of engineering, Charles Richards, to come up with a solution. The Richards conversion was performed on the Colt 1860 Army revolver. The caliber was .44 Colt and the loading lever was replaced by an ejector rod. This conversion added a breechplate with a firing pin and a rear sight mounted on the breechplate. Cartridges were loaded into the cylinder one at a time via a loading gate. Colt manufactured 9000 of these revolvers between 1873 and 1878. In 1873, Colt performed the same conversion on the M1851 and M1861 revolvers for the US Navy in .38 rimfire. Another of Colt's engineers, William Mason, improved this conversion by placing the rear sight on the hammer and, along with Richards, he was granted patents in 1871 to convert percussion revolvers into rear-loading metallic-cartridge revolvers. Those converted revolvers are identified as the "Richards-Mason conversion". There were approximately 2100 Richards-Mason M1860 Army conversions made from 1877 to 1878 in a serial-number range 5800 to 7900.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In November 1865, Franklin had attempted to purchase a license to the Rollin White patent from competitor Smith & Wesson. White and Smith & Wesson would take no less than $1.1 million, but Franklin and Colt's directors decided it was too large an investment on a patent that would expire in 1868. In the meantime, Colt turned its attention to manufacturing goods other than firearms, such as watches, sewing machines, typewriters and bicycles. In 1868 Rollin White requested an extension to his patent, but the request was rejected. He then turned to the Congress, but the request was again rejected, this time by the Senate and on the initiative of President Ulysses Grant, in January 1870. This led the patent to expire, allowing competitors to develop their own breech-loading guns and metallic cartridges. Following this, on that same year of 1870, Colt's bought the National Arms Company, a Brooklyn, New York company known for manufacturing deringers and for circumventing the Rollin White patent by utilizing a unique cartridge. Colt continued to produce the .41 Short deringer after the acquisition, as an effort to help break into the metallic-cartridge gun market, but also introduced its own three Colt Deringer Models, all of them also chambered in a .41 rimfire unique cartridge. The last model to be in production, the third Colt Deringer, was not dropped until 1912. The first metallic cartridge breech-loading weapons sold by Colt's were those Deringers, in 1870, that were formerly conceived by the National Arms Company, but Colt's also started developing its own rear-loading guns and cartridges.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In 1871, Colt's introduced its first revolver models using rear-loaded metallic cartridges: the .41 caliber Colt House Revolver (also known as the Cloverleaf for its four-round cylinder configuration) and the .22 cal Colt Open Top Pocket Model Revolver. However, Colt's wanted a more powerful practical handgun loaded with metallic cartridges so the company put forward William Mason, who in 1871 began work on Colt's first .44 caliber metallic-cartridge revolver: the Colt Model 1871-72 Open Top. The company registered two patents for the Open Top, one in 1871, the other in 1872, the same patents mentioned in the markings of Colt Single Action Army revolvers, a nowadays legendary and long produced model, improved and based on the Open Top. Production of the Open Top started in 1872 and stopped in 1873 when the Single Action Army model started to be delivered to the US Army. However, the Open Top was already a completely new design. The parts, for example, would not interchange with the older percussion pistols. Mason moved the rear sight to the rear of the barrel as opposed to the hammer or the breechblock of the earlier efforts. The caliber was .44 rimfire and it was submitted to the US Army for testing in 1872. The Army rejected the pistol and asked for a more powerful caliber with a stronger frame. Mason redesigned the frame to incorporate a topstrap, similar to the Remington revolvers, and placed the rear sight on the rear of the frame; he consulted with Richards on some other improvements. The first prototype of the new gun was still chambered in .44 rimfire, but the first model was in the newest caliber known as the .45 Colt.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The revolver was chosen by the Army in 1872, with the first order, for 8000 revolvers, shipping in the summer of 1873: The Colt Single Action Army or "Peacemaker", also known as the Colt Model 1873, was born. This revolver was one of the most prevalent firearms in the American West during the end of the 19th century and Colt still produces it, in six different calibers, two finishes and three barrel lengths.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In the new market of metallic cartridge rear-loading pocket revolvers, Colt's not only introduced its three Derringer Models (as of 1870) or the Colt House and the Open Top Pocket (the last two as of 1871) but also introduced in 1873 a subsequent design called its "New Line" revolver models, based on William Mason's patents.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: After the success of the Colt Single Action Army and Colt's conversion of existing percussion revolvers to Richards-Mason conversions, Mason went on to design Colt's first Double-action revolver, the Colt M1877. Following this, he once again teamed up with Richards to produce a larger-framed version, the Colt M1878 Frontier. It was Colt's first large-frame, double-action revolver. It combined the front end of the Single Action Army revolver with a double-action, 6-shot frame mechanism. It was available commercially in numerous calibers.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The 1870s and 1880s provided sales opportunity to the Colt company via the spread of European-American society ever further westward across the continent, and the demand for firearms that it engendered in various ways. As white Americans displaced Indians from the Indian Territory, both sides were eager for firearms. On the white side, both the U.S. Army and civilians were customers of Colt. The Army carried Colt revolvers through the last of its Indian Wars. On the Indian side, Colt weapons were captured when possible, or bought from whoever was selling. Even among whites in towns where Indians had been vanquished, a thriving demand for guns existed, from the criminals to the police to self-defending civilians. Memoirs of Americans including Walter Chrysler and Jack Black speak of what it was like growing up in Western towns where most people had guns and open carry was common (such as in Kansas and Missouri, which were considered "out West" at the time—now considered the Old West).


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt finally left the "loading gate concept" for a swing-out cylinder on its revolvers with the Colt M1889 Navy revolver, which resembled the Colt M1878 and was based on another design by Mason. The model was produced for three years between 1889 and 1892, and eclipsed by the Colt M1892 chambered in .38 Long Colt. The M1892 was replaced by the New Service Double Action revolver in 1899. In caliber .45 Colt, the New Service was accepted by the U.S. Military as the Model 1909 .45 revolver. The New Service revolver was available in other calibers such as .38 Special and, later in the 20th century, .45 ACP (as the M1917 revolver) and .357 Magnum.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Under a contract with the U.S. Army, Colt Arms built the Model 1895 ten-barrel variant of the Gatling Gun, capable of firing 800–900 .30 Army rounds per minute, and used with great effect at the Battle of San Juan Hill. The M1895 Colt–Browning machine gun or "Potato Digger" was built by Colt. The Colt–Browning was one of the first gas-operated machine guns, originally invented by John Browning. It became the first automatic machine gun adopted by the United States and saw limited use by the U.S. Marine Corps at the invasion of Guantánamo Bay and by the 1st Volunteer Infantry in the Santiago campaign during the Spanish–American War. In 1901, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt sold the company to a group of outside investors based in New York and Boston.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: During World War I, Colt surpassed all previous production achievements. John Browning worked for Colt for a time, and came up with a design for a semiautomatic pistol, which debuted as the Colt M1900 pistol and eventually evolved into the M1911. Prior to America's entry into the war, orders from Canada and the United Kingdom swelled the backlog of orders to three years. Colt hired 4,000 more workers, making a total of 10,000 employees—and its stock's price increased by 400%. By 1918, Colt had produced and sold 425,500 of the famous Browning-designed M1911. Because the factory could not keep up with demand for this pistol, the US Military decided to accept Colt New Service revolvers in caliber .45 ACP, called the M1917 revolver, as a substitute weapon. Competing manufacturer Smith & Wesson made double-action revolvers in .45 ACP, which were accepted and issued by the U.S. military under the same name. Colt produced 151,700 revolvers during the war as well as 13,000 Maxim-Vickers machine guns and 10,000 Browning machine guns with an additional 100,000 under subcontract to other companies.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Since Auto-Ordnance had no tooling for production of the newly developed Thompson submachine gun, John T. Thompson, in August 1920, entered into contract with Colt's to manufacture 15,000 Thompson 1921 submachine guns. The contract was signed on August 18, 1920. Colt's tooled up and produced the 15,000 units between April 1921 and March 1922.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression resulted in a slowing down of production for Colt. In anticipation of this, company presidents William C. Skinner and Samuel M. Stone implemented a diversification program similar to that done at the close of the American Civil War. Colt acquired contracts for business machines, calculators, dishwashers, motorcycles, and automobiles; all marketed under a name other than Colt. Samuel Stone acquired a firm that manufactured plastics and renamed it "Colt rock" as well as a company that manufactured electrical products. Colt weathered the financial crises of the time by cutting the work week, reducing salaries, and keeping more employees on the payroll than they needed. These measures kept the company in business but ate up the cash surplus they had acquired during the World War I years.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In 1935, after employees voted to disband a labor union, 1,000 workers went on strike for 13 weeks. Strikers became violent, attacking workers and detonating a bomb in front of company president Samuel M. Stone's house. The company set up a barracks, dining room, and recreation room for workers within the Colt Armory during the strike. On June 3, 1935, the National Recovery Administration ruled that the company was within its rights not to deal with the union and the strike ended. In the year following the strike, the factory was hit by a hurricane and flood. Many company shipping records and historical documents were lost as a result.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: At the beginning of World War II, Colt ceased production of the Single Action Army revolver to devote more time to filling orders for the war. During the war Colt manufactured over 629,000 M1911A1 pistols as well as a large number of M1917 water-cooled machineguns. The company had a workforce of 15,000 men and women in three factories and production ran on three shifts, 24 hours a day, and won the Army-Navy rating of "E" for excellence. Colt ranked 99th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. However, the company was losing money every year due to mismanagement, an embittered workforce that had been stretched to its limits, and manufacturing methods which were becoming obsolete.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: As the war ended and demand for military arms came to a halt, production literally ceased. Many long-time workers and engineers retired from the company and nothing was built from 1945 to 1947. Mismanagement of funds during the war had a serious impact as the 105-year-old firm faced possible bankruptcy. In September 1955 the board of directors voted to merge Colt with an upstart conglomerate called Penn-Texas, which had acquired Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool the same year. Also in 1955, Colt released one of the most famous revolvers in history, the Colt Python. In 1958 Penn-Texas merged with Fairbanks-Morse to form the Fairbanks-Whitney Corporation and in 1964 the conglomerate reorganized as Colt Industries. In 1956 Colt resumed production of the Single Action Army revolver and in 1961 began making commemorative versions of their classic models.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The 1960s were boom years for Colt with the escalation of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara shutting down the Springfield Armory, and the U.S. Army's subsequent adoption of the M16, for which Colt held the production rights and would sell over 5 million units worldwide. Colt would capitalize on this with a range of AR-15 derivative carbines. They developed AR-15-based Squad Automatic Weapons, and the Colt SCAMP, an early PDW design. The Colt XM148 grenade launcher was created by Colt's design project engineer, gun designer Karl R. Lewis. The May 1967 "Colt's Ink" newsletter announced that he had won a national competition for his selection and treatment of materials in the design. The newsletter stated in part "In only 47 days, he wrote the specifications, designed the launcher, drew all the original prints, and had a working model built". At the end of the 1970s, there was a program run by the Air Force to replace the M1911A1. The Beretta 92S won, but this was contested by the Army. The Army ran their own trials, leading eventually to the Beretta 92F being selected as the M9.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In the early 1960s, Colt threatened legal action against Major League Baseball's new Houston franchise, the Colt .45s, citing trademark infringement. In December 1964 the team backed down, renaming itself the Astros.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The 1980s were fairly good years for Colt, but the coming end of the Cold War would change all that. Colt had long left innovation in civilian firearms to their competitors, feeling that the handgun business could survive on their traditional revolver and M1911 designs. Instead, Colt focused on the military market, where they held the primary contracts for the production of rifles for the US military. This strategy dramatically failed for Colt through a series of events in the 1980s. In 1984, the U.S. military standardized on the Beretta 92F. This was not much of a loss for Colt's current business, as M1911A1 production had stopped in 1945. Meanwhile, the military rifle business was growing because the U.S. military had a major demand for more upgraded M16s; the M16A2 model had just been adopted and the military needed hundreds of thousands of them.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In 1985, Colt's workers, members of the United Auto Workers went on strike for higher wages. This strike would ultimately last for five years, and was one of the longest-running labor strikes in American history. With replacement workers running production, the quality of Colt's firearms began to decline. Dissatisfied with Colt's production, in 1988 the U.S. military awarded the contract for future M16 production to Fabrique Nationale. The strike finally ended when an agreement was reached on 22 March 1990.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Some criticized Colt's range of handgun products in the late 1980s as out of touch with the demands of the market, and their once-vaunted reputation for quality had suffered during the UAW strike. Colt's stable of double-action revolvers and single-action pistols was seen as old-fashioned by a marketplace that was captivated by the new generation of "wondernines" – high-capacity, 9×19mm Parabellum caliber handguns, as typified by the Glock 17. Realizing that the future of the company was at stake, labor and management agreed to end the strike in an arrangement that resulted in Colt being sold to a group of private investors, the State of Connecticut, and the UAW itself.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The new Colt first attempted to address some of the demands of the market with the production in 1989 of the "Double Eagle", a double-action pistol heavily based on the M1911 design, which was seen as an attempt to "modernize" the classic Browning design. Colt followed this up in 1992 with the "Colt All American 2000", which was unlike any other handgun Colt had produced before—being a polymer-framed, rotating-barrel, 9×19mm handgun with a magazine capacity of 15 rounds. It was designed by Reed Knight, with parts manufactured by outside vendors and assembled by Colt; its execution was disastrous. Early models were plagued with inaccuracy and unreliability, and suffered from the poor publicity of a product recall. The product launch failed and production of the All American 2000 ended in 1994. This series of events led to the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: In 1992, the creditors, state and shareholders enlisted the aid of turnaround specialist RC (Ron) Whitaker to overcome the bankruptcy challenge. He developed a new team to address the company's situation. In addition to creating a positive working relationship with the UAW to introduce new techniques like cellular manufacturing, operator quality assurance and single-piece flow, they developed a renewed focus on product development. This resulted in the M4 carbine and Colt 22 pistol, two of the most successful new product offerings in the late 1990s, capturing 50% market shares in the first year of production.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The 1990s brought the end of Cold War, which resulted in a large downturn for the entire defense industry. Colt was hit by this downturn, though it would be made worse later in the 1990s by a boycott by the shooting public in America. In 1994, the assets of Colt were purchased by Zilkha & Co, a financial group owned by Donald Zilkha. It was speculated that Zilkha's financial backing of the company enabled Colt to begin winning back military contracts. In fact, during the time period it won only one contract, the M4 carbine. However, the U.S. military had been purchasing Colt carbines for the past 30 years (See Colt Commando). During a 1998 "The Washington Post" interview, CEO Ron Stewart stated that he would favor a federal permit system with training and testing for gun ownership. This led to a massive grassroots boycott of Colt's products by gun stores and US gun owners.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Zilkha replaced Stewart with Steven Sliwa and focused the remainder of Colt's handgun design efforts into "smart guns," a concept favored politically, but that had little interest or support among handgun owners or police departments. This research never produced any meaningful results due to the limited technology at the time. Colt announced the termination of its production of double-action revolvers in October 1999.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: The boycott of Colt gradually faded out after William M. Keys, a retired U.S. Marine Lt. General, took the helm of the company in 2002. Keys salvaged Colt's reputation and brought Colt from the brink of bankruptcy to an international leader in Defense production. In 2010 Gerald R. Dinkel replaced Keys as CEO of Colt Defense LLC, while Keys remained on the Board of Directors for Colt Defense.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt has to compete with other companies that make M1911-style pistols such as Kimber and AR-15 rifles such as Bushmaster. Bushmaster has subsequently overtaken Colt in the number of AR-15s sold on the civilian market. Colt suffered a legal defeat in court when it sued Bushmaster for trademark infringement claiming that "M4" was a trademark that it owned. The judge ruled that since the term M4 is a generic designation that Colt does not specifically own, Colt had to pay monetary reimbursement to Bushmaster to recoup Bushmaster's legal fees. The M4 designation itself comes from the U.S. military designation system, whose terms are in the public domain.


title: Colt's Manufacturing Company

text: Colt has entered in several US contracts with mixed results. For example, Colt had an entry in the Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR) program of the 1980s, but along with other contestants failed to replace the M16A2. Colt and many other makers entered the US trials for a new pistol in the 1980s, though the Beretta entry would win and become the M9 Pistol. The Colt OHWS handgun was beaten by H&K for what became the MK23 SOCOM, it was lighter than the H&K entry but lost in performance. Colt did not get to compete for the XM8 since it was not an open competition. Colt is a likely entrant in any competition for a new US service rifle. Current M16 rifles have been made primarily by FN USA since 1988. However, Colt remained the sole source for M4 carbines for the US military. Under their license agreement with Colt, the US military could not legally award second-source production contracts for the M4 until July 1, 2009. In 2007 Colt won a contract to produce M4 carbines for the US military worth $71 million. In 2008 this was followed by a $151 million order for 89,000 M4 carbine rifles.