title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: By the mid to late 1990s, Madonna was in a more mature and introspective mood, after giving birth to her daughter Lourdes, gaining interest in Eastern mysticism and Kabbalah, and earning the title role in the film adaptation of the musical "Evita" (1996). In 1997, Madonna began working on "Ray of Light", her seventh studio album and wrote songs with William Orbit, Patrick Leonard, Rick Nowels and Babyface. The album would reflect the singer's changed perspectives about life. Author Carol Benson noted that it was a "deeply spiritual dance record", with the crux of it based on Madonna's career, her journey and the many identities she had assumed over the years. Motherhood had softened the singer emotionally, which was reflected in the songs. She started talking about ideas and used words which implied deep and personal thoughts, rather than the regular dance-floor anthemic tunes she had composed. The singer began introspecting herself with motherhood being a "big catalyst for me. It took me on a search for answers to questions I'd never asked myself before", she said to "Q" magazine.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Madonna worked primarily with Orbit after Guy Oseary, Maverick Records' partner, phoned Orbit and suggested that he send some songs to the singer. He sent a 13-track digital audio tape (DAT) to Madonna, and "Frozen" was among these tracks. "I was a huge fan of William's earlier records. [...] I also loved all the remixes he did for me and I was interested in fusing a kind of futuristic sound but also using lots of Indian and Moroccan influences and things like that, and I wanted it to sound old and new at the same time", Madonna said. The singer drew inspiration from Bernardo Bertolucci's 1990 British-Italian drama film, "The Sheltering Sky", which dealt with a couple trying to save their marriage during a trip to Africa. She wanted to have the "whole Moroccan/orchestral/super-romantic/man-carrying-the-woman-he-loves-across-the-desert vibe" for the track. Still continuing work with Leonard on some of the tracks, Madonna asked him to give her a composition with "tribal feel, something really lush and romantic". They composed the melody on the DAT and recorded the demo, which stretched to over 10 minutes due to Madonna continuing to write the track.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: A low quality snippet of "Frozen" was leaked by fans on January 23, 1998, after it debuted on radio in Singapore, and posted it on the Internet. They said they knew what they were doing was wrong, but that they hoped it would simply generate interest from Madonna. The song was played on US radio, including WKTU New York radio. Warner Bros. Records enlisted the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Anti-Piracy Unit to delete the Internet downloads of the song. Erik Bradley, musical director of Chicago B96, classified "Frozen" as a "the mark of a smash. Clearly, American pop radio needs Madonna", after he played the track on his station. According to Jon Uren, marketing director of Warner Music Europe, the song also had "fantastic" early support across Europe, where the song was added to radio the same day that the snippet was leaked. Shortly after the leak, a remix version of "Frozen" was broadcast by the BBC website, and was also previewed on the soundtrack at the 1998 Versace fashion spring parade. In the United Kingdom, "Frozen" was issued as a CD single, a 12-inch vinyl single, and a cassette single on February 23, 1998. The track was officially serviced to radio in the United States on February 19, 1998, and was released commercially on March 3, 1998.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: "Frozen" is a downtempo electronica ballad which has a layered sound enhanced by synthesizers and strings, arranged by Craig Armstrong. It was composed using common time in the key of F minor, with a moderate tempo of 102 beats per minute. "Frozen" has a basic sequence of Fm–E–D–E as its chord progression. The chorus, however, has the chord progression of Fm–Bm–D–A. Madonna's vocals range from the lower octave of F to the higher note of A.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: The song begins with austere, classical strings while the chord progression emphasizes tonic, submediant and flattened leading-tone chords. For the second phrase, which includes a dramatic crescendo, rhythm and ambient electronic effects are added gradually. Santiago Fouz-Hernández and Freya Jarman-Ivens, authors from "Madonna's Drowned Worlds", commented that the song is strongly inspired by different forms of classical music, notably contemporary classical music such as neoromanticism, as well as Italian opera composers and pieces such as Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" and Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida". Madonna's vocals throughout the song lack vibrato, and have drawn comparisons to medieval music.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Tom Ewing of "Freaky Trigger" described Orbit's drum and electronic programming as "extraordinarily abstract for a global smash – a kind of cold, bassless dub approach, where the gaps, echoes and drop-outs matter as much as the beats, which spread sharply, like sudden cracks on a frozen surface. They need Armstrong's strings to hold the song together. And those strings in turn – a dark, Arctic sea of swells and crests – need the beats to sound more perilous than comforting."


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Lyrically, the song is about a cold and emotionless man. In the first verse, Madonna enters in a medium range, 'You only see what your eyes want to see'. In the chorus, dance rhythm and ambient sounds are added. In the second verse, more visceral lyrics are added, like 'Love is a bird, she needs to fly'. During the bridge, a broad, string lines provide instrumental commentary on the lyrics. The song ends with a string ostinato that simply fades away, without fully resolving to the tonic chord. In an interview with "The New York Times", Madonna commented that the lyrics to "Frozen" are built around "Retaliation, revenge, hate, regret, that's what I deal with in "Frozen". Everyone's going to say, 'That's a song about Carlos' [her ex-boyfriend], but it's not really; it's just about people in general".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: "Frozen" was recorded along with the rest of the album at Larrabee North Studio in North Hollywood, California. It was mastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Studios in New York. The DAT contained the main portion of the song recordings, as well as preliminary demo sessions in Madonna's house in New York, as well as Hit Factory Studios where Madonna first sang the song. Like most of the album, "Frozen" was recorded on a Roland Juno-106. Madonna and Orbit had conducted a drummer session in Los Angeles, but it did not work out. So he contacted Fergus Gerrand who played drum samples for him in London. Orbit fed them in his workstation and cut them manually, instead of using auto-editing software like ReCycle.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: "Frozen" received acclaim from music critics. Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" complimented the track's production and deemed it "one of the great pop masterpieces of the late 1990s", adding "Its lyrics are uncomplicated but its statement is grand." "Billboard"s Paul Verna described the song as "smashing". In a separate review, Larry Flick called it a "stunning foray into the realm of electronica [which] [...] underground purists and unwavering popstars will equally applaud". Rob Sheffield from "Rolling Stone" commented positively about the "arctic melancholy" of the song. "The Baltimore Sun"'s J.D. Considine called it a word-focused, emotionally nuanced ballad.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Jon Pareles from "The New York Times" was impressed how Madonna, dulcet and careful, performed the song. Joan Anderman from "The Boston Globe" said that on "Ray of Light", only "Frozen" achieves a "state of divine balladry", recalls the "emotional pitch" and simmers the "beauty of 1986's 'Live to Tell' with a dark, lush string section, the smash and patter of a lone drum, and an ominous, pulsing buzz". In his review of "Ray of Light", Neil Spencer of "The Observer" commented, "it's sensuous songs such as [...] 'Frozen' that stand out; music for the chill-out room." "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide" agreed that the song was appropriate for chilling out.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Elysa Gardner, writing in the "Los Angeles Times", said "Madonna's enduring knack for incorporating hip and exotic textures into accessible pop tunes is evident on the plaintive single 'Frozen'".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Sputnikmusic viewed the track as the singer "at her soothing best", highlighting its "interesting percussion backing" and "beautiful use of strings with techno effects".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: David Browne of "Entertainment Weekly" described the song as a "wuthering-beats melodrama that's often breathtaking." Also from "Entertainment Weekly", Chuck Arnold wrote: "sounding unlike anything Madonna had ever done before, and creating a mystical forest of sonic wonder — sweeping strings and all — 'Frozen' possesses an almost operatic grandeur that never fails to give you chills". Stephen Thompson from "The A.V. Club" wrote, "the atmospheric 'Frozen' is a great first single despite lyrics like, 'Love is a bird / She needs to fly.'"


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Conversely, "NME" called the song "another pile of her usual weepy old bollocks". Jim Farber of the "Daily News" wrote that "Frozen" compromises its electronic style with "too much tepid pop". "The Guardian"s Caroline Sullivan regarded it as a tremulous song "Ray of Light" could have done without.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their "Top 20 Madonna singles of all-time", by "Q" magazine. "Frozen" was allocated the number ten spot on the list. "Billboard" also ranked "Frozen" at number 25 on a list containing Madonna's 40 hits, stating that the song marked a sonic change in Madonna's career. "Rolling Stone" also ranked the song as Madonna's sixth best song of all time according to a readers' poll, saying that the song strikes "the perfect balance of pop accessibility, sophisticated balladry and cutting-edge electronic textures". VH1's Mark Graham included "Frozen" on his list of his favorite songs from Madonna at number 36 during a list compiled in honor of the singer's 53rd birthday.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In May 2018, "Billboard" ranked the top songs of 1998, ranking "Frozen" at number 31. Frank Digiacomo from the publication asserted that the composition showed "a wiser, more mature Madonna, one still at the top of her game". While ranking Madonna's singles, in honor of her 60th birthday, "The Guardian"s Jude Rogers placed "Frozen" at number 7. She wrote: "Dark, orchestral ambient is a mood at which Madonna excels. 'Frozen' marries the different temperatures of 90s pop stunningly – the faltering chill of William Orbit's electronica with the dusty, cinematic heat of North African melodies and strings". Finally, in August 2018, "Entertainment Weekly" listed it as the singer's 18th best single.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In the United States, "Frozen" debuted at number eight on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and reached the number two position on the chart in the issue dated April 4, 1998, behind the K-Ci & JoJo song "All My Life". The song became the sixth single by Madonna to peak at the number two position, surpassing Elvis Presley and The Carpenters for the most number-two songs. "Frozen" topped the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, while reaching number eight on the Hot Adult Contemporary chart. "Frozen" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in April 1998, and was ranked at number 32 on the Hot 100 year-end chart of the same year. In Canada, the song reached a peak of number two on the "RPM" Singles Chart in its seventh week, being held off from the top position by Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In the United Kingdom, "Frozen" entered the UK Singles Chart at number one on March 7, 1998. It was later certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). According to Official Charts Company, the song has sold 560,000 copies. In Belgium's region of Flanders, the song debuted at number 23 on February 22, 1998, and reached a peak of number three. Similarly in Wallonia, "Frozen" debuted at number 29 and later reached number two. In the Netherlands, the track debuted at number 27 on the Dutch Top 40, and reached a peak of number two on March 7, 1998. The song reached a peak of number two in Germany, where it remained for six weeks, before spending a total of nineteen weeks on the chart. In Italy, with just one day in the stores it already had 30,000 ordered copies. On the Swiss Singles Chart, "Frozen" debuted at number four in the issue dated March 1, 1998. After one week, the song reached number two, remaining there for eight weeks. The song peaked at number one in Spain.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In Australia, "Frozen" debuted on the ARIA Singles Chart at its peak of number five on March 1, 1998. The next week it descended at number nine, returning to its peak on March 15, 1998, and stayed there for another three weeks. It was present for a total of 16 weeks on the chart, and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). In New Zealand, the song had a similar run as in Australia, by debuting at its peak of number five on the RIANZ Singles Chart. It was present for a total of 12 weeks on the chart.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Directed by British artist Chris Cunningham, the music video for "Frozen" was filmed at Cuddeback Lake in the Mojave Desert in California during January 7–11, 1998. In an interview with Kurt Loder on the set of the video, Madonna described herself as a "mystical creature in the desert". It was inspired by the 1996 film "The English Patient" and Martha Graham's work. The music video premiered on February 16, 1998, on MTV at 4 p.m. The black dress Madonna wears on the video was designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. In an interview with MTV News, Cunningham stated about his work with Madonna that she became interested in working with him after seeing his Aphex Twin-directed music video, "Come to Daddy" (1997).


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Madonna stated that she and her team initially thought of filming the video in Iceland, as the idea of the video was to go someplace cold with snow, but decided against the idea. She said she thought:


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: The video introduces a sober, contemplative Madonna, revealing a mature mysticism. It begins with the camera skimming along a cracked, desiccated desert floor, and within seconds Madonna appears, hovering just above the ground in the distance. Her hands are covered with mehndi and an Om symbol on one palm. In the video, she slowly gestures and sways her arms towards the sky, desperately pleading to her cold lover cited in the song. At one point, she falls backward, hits the ground, and transforms into a flock of large, dark birds. Later, she transforms into a black dog. Three Madonnas also appear walking and crawling amidst the desert throughout the video. As the song progresses, the sky darkens, and the singer levitates from the ground. Her form then changes to a shiny black liquid, which runs along the desert floor and appears to be absorbed by the tattooed hands of another version of herself, curled up on the crenellated ground. The video ends with a desperate and melancholy Madonna.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Jim Glauner from MTV News commented that from the first scene of the video, the viewer discovers that this is not "Holiday" (1983). Matthias Groß of "Madonna On the Couch: A psychoanalytic view on Madonna's music videos", argued that it is interesting to look at the video as a dream, and noted that in the video, Madonna was presented as a witch or an uncanny creature, by the technique of the central perspective. He concluded that the viewers find themselves in control of their view, of the situation in general, and are conveyed the impression to follow a realistic depiction of a mere melancholic woman in the desert, according to him. Henry Keazor and Thorsten Wübbena of "Rewind, Play, Fast Forward: The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video" said that the large panels of cloth that gather and wind around Madonna gain an even more obvious independent movement quality. "Billboard" considered it Madonna's third-best video noting that it "conveys the song's bleak heartbreak perfectly" with Madonna's persona in the video. Steve Murgatroyd, Dan Williams, Steve Hiam, and Anthony Walsham received the MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects for "Frozen". The video can be found on the Madonna compilations, "" (1999) and "" (2009).


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: On March 30, 2021, Canadian producer Sickick posted a video of him in a mask remixing "Frozen" on a video sharing app TikTok. This rendition has been used in over 125,000 TikTok clips, based around cooking and hair-pulling challenge; and has been watched over 26 million times. On December 3 of the same year, the remix was officially released on digital and streaming music platforms, as the first release of Madonna's plan of re-releasing of her entire catalogue. This rendition impacted Italian radio airplay next month, on January 24, 2022. In March 2022, two additional remixes were released, the first one featuring Nigerian singer Fireboy DML, and American rapper and singer 070 Shake on the second; both of them received visuals. On May 19, fourth rendition of the remix was pushed to the digital retrailers and streaming media. Entitled "Frozen on Fire", it features Sickick vocals, while Madonna re-recorded some parts of the song. This iteration was supported by a music video and a lyric video.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Sickick's rendition of "Frozen" is predominantly a trap song, but it also has been described as EDM, minimal, and electro. It consists of Madonna's chopped up vocals taken from the original version of the track, which has been called "now-iconic" by "The Fader"s Raphael Helfand. The remix begins with a line "How can life be what you want it to be? You're frozen, when your heart's not open." "Billboard"s Gil Kaufman called the rendition "slowed-down" and "gauzy". Shaad D'Souza of "The Fader" and Sebas Alonso of "Jenesaispop" critisizied Madonna for releasing too many renditions of the remix, the former's problem was over-promotion, while the latter's point was that they were short.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Commercially, "Frozen (Remix)" debuted at number 20 on "Billboard"s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, gathering 496,000 U.S. streams and 1,800 units. On April 16, 2022, the rendition ascended to number ten on the chart, becoming Madonna's third top ten song on the survey, while being first for Sickick. In the week, it gained 2.3 million streams―which is a 45% gain―and 1,000 paid downloads―gain of 15%. Additionally, the remix peaked at number 5 on Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart. Until May 2022, the song received over 125 million global streams across all streaming platforms, with 8.4 million of them coming from the United States, until March 2022.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: On March 1, 2022, Madonna shared a picture of her and Nigerian singer Fireboy DML on her Instagram, announcing new remix. Two days later, aforementioned remix has been released for digital download and streaming through Artist Partner Group and Warner Records. On the same day, both artists teased a music video on Instagram calling each other "fire", whilst Fireboy DML wrote: "Love to the queen for having me on this classic." This rendition starts with Madonna vocals, later featuring new lyrics performed by the featured artist, which talk about heartbreak: "Don't make me waste my time / I've been waiting all my life". He later croons "I thought you loved me / I thought you trusted me / I tried to take care of your heart / but it's frozen." For the outro, the song returns to Madonna's vocals.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Writing for "Variety", Mike Wass commented that Fireboy DML "laments over Sickick's sweeping trap beats" and takes the song to "soulful direction, plunging deeper into heartbreak territory". George Griffiths of Official Charts Company called the rendition "TikTok friendly" and additionally wrote: "The song morphs from Madonna's ice-cold, electronica-influenced vocals, shifting into something of trap beat for Fireboy DML's verse." Hannah Dailey from "Billboard" described Firboy DML's vocals as "smooth". Kaufman of the same publication called the rendition "hypnotic". "Jenesaispop"s Iker Oroz called this remix "insubstantial" while Sebas Alonso writing for the same publication, opined that the performers are lacking chemistry on the track.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: The music video for the rendition has premiered on Madonna's YouTube channel on March 10, 2022. It has been directed by Ricardo Gomes and spans for almost three minutes. During the shooting, Madonna jokingly mentions being drunk and called herself "Merdonna". First 25 seconds of the clip focus on Madonna's eye and road imagery. When the beat kicks in, a shot of black doberman from the original video appears. Madonna is seen wearing long straight hair, black leather corset with black long sleeves, black short shorts, and black gloves, complemented by "Madame X" cross jewelry. Multiple shots of her are shown next, taken from different angles, and projecting her smoking among other shots mixed with flashing lights and scenery taken from the original "Frozen" visual. After that, Fireboy DML appears; he is being seen kneeling down next to Madonna's leg and singing his verses in front of background displaying flames. The pair is also dancing with each other. At the end of the clip, Madonna blows her hair in the wind and reaches her arms out. Kenna McCafferty from "Paper" called the visual "captivating", and said that it presents "the perfect combination of Fire & Ice". Yohann Ruelle of "Pure Charts" opined that the clip is "hot"; whilst "Jenesaispop" writers were not keen of the video, describing it as "insubstantial" and "not difficult".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: On March 25, 2022, Madonna announced another Sickick remix of "Frozen" through an Instagram, this time featuring American rapper and singer 070 Shake. In the post, she called 070 Shake "one of [her] favorite artists". For days, the singer teased the remix, showing off snaps of its music video. This rendition was released six days later, on March 31. Following the remix's release, Madonna posted a statement about the featured artist, saying: "070 Shake is indescribably mysterious and alluring. There are very few women in the trap music world that aren't pandering to men. Her lyrics are deep and unique – there is no one like her. I'm excited for the world to discover her!" In Variety magazine, she wanted to ensure that this remix incorporated LGBTQIA+ representation.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: 070 Shake remix of "Frozen" has been described as an "emotional ballad", where she "chant[s] hoarsely over Madonna's quavering coo and Sickick's deep bass rumbles." "Jenesaispop" reported that the chorus line, "I feel close enough to heaven / To go, to stay, to leave, to pray", might be a reference to Dua Lipa's 2020 song "Levitating", whose the Blessed Madonna remix featured Madonna. Kat Bouza from "Rolling Stone" said that this rendition is "haunting" and 070 Shake's delivery is "ethereal". "Stereogum"s Tom Breithan opined that the featured artist "sounds cool as hell", while the remix itself "sounds like a complete song". Daniela Avila of "People" labeled the track as a "vibey tune". Kaufman called the remix "moody" and "chopped-and-screwed", while 070 Shake's verses have been described as "sleepy eyed".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: An accompanying music video was released on the same day as the remix, and has been directed by Ryan Drake and Ricardo Gomes. Madonna wears a blonde wig, black sunglasses, leather jacket, and platform boots, while on some shots, her look is complemented by fishnets and a minidress. The video starts with the singer driving to 070 Shake in the night, which she encounters behind wired fence. Later, the visual features clips of the performers in "various dark, hypnotic angles", before the video ends on the scene of them driving away together. Breithan suggested that the music video might be a video game-inspired. Alonso liken this clip to Madonna's 2001 visual for "What It Feels Like for a Girl", due to usage of a remix in the video and cars.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: The fourth rendition of Sickick's remix, titled "Frozen on Fire", features vocals by the DJ himself. Madonna re-recorded some of her lines with intention to "remind people that [she] wrote this song." "Frozen on Fire" is reminiscent of the version that Sickick uploaded to his YouTube channel in December 2021, whith him having his own verse." When Sickick initially presented that version to Madonna, she was "blown away by his musicianship, by his sense of musicality, by his melody, his singing," and felt the similarity of his voice to the Weeknd.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: The first verse of "Frozen on Fire" makes reference to Sickick "popping Molly", a seemingly subtle nod to Madonna's twelfth studio album, "MDNA" (2012). For this version, the original ending of the second verse was shortened to fit Madonna's vocals. According to D'Souza, this iteration is a trap-pop song evoking pop spirit of the original. He later elaborated that it "is the platonic ideal of a 2022 Madonna update. It’s alien and icy and kind of intoxicating."


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: "Frozen on Fire" was released on May 19, 2022, for digital download and streaming through Warner Records and Artist Partner Group, whereas the song was sent to Italian radio airplay next day. This version's music video premiered on YouTube on May 19, which is a collective montage of all her three music videos for the song, whilst its lyric video was uploaded five days later.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Before the release of "Ray of Light", Madonna appeared on several television shows and events to promote the album, and would sometimes perform the song. Madonna first performed "Frozen" on February 21, on BBC 1's "The National Lottery Show". Additionally, that same month, she appeared and performed the song at the Sanremo Music Festival 1998 on February 24 and on the German TV show "Wetten, dass..?". On April 29, 1998, Madonna made an unannounced appearance at the 9th annual Rainforest Foundation Benefit Concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall, where she performed "Frozen" with the East Harlem Violin Project, while wearing a Versace dress. Jon Pareles from "The New York Times" felt that during this performance Madonna had "turned herself into America's answer to Björk". Later that occasion, she wore a cowboy hat and joined various artists in a rendition of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "Twist & Shout".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: "Frozen" has also been included on four of Madonna's concert tours. For the 2001 Drowned World Tour, "Frozen" was included on the show's second segment known as "Geisha–Anime". As the "Paradise (Not for Me)" video interlude ended, Madonna appeared on stage as a kabuki-like figure, wearing a short black wig and dressed in a red and black, hand-painted kimono created by designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, with enormous sleeves creating a span of about fifty feet (4.5 m). As the song progresses, she gradually breaks loose from the sleeves and dances, with synchronized karate moves distributed along all sides of the stage, by herself and with her dancers. A samurai dancer also appeared on a raised platform above her during the performance while the backdrops displayed silhouettes of burning trees against racing, blood-red clouds. MusicOMH praised the performance for "having a recognisable beat unlike the studio recording". The performance of the song on August 26, 2001, at the Palace of Auburn Hills was recorded and released in the live video album, "Drowned World Tour 2001".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: On the Re-Invention World Tour in 2004, "Frozen" was performed as the last song of the tour's "French Baroque–Marie Antoinette" Revival opening segment. After an energetic performance of "Nobody Knows Me", Madonna performed the song standing alone on the middle of the stage, wearing a gold jewel-encrusted corset created by designer Christian Lacroix, as the backdrop screens displayed the video of a naked male and a naked female wrestling, caressing and intertwining in water, with their faces and genitals darkened by shadows so as to preserve their androgyny. Sal Sinquemani from "Slant Magazine" gave the performance a negative review, commenting that Madonna should never do a performance like this.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: For the second European leg of Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour in 2009, the performance of "Hung Up" was removed from the setlist and was replaced by an up-beat version of "Frozen". This performance was included on the show's fourth and final "Rave" segment, where it was set between the performances of "Like a Prayer" and "Ray of Light". The video backdrops used for this performance featured outtakes from the song's original music video directed by Chris Cunningham. Madonna sampled DJ Calvin Harris' 2009 single "I'm Not Alone" into the performance. Harris praised the version saying, "I never imagined when I made it in my little purple room in Glasgow in my flat that it would reach far and wide as it has – it's always a privilege." Six years later, on October 1, 2015, Madonna performed an acoustic version of "Frozen" on the Detroit stop of her Rebel Heart Tour. She repeated the performance for the San Jose and San Antonio shows of the tour. On the 2019–20 Madame X Tour, Madonna performed "Frozen" as her daughter Lourdes appeared on screen projections. Chuck Arnold from the "New York Post" called it the show's highlight.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: A rock cover was recorded by Jeff Scott Soto with the Talisman band for their 1998 album "Truth". A reviewer from Melodic Rock was positive about the version and called it a "moody version with the backing vocals and accompanying keyboards intact." Polish industrial metal band Thy Disease used parts of the original strings and vocals in a cover on their 2001 album, "Devilsh Act of Creation". German gothic rock/industrial rock band Girls Under Glass released their cover on the "Frozen EP" in 2001. The following year, Mad'House also re-recorded it for the tribute album "Absolutely Mad". Gene Loves Jezebel recorded their cover version which appeared on two albums, "A Tribute to Madonna: Virgin Voices" and "Tribute to Madonna: Like a Virgin". Doom Kounty Electric Chair gave the song a "dark rock" feel with their cover, released in 2004.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: Italian rock band Absinth Effect recorded a cover version of "Frozen" for their debut album in 2009. In May 2013, contestant Olympe sang the song on the second season of the French version of "", allowing him to reach the show's semi-final. His coach, Jenifer, welcomed the performance warmly. Jérôme Vermelin from Metronews.fr said "Without piano, but in a spectacular setting, the young singer from Amiens shows his pitched voice with disconcerting facility. And his look? The mixture of great and pure sincerity? Although the formula may seem repetitive, it is not difficult to be captivated". Hanane Abdelouahed from TF1 commented that with the rendition, he "has taken the track from the queen of pop". Although it was not performed by the show's cast, the song was included on the episode "The Power of Madonna", on the TV series "Glee", in 2010. In 2019, the song was used on the first episode of the second season of the Netflix series "She's Gotta Have It".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In November 2005, a Belgian judge in Mons ruled that the opening four-bar theme to "Frozen" was plagiarized from the song "Ma vie fout le camp" ("My Life's Getting Nowhere"), composed by Salvatore Acquaviva. Victor Vicent Dehin, Acquaviva's lawyer, said: "We tried to reach a friendly agreement... but they didn't want to negotiate so I sued for plagiarism. They have stolen a song, so they have to pay the value of the song." No award damages for the song were granted. Acquaviva had explained to the court that the singer heard "Ma vie fout l'camp" during a trip to Mouscron in the late 1970s. She had been recruited to be a dancer on a tour with French singer Patrick Hernandez, whose discs were produced in Mouscron. Dehin also stated that the lawsuit was just the first step, and the next discussion would be about the copyright gains Madonna obtained with "Frozen".


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: The judge subsequently ordered the withdrawal from sales of all remaining discs of "Ray of Light", and forbade any further playing of the song on Belgian TV and radio. Warner Bros., EMI and Sony were also ordered to spread the decision within fifteen days to media outlets on pain of a penalty of €125,000 for non-compliance with the court order. While the case was still going on, Madonna performed "Frozen" during the Sticky & Sweet Tour in Werchter on July 11, 2009. Bert Bieseman, marketing manager of Belgian branch of Warner Bros., stated that "Madonna is not afraid of a more or less riot". Acquaviva responded to the performance: "The court's decision is subject to various interpretations. The song can't be played on the radio or be sold, but have we arguments enough for the concert to be over? We won't bring additional spectacle to the show." The song was later omitted from the track listing on the Belgian pressings of "Celebration" (2009).


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In February 2014, a Belgian court repealed the verdict on the case and proclaimed that Madonna did not plagiarize Acquaviva's work. The court spoke of a "new capital offense" in the file: composer Edouard Scotto Di Suoccio and societies Tabata Atoll Music and Music in Paris had also filed a complaint for plagiarism. According to them, both "Ma vie fout le camp" and "Frozen" originated in the song "Blood Night" which they composed in 1983. After all three tracks in the case were compared, the final ruling was that the songs were "not sufficiently 'original' to claim" that any plagiarism had taken place. This ruling ended the eight-year ban of the song in place in Belgium since 2005.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In the United States, poverty has both social and political implications. In 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty. Some of the many causes include income inequality, inflation, unemployment, debt traps and poor education. The vast majority of people living in poverty are less educated and end up in a state of unemployment; higher incarceration rates have also been observed. Although the US is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, poverty has consistently been present throughout the United States, along with efforts to alleviate it, from New Deal-era legislation during the Great Depression, to the national war on poverty in the 1960s and poverty alleviation efforts during the 2008 Great Recession.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The U.S. federal government uses two measures to measure poverty: the poverty thresholds set by the U.S. Census Bureau, used for statistical purposes, and the poverty guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, which are used for administrative purposes. Poverty thresholds, which recognize poverty as a lack of those goods and services which are commonly taken for granted by members of mainstream society, consist of income levels. On the other hand, poverty guidelines are simpler guidelines that are used to determine eligibility for federal programs such as Head Start and food stamps.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The 2020 assessment by the U.S. Census Bureau showed the percentage of Americans living in poverty for 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) had fallen to some of lowest levels ever recorded due to the record-long period of economic growth. However, between May and October 2020, some eight million people were put into poverty due to the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ending of funds from the CARES Act.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Catalyzed by Henry George's 1873 book "Progress and Poverty," public interest in how poverty could arise even in a time of economic progress arose in the 19th century with the rise of the Progressive movement. The Progressive American social survey began with the publication of "Hull House Maps and Papers" in 1895. This study included essays and maps collected by Florence Kelley and her colleagues working at Hull House and staff of the United States Bureau of Labor. It focused on studying the conditions of the slums in Chicago, including four maps color-coded by nationality and income level, which were based on Charles Booth's earlier pioneering work, "Life and Labour of the People in London."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Another social reformer, Jacob Riis, documented the living conditions of New York tenements and slums in his 1890 work "How the Other Half Lives".


title: Poverty in the United States

text: A group especially vulnerable to poverty consisted of poor sharecroppers and tenant farmers in the South. These farmers consisted of around a fourth of the South's population, and over a third of these people were African Americans. Historian James T. Patterson refers to these people as the "old poverty," as opposed to the "new poverty" that emerged after the onset of the Great Depression.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: During the Depression, the government did not provide any unemployment insurance, so people who lost jobs easily became impoverished. People who lost their jobs or homes lived in shantytowns or Hoovervilles. Many New Deal programs were designed to increase employment and reduce poverty. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration specifically focused on creating jobs for alleviating poverty. Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (called "the dole"), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job for morale. Other New Deal initiatives that aimed at job creation and wellbeing included the Civilian Conservation Corps and Public Works Administration. Additionally, the institution of Social Security was one of the largest factors that helped to reduce poverty.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: A number of factors helped start the national War on Poverty in the 1960s. In 1962, Michael Harrington's book "The Other America" helped increase public debate and awareness of the poverty issue. The War on Poverty embraced expanding the federal government's roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies, and many of its programs were administered by the newly established Office of Economic Opportunity. The War on Poverty coincided with more methodological and precise statistical versions of studying poverty; the "official" U.S. statistical measure of poverty was only adopted in 1969.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In the 21st century, the Great Recession helped to increase poverty levels again. , the number of people who were in poverty was approaching 1960s levels that led to the national War on Poverty. The 2010 census data shows that half the population qualifies as poor or low income, with one in five millennials living in poverty. Academic contributors to "The Routledge Handbook of Poverty in the United States" postulate that new and extreme forms of poverty have emerged in the U.S. as a result of neoliberal structural adjustment policies and globalization, which have rendered economically marginalized communities as destitute "surplus populations" in need of control and punishment.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Many international bodies have emphasized the issues of poverty that the United States faces. A 2013 UNICEF report ranked the U.S. as having the second-highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world. , the IMF warned the United States that its high poverty rate needs to be tackled urgently by raising the minimum wage and offering paid maternity leave to women to encourage them to enter the labor force. In December 2017, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, undertook a two-week investigation on the effects of systemic poverty in the United States, and sharply condemned "private wealth and public squalor," declaring the state of Alabama to have the "worst poverty in the developed world." Alston's report was issued in May 2018 and highlights that 40 million people live in poverty and over five million live "in 'Third World' conditions."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: According to a 2020 assessment by the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans living in poverty for 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) had fallen to some of lowest levels ever recorded due to the record-long economic growth period and stood at 11.1% (adjusted for smaller response during the pandemic). However, between May and October 2020, the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the exhaustion of the funding provided by the CARES Act, dragged some eight million people into poverty.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: There are several measures used by the U.S. federal government to measure poverty. The Census Bureau issues the poverty thresholds, which are generally used for statistical purposes—for example, to estimate the number of people in poverty nationwide each year and classify them by type of residence, race, and other social, economic, and demographic characteristics. The Department of Health and Human Services issues the poverty guidelines for administrative purposes—for instance, to determine whether a person or family is eligible for assistance through various federal programs. Both the poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines are updated yearly. More recently, the Census Bureau has begun using the Supplemental Poverty Measure as an additional statistic to measure poverty and supplement the existing measures.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The poverty income thresholds originate from work done by Mollie Orshansky, an American economist working for the Social Security Administration. Orshansky introduced the poverty thresholds in a 1963 "Social Security Bulletin" article, "Children of the Poor."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Orshansky based her thresholds on work she had done with the economy food plan while at the USDA. According to the USDA's 1955 Household Food Consumption Survey, families of three or more people spent one-third of their after-tax income on food. For these families, poverty thresholds were set at three times the cost of the economy food plan. Different procedures were used for calculating poverty thresholds for two-person households and persons living alone.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Her work appeared at an opportune moment, as President Johnson declared the War on Poverty just six months later—and Orshansky's work offered a numerical way to measure progress in this effort. The newly formed Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) adopted the Orshansky poverty thresholds for statistical, planning, and budgetary purposes in May 1965. Officials at the OEO were enthusiastic; as research director Joseph Kershaw remarked, "Mollie Orshansky says that when you have more people in the family, you need more money. Isn't that sensible?"


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Officials at the Social Security Administration began to plan on how to adjust poverty thresholds for changes in the standard of living. The Bureau of the Budget resisted these changes, but formed an interagency committee that, in 1969, decided that poverty thresholds would be adjusted for inflation by being tied to the Consumer Price Index, rather than changes in the standard of living. In August 1969, the Bureau of the Budget designated these revised thresholds as the federal government's official definition of poverty.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Apart from minor changes in 1981 that changed the number of thresholds from 124 to 48, poverty thresholds have remained static for the past fifty years despite criticism that the thresholds may not be completely accurate. Although the poverty thresholds assumes that the average household of three spends one-third of its budget on food, more recent surveys have shown that that number has decreased to one-fifth in the 1980s and one-sixth by the 1990s. If the poverty thresholds were recalculated based on food costs as of 2008, the economy food budget multiplier would have been 7.8 rather than 3, greatly increasing the thresholds.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The poverty guidelines are a version of the poverty thresholds used by federal agencies for administrative purposes, such as determining eligibility for federal assistance programs. They are useful because poverty thresholds for one calendar year are not published until the summer of the next calendar year; poverty guidelines, on the other hand, allow agencies to work with more timely data.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Poverty guidelines were issued by the OEO starting in December 1965. After the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, responsibility for issuing the guidelines was transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Poverty guidelines are also referred to as the "federal poverty level" (FPL), but the HHS discourages that term as ambiguous.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In 1990, a Congressional committee requested the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct a study on revising the poverty measure. The NRC convened a panel, which published a 1995 report "Measuring Poverty: A New Approach" that concluded that the official poverty measure in the United States is flawed. The panel noted that the thresholds are the same irrespective of geography and stated that due to "rising living standards in the United States, most approaches for developing poverty thresholds (including the original one) would produce higher thresholds today than the current ones."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Additionally, the report suggested an alternative measure of poverty, which uses actual expenditure data to develop a threshold value for a family of four—and then update this threshold every year and according to geographic location. This alternative measure of poverty would also change the income calculation for a family, including certain non-cash benefits that satisfied "basic needs" such as food stamps and public housing while excluding "non-basic needs" such as medical costs and child care.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The work of the panel led to the development of Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which was intended to address some of the weaknesses of the existing poverty guidelines. In October 2014, the Census Bureau released a report describing the SPM and stated its intention to publish SPM measures every year. However, SPM is intended to "supplement" the existing poverty thresholds, not "replace" them, as poverty thresholds will remain the "official" Census Bureau measure and poverty guidelines will be derived only from the "official" poverty measures.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Unlike the poverty thresholds, and in line with the NRC recommendations, the SPM both includes certain non-cash benefits in a family's income and adjusts thresholds for differences in housing costs by geographic area. Additionally, the SPM thresholds are based on how much a "reference" family with two children spends on food, clothing, shelter, and utilities (FCSU).


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Many sociologists and government officials have argued that poverty in the United States is understated, meaning that there are more households living in actual poverty than there are households below the poverty threshold. A recent NPR report states that as many as 30% of Americans have trouble making ends meet and other advocates have made supporting claims that the rate of actual poverty in the US is far higher than that calculated by using the poverty threshold. A study taken in 2012 estimated that roughly 38% of Americans live "paycheck to paycheck."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In 1969, the Bureau of Labor Statistics put forward suggested budgets for adequate family living. 60% of working-class Americans lived below the "intermediate" budget, which allowed for the following:It assumes, for example, that the family will own:


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Finally, the budget allows nothing whatever for savings.Given that the "intermediate" budget was fairly modest, observers questioned whether poverty levels were really capturing the full extent of prosperity, challenging the long-established view that most Americans had attained an affluent standard of living in the two decades following the end of the Second World War.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: There have also been criticism of the methodology used to develop the U.S. poverty thresholds in the first place. The poverty thresholds used by the US government were originally developed during the Johnson administration's War on Poverty initiative in the early 1960s. The thresholds were based on the cost of a food basket at the time, multiplied by three, under the assumption that the average family spent one third of its income on food.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: However, the poverty line only takes into account food purchases that were common more than 50 years ago. It assumes that Americans spend one third of their income on food; in fact, Americans typically spent less than one tenth of their after-tax income on food in 2000. For many families, the costs of housing, health insurance and medical care, transportation, and access to basic telecommunications take a much larger bite out of the family's income than a half century ago, yet none of these costs are considered in determining the official poverty thresholds.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: According to John Schwarz, a political scientist at the University of Arizona:The official poverty line today is essentially what it takes in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation, to purchase the same poverty-line level of living that was appropriate to a half century ago, in 1955 ... Updated thereafter only for inflation, the poverty line lost all connection over time with current consumption patterns of the average family. Quite a few families then didn't have their own private telephone, or a car, or even a mixer in their kitchen... The official poverty line has thus been allowed to fall substantially below a socially decent minimum, even though its intention was to measure such a minimum.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The issue of understating poverty is especially pressing in states with both a high cost of living and a high poverty rate such as California where the median home price in 2006 was $564,430. In the Monterey area, where the low-pay industry of agriculture is the largest sector in the economy and the majority of the population lacks a college education, the median home price was $723,790, requiring an upper middle class income only earned by roughly 20% of all households in the county. Such fluctuations in local markets are, however, not considered in the federal poverty threshold and may leave many who live in poverty-like conditions out of the total number of households classified as poor.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The Supplemental Poverty Measure, introduced in 2011, aims at providing a more accurate picture of the true extent of poverty in the United States by taking account of non-cash benefits and geographic variations. According to this new measure, 16% of Americans lived in poverty in 2011, compared with the official figure of 15.2%. With the new measure, one study estimated that nearly half of all Americans lived within 200% of the federal poverty line.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: According to American economist Sandy Darity, Jr., "There is no exact way of measuring poverty. The measures are contingent on how we conceive of and define poverty. Efforts to develop more refined measures have been dominated by researchers who intentionally want to provide estimates that reduce the magnitude of poverty."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Some critics assert that the official U.S. poverty definition is inconsistent with how it is defined by its own citizens and the rest of the world, because the U.S. government considers many citizens statistically impoverished despite their ability to sufficiently meet their basic needs. According to a 2011 paper by research fellow Robert Rector from the conservative Heritage Foundation, of the 43.6 million Americans deemed by the U.S. Census Bureau to be below the poverty level in 2009, the majority had adequate shelter, food, clothing and medical care. Left-leaning sources disputed the report's findings. In addition, the paper stated that those assessed as below the poverty line in 2011 have a much higher quality of living than those who were identified by the census 40 years ago as being in poverty. For example, in 2005, 63.7% of those living in poverty had cable or satellite television. In some cases the report even said that people currently living in poverty were actually better off than "middle class" people of the recent past. For example, in 2005, 78.3% of households living in poverty had air conditioning, whereas in 1970, 36.0% of "all" households had air conditioning.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: According to The Heritage Foundation, the federal poverty line also excludes income other than cash income, especially welfare benefits. Thus, if food stamps and public housing were successfully raising the standard of living for poverty stricken individuals, then the poverty line figures would not shift, since they do not consider the income equivalents of such entitlements.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Steven Pinker, writing in an op-ed for "The Wall Street Journal", claims that the poverty rate, as measured by consumption, has fallen from 11% in 1988 to 3% in 2018. Burkhauser et al. find that accounting for cash income, taxes, and major in-kind transfers and updating poverty thresholds for inflation show that a Full-income Poverty Rate based on President Johnson's standards fell from 19.5 percent to 2.3 percent over the 1963–2017 period.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The highest poverty rates in the United States are in the U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands). American Samoa has the lowest per capita income in the United States — it has a per capita income comparable to that of Botswana. In 2010, American Samoa had a per capita income of $6,311. The county or county-equivalent with the lowest per capita income in the United States is the Manu'a District in American Samoa (per capita income of $5,441). In 2018, Puerto Rico had the lowest median household income of any state / territory in the United States ($20,166). Also in 2018, Comerío, Puerto Rico had a median household income of $12,812 — the lowest median household income of any county or county-equivalent in the United States.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In the 2010 U.S. Census, Guam had a poverty rate of 22.9%, the Northern Mariana Islands had a poverty rate of 52.3%, and the U.S. Virgin Islands had a poverty rate of 22.4% (all higher than any U.S. state). In 2018, Puerto Rico had a poverty rate of 43.1%. In 2017, American Samoa had a poverty rate of 65% — the highest poverty rate of any state or territory in the United States.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: As of 2018, the state with the lowest poverty rate was New Hampshire (7.6% poverty rate). Other states with low poverty rates in 2018 include Hawaii (8.8% poverty rate), Maryland (9.0% poverty rate), and Minnesota (9.6% poverty rate). Among U.S. states, Mississippi had the highest poverty rate in 2018 (19.7% poverty rate), followed by Louisiana (18.65%), New Mexico (18.55%) and West Virginia (17.10%).


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Among married couple families: 5.8% lived in poverty. This number varied by race and ethnicity as follows:


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Among single parent (male or female) families: 26.6% lived in poverty. This number varied by race and ethnicity as follows:


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Among individuals living alone: 19.1% lived in poverty. This number varied by race and ethnicity as follows:


title: Poverty in the United States

text: As of 2010 about half of those living in poverty are non-Hispanic white (19.6 million). Non-Hispanic white children comprised 57% of all poor rural children.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In FY 2009, African American families comprised 33.3% of TANF families, non-Hispanic white families comprised 31.2%, and 28.8% were Hispanic.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Poverty is also notoriously high on Native American reservations (see Reservation poverty). 7 of the 11 poorest counties in per capita income (in the 50 states), including the 2 poorest in the 50 states, encompass Lakota Sioux reservations in South Dakota. This fact has been cited by some critics as a mechanism that enables the "kidnapping" of Lakota children by the state of South Dakota's Department of Social Services. The Lakota People's Law Project, among other critics, allege that South Dakota "inappropriately equates economic poverty with neglect ... South Dakota's rate of identifying "neglect" is 18% higher than the national average ... In 2010, the national average of state discernment of neglect, as a percent of total maltreatment of foster children prior to their being taken into custody by the state, was 78.3%. In South Dakota the rate was 95.8%."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Poverty in the Pine Ridge Reservation in particular has had unprecedented effects on its residents' longevity. "Recent reports state the average life expectancy is 45 years old while others state that it is 48 years old for men and 52 years old for women. With either set of figures, that's the shortest life expectancy for any community in the Western Hemisphere outside Haiti, according to The Wall Street Journal."


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In the 2013—2017 American Community Survey, Wounded Knee, South Dakota (located in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation) had the 7th-lowest median household income out of all places in the 50 states/D.C./Puerto Rico.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: With data collected from 35 states from 2014-2017, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey shows that 21.6% of the LGBTQ+ population is living in poverty. The number varies depending on identity:


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The rate of poverty for the transgender community is larger than any other LGBTQ+ population. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey shows that this percentage varies depending on racial identity:


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The percentage of those living in poverty also increases for transgender people with HIV (51%) and disabilities (45%).


title: Poverty in the United States

text: As of 2010, the US Census declared that 15.1% of the general population of the United States lived in poverty:


title: Poverty in the United States

text: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) uses a different measure for poverty and declared in 2008 that child poverty in the US is 20% and poverty among the elderly is 23%.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In May 2009, the non-profit advocacy group Feeding America released a study based on 2005–2007 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Agriculture Department, which claims that 3.5 million children under the age of 5 are at risk of hunger in the United States. The study claims that in 11 states, Louisiana, which has the highest rate, followed by North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho and Arkansas, more than 20 percent of children under 5 are allegedly at risk of going hungry. (receiving fewer than 1,800 calories per day).


title: Poverty in the United States

text: In 2012, 16.1 million American children were living in poverty. Outside of the 49 million Americans living in food insecure homes, 15.9 million of them were children. In 2013, child poverty reached record high levels in the U.S., with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households. Many of the neighborhoods these children live in lack basic produce and nutritious food. 47 million Americans depend on food banks, more than 30% above 2007 levels. Households headed by single mothers are most likely to be affected. 30 percent of low-income single mothers cannot afford diapers. Inability to afford this necessity can cause a chain reaction, including mental, health, and behavioral problems. Some women are forced to make use of one or two diapers, using them more than once. This causes rashes and sanitation problems as well as health problems. Without diapers, children are unable to enter into daycare. The lack of childcare can be detrimental to single mothers, hindering their ability to obtain employment. Worst affected are Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and the District of Columbia, while North Dakota, New Hampshire, Virginia, Minnesota and Massachusetts are the least affected. 31 million low-income children received free or reduced-price meals daily through the National School lunch program during the 2012 federal fiscal year. Nearly 14 million children are estimated to be served by Feeding America with over 3 million being of the ages of 5 and under.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: A 2014 report by the National Center on Family Homelessness states the number of homeless children in the U.S. has reached record levels, calculating that 2.5 million children, or one child in every 30, experienced homelessness in 2013. High levels of poverty, lack of affordable housing and domestic violence were cited as the primary causes. A 2017 peer-reviewed study published in "Health Affairs" found that the U.S. has the highest levels of child mortality among 20 OECD countries.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Racial inequality is also visible when it comes to discerning poverty among children in America. In 2021, Children's Defense Fund estimated that 71% of children living in poverty are children of color.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Poverty is also associated with expanded adverse childhood experiences, such as witnessing violence, feeling discrimination, and experiencing bullying. According to a 2016 study by the Urban Institute, teenagers in low income communities are often forced to join gangs, save school lunches, sell drugs or exchange sexual favors because they cannot afford food.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: According to the Save the Children fund, food insecurity among families with children as increased by two thirds since March 2020. The fund further states that "the U.S. continues to lag behind most peer countries in meeting the needs of children and families during the pandemic".


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Children living in poverty may also experience many health and developmental problems due to food insecurity and malnutrition. Children in low socioeconomic statuses are shown to have more gray matter which affects educational and life outcomes. They may have a lower immune systems due to malnutrition, and they are more likely to have chronic disease like asthma.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Poverty affects individual access to quality education. The U.S. education system is often funded by local communities; therefore the quality of materials and teachers can reflect the affluence of community. That said, many communities address this by supplementing these areas with funds from other districts. Low income communities are often not able to afford the quality education that high income communities do which results in a cycle of poverty.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: There have been governmental and nongovernmental efforts to reduce poverty and its effects. These range in scope from neighborhood efforts to campaigns with a national focus. They target specific groups affected by poverty such as children, people who are autistic, immigrants, or people who are homeless. Efforts to alleviate poverty use a disparate set of methods, such as advocacy, education, social work, legislation, direct service or charity, and community organizing.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Recent debates have centered on the need for policies that focus on both "income poverty" and "asset poverty." Advocates for the approach argue that traditional governmental poverty policies focus solely on supplementing the income of the poor through programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, formerly Aid to Families with Dependent Children, AFDC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program). According to the CFED 2012 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard, 27 percent of households – nearly double the percentage that are income poor – are living in "asset poverty." These families do not have the savings or other assets to cover basic expenses (equivalent to what could be purchased with a poverty level income) for three months if a layoff or other emergency leads to loss of income. Since 2009, the number of asset poor families has increased by 21 percent from about one in five families to one in four families. In order to provide assistance to such asset poor families, Congress appropriated $24 million to administer the Assets for Independence Program under the supervision of the US Department for Health and Human Services. The program enables community-based nonprofits and government agencies to implement Individual Development Account or IDA programs, which are an asset-based development initiative. Every dollar accumulated in IDA savings is matched by federal and non-federal funds to enable households to add to their assets portfolio by buying their first home, acquiring a post-secondary education, or starting or expanding a small business.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Additionally, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC or EIC) is a credit for people who earn low-to-moderate incomes. This credit allows them to get money from the government if their total tax outlay is less than the total credit earned, meaning it is not just a reduction in total tax paid but can also bring new income to the household. The Earned Income Tax Credit is viewed as the largest poverty reduction program in the United States. There is an ongoing debate in the U.S. about what the most effective way to fight poverty is, through the tax code with the EITC, or through the minimum wage laws.


title: Poverty in the United States

text: Government safety-net programs put in place since the War on Poverty have helped reduce the poverty rate from 26% in 1967 to 16% in 2012, according to a Supplemental Poverty Model (SPM) created by Columbia University, while the official U.S. Poverty Rate has not changed, as the economy by itself has done little to reduce poverty. According to the 2013 Columbia University study which created the (SPM) method of measuring poverty, without such programs the poverty rate would be 29% today. An analysis of the study by Kevin Drum suggests the American welfare state effectively reduces poverty among the elderly but provides relatively little assistance to the working-age poor. A 2014 study by Pew Charitable Trusts shows that without social programs like food stamps, social security and the federal EITC, the poverty rate in the U.S. would be much higher. Nevertheless, the U.S. has the weakest social safety net of all developed nations. Sociologist Monica Prasad of Northwestern University argues that this developed because of government intervention rather than lack of it, which pushed consumer credit for meeting citizens' needs rather than applying social welfare policies as in Europe.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: "Black Hole Sun" is a song by the American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, the song was released in 1994 as the third single from the band's fourth studio album "Superunknown" (1994). Considered to be the band's signature song, it topped the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of seven weeks at number one. Despite peaking at number two on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks chart, "Black Hole Sun" finished as the number-one track of 1994 for that listing. Worldwide, the single reached the top 10 in Australia, Canada, France and Ireland, while in Iceland, it reached number one.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: "Black Hole Sun" was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album "A-Sides" and also appeared on the 2010 compilation album "Telephantasm".


title: Black Hole Sun

text: "Black Hole Sun" was written by frontman Chris Cornell. In 2014, Cornell explained the song's origins to Uncut Magazine:


title: Black Hole Sun

text: Cornell said that he wrote the song in about 15 minutes. He used a Gretsch guitar to write the song, and commented, "I wrote the song thinking the band wouldn't like it—then it became the biggest hit of the summer." Cornell came up with the song while using a Leslie speaker. Guitarist Kim Thayil said that the Leslie model 16 speaker was perfect for the song as "it's very Beatlesque and has a distinctive sound. It ended up changing the song completely." Thayil said that the song "wasn't safe as milk, but it wasn't glass in someone's eye either. It was the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Now it's the 'Dream On' of our set." The song was performed in a slightly sharp drop D tuning, similar to the tuning used on the band's first single, "Hunted Down". Drummer Matt Cameron called the song "a huge departure". Credit is due to Michael Beinhorn and Brendan O'Brien, producer and recording engineer, respectively.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: Appearing on The Pods & Sods Network in July 2017, Beinhorn detailed the process of recording "Superunknown" and shared his reaction to first hearing "Black Hole Sun": "I think for the rest of my entire life, until I draw my last breath, I'll never ever forgot how I felt when they started playing that song. From the very first few notes, I felt like I'd been hit by a thunderbolt. I was just absolutely stunned. What in the world is this? I get goosebumps thinking about it now."


title: Black Hole Sun

text: Musically, "Black Hole Sun" has been described as grunge, psychedelic rock, alternative rock, and hard rock. Regarding the song's lyrics, Cornell stated, "It's just sort of a surreal dreamscape, a weird, play-with-the-title kind of song." He also said that "lyrically it's probably the closest to me just playing with words for words' sake, of anything I've written. I guess it worked for a lot of people who heard it, but I have no idea how you'd begin to take that one literally." In another interview he elaborated further, stating, "It's funny because hits are usually sort of congruent, sort of an identifiable lyric idea, and that song pretty much had none. The chorus lyric is kind of beautiful and easy to remember. Other than that, I sure didn't have an understanding of it after I wrote it. I was just sucked in by the music and I was painting a picture with the lyrics. There was no real idea to get across." Commenting upon how the song was misinterpreted as being positive, Cornell said, "No one seems to get this, but 'Black Hole Sun' is sad. But because the melody is really pretty, everyone thinks it's almost chipper, which is ridiculous." When asked about the line, "Times are gone for honest men", Cornell said:


title: Black Hole Sun

text: It's really difficult for a person to create their own life and their own freedom. It's going to become more and more difficult, and it's going to create more and more disillusioned people who become dishonest and angry and are willing to fuck the next guy to get what they want. There's so much stepping on the backs of other people in our profession. We've been so lucky that we've never had to do that. Part of it was because of our own tenacity, and part of it was because we were lucky.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: "Black Hole Sun" was released in the summer of 1994 and became the most successful song from "Superunknown" on the American rock charts and arguably the band's most recognizable and popular song. It appeared on "Billboard" magazine's Hot 100 Airplay chart, reaching the top 30. The following week it debuted on the Top 40 Mainstream, where it peaked at number nine in its eighth week and remained on the chart until its 20th week. The song peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number two on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song spent a total of seven weeks at number one on the Mainstream Rock chart. At the 1995 Grammy Awards, "Black Hole Sun" received the award for Best Hard Rock Performance and received a nomination for Best Rock Song.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: Outside the United States, the single was released in Australia, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In Canada, the song reached the top ten on the Canadian Singles Chart. It remained in the top ten for three weeks and became the band's highest charted song in Canada. "Black Hole Sun" reached the UK Top 20 and was the last single from the album which charted in the UK Top 20. The song remains the band's highest charting single in the United Kingdom to date. "Black Hole Sun" debuted at number ten in Australia but quickly descended the chart, however widespread airplay and a promotional visit to Australia stimulated a resurgence of interest in "Superunknown". "Black Hole Sun" would peak at number six on the Australian Singles Chart. "Black Hole Sun" reached the top 30 in Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and was a top ten success in Australia, France, and Ireland. It topped the Icelandic Singles Chart for a week, and was a moderate top 20 success in Sweden. The single has sold over three million copies worldwide.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: Greg Prato of AllMusic called the song "one of the few bright spots" of the summer of 1994 when "the world was still reeling from Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain's suicide the previous April". He said, "The song had a psychedelic edge to it (especially evident in the verse's guitar part), as the composition shifted between sedate melodicism and gargantuan guitar riffs. The lyrics were classic Chris Cornell—lines didn't exactly make sense on paper but did within the song." Ann Powers of "Blender" proclaimed that "Cornell's fixation with the Beatles pays off with the hit single 'Black Hole Sun' ". Music writer James Masterton wrote in his weekly UK chart commentary, "Easily the most commercial single the US band have released to date". Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" said, "The Beatles' techniques—fuzz-toned low chords, legato lead-guitar hooks and lumpy Ringo Starr-style drumming...are linked to Lennon-style melody in 'Black Hole Sun'." J.D. Considine of "Rolling Stone" stated, "With its yearning, Lennonesque melody and watery, Harrison-style guitar, 'Black Hole Sun' is a wonderful exercise in Beatleisms; trouble is, it's not a very good song, offering more in the way of mood and atmosphere than melodic direction."


title: Black Hole Sun

text: The solo for "Black Hole Sun", performed by Thayil, was ranked number 63 on "Guitar World"s list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos", and number 56 on "Total Guitar"'s list of the "100 Hottest Guitar Solos". The song was included on VH1's countdown of the "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s" at number 25. It was also included on VH1's countdown of the "100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs" at number 77. According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "Black Hole Sun" was the ninth most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 125,000 spins. All of the songs in the top 10 were from the 1990s. In 2017, "Billboard" ranked the song number four on their list of the 15 greatest Soundgarden songs, and in 2021, "Kerrang" ranked the song number one on their list of the 20 greatest Soundgarden songs.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: The surreal and apocalyptic music video for "Black Hole Sun" was directed by British video director Howard Greenhalgh, produced by Megan Hollister for Why Not Films (London, England), shot by Ivan Bartos, and features post-production work by 525 Post Production (Hollywood, California) and Soho 601 Effects (London). The video follows a suburban neighborhood and its vain inhabitants with comically exaggerated grins, which are eventually swallowed up when the Sun suddenly turns into a black hole, while the band performs the song somewhere in an open field. In the video, Cornell can be seen wearing a fork necklace given to him by Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon. In an online chat, the band stated that the video "was entirely the director's idea", and added, "Our take on it was that at that point in making videos, we just wanted to pretend to play and not look that excited about it." Thayil said that the video was one of the few Soundgarden videos the band was satisfied with.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: The video was released in June 1994. After several weeks of airplay on MTV, a second version of the video was substituted containing more elaborate visual effects than the original, including the addition of a computer-generated black hole. The music video for "Black Hole Sun" became a hit on MTV and received the award for Best Metal/Hard Rock Video at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. In 1995, it received the Clio Award for Alternative Music Video. The video is available on the CD-ROM "Alive in the Superunknown".


title: Black Hole Sun

text: The information regarding accolades attributed to "Black Hole Sun" is adapted in part from Acclaimed Music.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: The song is also available in the 2008 video games "Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore" and "SingStar 90s", for the PlayStation 2. "" features the song in its downloadable content library, and it is a playable track in the TV mode of Guitar Hero Live. The post-humous cover album released by Chris Cornell, "No One Sings Like You Anymore, Vol. 1", was named after a lyric in this song. The song was featured in "The Alternative Polka" from "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1996 album, "Bad Hair Day".


title: Black Hole Sun

text: A cover version of the song by Swann and Noela was featured over the closing credits in the neo-noir thriller "A Walk Among the Tombstones". Another cover in the style of lounge music was performed by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.


title: Black Hole Sun

text: The song is used in Season 3 of the Apple TV+ series "For All Mankind" as soundtrack for the scene at the end of Episode 3 when the competing spaceships set off to Mars. It's also sampled as the soundtrack to the Season 3 trailer.


title: Impressment

text: Impressment, colloquially "the press" or the "press gang", is the taking of men into a military or naval force by compulsion, with or without notice. European navies of several nations used forced recruitment by various means. The large size of the British Royal Navy in the Age of Sail meant impressment was most commonly associated with Great Britain and Ireland. It was used by the Royal Navy in wartime, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice can be traced back to the time of Edward I of England. The Royal Navy impressed many merchant sailors, as well as some sailors from other, mostly European, nations. People liable to impressment were "eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18 and 55 years". Non-seamen were sometimes impressed as well, though rarely. In addition to the Royal Navy's use of impressment, the British Army also experimented with impressment from 1778 to 1780.


title: Impressment

text: Impressment was strongly criticized by those who believed it to be contrary to the British constitution. Though the public opposed conscription in general, impressment was repeatedly upheld by the courts, as it was deemed vital to the strength of the navy and, by extension, to the survival of the British realm and influence.


title: Impressment

text: Impressment was essentially a Royal Navy practice, reflecting the sheer size of the British fleet and its substantial manpower demands. While other European navies applied forced recruitment in times of war, this was generally done as an extension of the practice of formal conscription applied by most European armies from the Napoleonic Wars on. The U.S. Continental Navy also applied a form of impressment during the American War of Independence.


title: Impressment

text: The impressment of seamen from American ships caused serious tensions between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. One of the 27 colonial grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence directly highlights the practice. It was again a cause of tension leading up to the War of 1812. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Britain formally ended the practice; later conscription was not limited to the Royal Navy but covered all British armed forces.


title: Impressment

text: Working and living conditions for the average sailor in the Royal Navy in the 18th century were very harsh by modern standards. Naval pay was attractive in the 1750s, but towards the end of the century its value had been steadily eroded by rising prices. Sailors' pay on merchant ships was somewhat higher during peacetime, and could increase to double naval pay during wartime.


title: Impressment

text: Until 19th-century reforms improved conditions, the Royal Navy was additionally known to pay wages up to two years in arrears. The Navy always withheld six months' pay as a standard policy, in order to discourage desertion. Naval wages had been set in 1653, and were not increased until April 1797 after sailors on 80 ships of the Channel Fleet based at Spithead mutinied.


title: Impressment

text: Despite this, there were still many volunteers for naval service. The work for individual sailors was less than on merchant ships, since the naval crew size was determined by the number needed to man guns – around four times more than the number of crew needed to simply sail the ship. Furthermore, the food supplied by the Navy was plentiful, regular, and of good quality by the standards of the day. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was not at all unusual for impressed men to view life in the navy, hard though it was, as still preferable to their previous lives on shore, and to volunteer for further service when the opportunity came to leave the ship. For major voyages, shipowners and governments routinely estimated that 50% of the sailors would die due to scurvy.


title: Impressment

text: The main problem with naval recruitment, was a shortage of qualified and experienced seamen during wartime. For example, when the Navy had to quickly recruit an extra 20,000 men in the early 18th century, and 40,000 men in the late 18th century. Privateers, the Royal Navy, and the Merchant Navy all competed for a small pool of ordinary and able seamen in wartime, and all three groups were usually short-handed. The recruitment figures presented to Parliament for the years 1755–1757 list 70,566 men, of whom 33,243 were volunteers (47%), 16,953 pressed men (24%), while another 20,370 were listed as volunteers separately (29%).


title: Impressment

text: Although there are no records that explain why volunteers were separated into two groups, it is likely these were pressed men who became "volunteers" to get the sign-up bonus, two months' wages in advance and a higher wage. It is known that large numbers did this. Volunteering also protected the sailor from creditors, as the law forbade collecting debts accrued before enlistment. A disadvantage was that volunteers who deserted were liable to execution if captured, whereas pressed men were simply returned to service. Other records confirm similar percentages throughout the 18th century.


title: Impressment

text: All three groups also suffered high levels of desertion. In the 18th century, British desertion rates on naval ships averaged 25% annually, with slight difference between volunteers and pressed men. The rate of desertion started high, then fell heavily after a few months on board a ship, and generally became negligible after a year — because Navy pay ran months or years in arrears, desertion might mean not only abandoning companions in the ship's company, but also the loss of a large amount of money already earned. If a naval ship had taken a prize, a deserting seaman would forfeit his share of the prize money. In a report on proposed changes to the RN written by Admiral Nelson in 1803, he noted that since 1793 more than 42,000 sailors had deserted.


title: Impressment

text: The Impress Service, colloquially called the "press-gang" was formed to force sailors to serve on naval vessels. There was no concept of "joining the navy" as a fixed career-path for non-officers at the time, since seamen remained attached to a ship only for the duration of its commission. They were encouraged to stay in the Navy after the commission but could leave to seek other employment when the ship was paid off. Impressment relied on the legal power of the King to call men to military service, as well as to recruit volunteers, who were paid a bounty upon joining, unlike pressed men. Seamen were not covered by Magna Carta and "failure to allow oneself to be pressed" was punishable by hanging, although the punishment became less severe over time.


title: Impressment

text: In Elizabethan times a statute regulated impressment as a form of recruitment, and with the introduction of the Vagabonds Act in 1597, men of disrepute (vagrants) found themselves drafted into service. In 1703, an act passed limiting the impressment of boys under 18 years of age to those who were not apprenticed. A further act in 1740 raised the maximum age to 55. Although no foreigner could normally be pressed, they lost their protection if they married a British woman or had worked on a British merchant ship for two years. Some governments, including Britain, issued "protections" against impressment which protected men had to carry on their person at all times; but in times of crisis the Admiralty would order a "hot press", which meant that no-one remained exempt.


title: Impressment

text: The Royal Navy also impressed seamen from inbound British merchant ships at sea, though this was done by individual warships, rather than by the Impress Service. Impressment, particularly "press gangs", became consistently unpopular with the British public (as well as in the American colonies), and local officials often acted against them, to the point of imprisoning officers from the Impress Service or opposing them by force of arms.


title: Impressment

text: At the time of the Battle of Trafalgar over half the Royal Navy's 120,000 sailors were pressed men. The power of the Impressment Service to conscript was limited by law to seafarers, including merchant seamen, longshoremen and fishermen. There is no basis to the widespread impression that civilians without any seafaring background were randomly seized from home, country lane or workplace by press gangs or that the latter were employed inland away from coastal ports.


title: Impressment

text: However, convicted petty criminals were often given the option of volunteering for naval service as unskilled "quota men" by inland courts (see below).


title: Impressment

text: There were occasions when the local populace would band together to oppose the activities of the press where these exceeded legal bounds. One such incident, the Easton Massacre in 1803 (see caption at right), resulted in a press gang firing on a crowd, killing four people in the village of Easton on the Isle of Portland, where they were trying to impress the quarrymen.


title: Impressment

text: In 1808, Thomas Urquhart was saved from a press gang of three or four men when a London passersby intervened. Urquhart complained to local officials, identified at least one of the men involved and successfully sued for damages in the Court of King's Bench. He went on to lobby for changes in law and practice, publishing "Letters on the evils of impressment: with the outline of a plan for doing them away, on which depend the wealth, prosperity, and consequence of Great Britain" in 1816.


title: Impressment

text: Patrolling in or near sea ports, the press gang would try to find men aged between 15 and 55 with seafaring or river-boat experience, but this was not essential. Potential crewmen with no experience were called "landsmen". From 1740, landsmen were legally exempt from impressment, but this was on occasion ignored in wartime unless the person seized was an apprentice or a "gentleman". Two landsmen were considered by captains to be the equivalent of one able seaman. If a landsman was able to prove his status to the Admiralty he was usually released. Court records do however show fights breaking out as people attempted to avoid what was perceived as wrongful impressment, and the London "Times" reported occasions when press gangs instituted a "hot press" (ignoring protections against impressment) in order to man the navy.


title: Impressment

text: Merchant seamen ashore from their ships (and usually conspicuous by their clothing and general appearance) were however another matter. Anyone with seafaring experience encountered in the street would first be asked to volunteer for naval service. If the potential recruit refused he was often plied with alcohol or simply seized and taken. A commonly held belief is that a trick was used in taverns, surreptitiously dropping a King's shilling ("prest money") into a man's drink, as by "finding" the shilling in his possession he was deemed to have volunteered, and that this led to some tavern owners putting glass bottoms in their tankards. However, this is a legend; press officers were subject to fines for using trickery and a volunteer had a "cooling-off" period in which to change his mind.


title: Impressment

text: The great majority of men pressed were taken from merchant ships at sea, especially those homeward bound for Britain. This was legal as long as the Navy replaced the man they took, and many Naval captains would take the best seamen, replacing them with malcontents and landsmen from their own ship. It was also common for "trusted" volunteers to act as substitutes; they would then desert as soon as the merchant ship docked, and return to their Navy ship.


title: Impressment

text: Outbound merchant ships, officers and apprentices were exempt from impressment. When war broke out the Navy would deploy frigates and vessels off the coast to intercept inbound merchantmen. Reportedly some merchant captains redirected their ships to Irish ports to offload favoured crewmen, before making final landfall in England. In 1740, a merchantman fired on a cruiser attempting to impress its crew; threats of similar violence to avoid sailors being pressed were supposedly not uncommon, especially with the East India ships whose crews had been away from their families and England for a considerable time. In times of an extreme shortage of men, the Navy would "embargo" the coast for a short time; merchantmen had to supply a portion of their crew in exchange for permission to sail. Many merchant ships had hiding places constructed where their best crew could hide when approached by a Naval vessel.


title: Impressment

text: The owners of British whalers, because of the Press, often appointed a master to them whilst the vessels were in port in order to protect the whalers' crews. Otherwise the Press could take the men for naval service. The owners would then appoint an actual master to replace the placeholder masters.


title: Impressment

text: In addition to impressment, Britain also used the Quota System (or "The Quod") from 1795 to 1815, whereby each county was required to supply a certain number of volunteers, based on its population and the number of its seaports. Unlike impressment, the Quota System often resulted in criminals serving on board ships as counties who failed to meet their quota offered prisoners the option of completing their sentence or volunteering. Apart from the probably lower quality of recruits taken by this means, another downside of the Quota System was the frequent introduction of disease, especially typhus, to healthy ships.


title: Impressment

text: Ireland formed a separate but subordinate state, the Kingdom of Ireland, between 1534 and 1800. All of Ireland was united to Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland between 1801 and 1922. The Royal Navy recruited heavily in Ireland during this period, including using impressment. For example, in 1734, impressment took place in Wicklow. Impressment was also common during the Napoleonic wars, although poverty in Ireland made sure that volunteers were usually available.


title: Impressment

text: One of the largest impressment operations occurred in the spring of 1757 in New York City, then still under British colonial rule. Three thousand British soldiers cordoned off the city, and plucked clean the taverns and other sailors' gathering places. "All kinds of tradesmen and Negroes" were hauled in, nearly eight hundred in all. Four hundred of these were "retained in the service".


title: Impressment

text: The Royal Navy also used impressment extensively in British North America from 1775 to 1815. Its press gangs sparked resistance, riots, and political turmoil in seaports such as Halifax, St John's, and Quebec City. Nevertheless, the Royal Navy extended the reach of its press gangs into coastal areas of British North America by the early 19th century. In response, sailors and residents fought back with a range of tactics. They sometimes reacted violently. The riots in St John's in 1794 and Halifax in 1805 led to a prohibition on impressment on shore for much of the Napoleonic Wars. The protest came from a wide swath of the urban community, including elites, rather than just the vulnerable sailors, and had a lasting negative impact on civil–naval relations in what became Canada. The local communities did not encourage their young men to volunteer for the Royal Navy.


title: Impressment

text: The American Continental Navy impressed men into its service during the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress authorized construction of thirteen frigates, including in 1775. The senior captain of the Continental Navy, James Nicholson, was appointed to command "Virginia". When it was fitted out in 1777, Nicholson received orders to sail to Martinique. Many of Nicholson's crew had deserted to sign on as privateers, for higher pay at less risk. Therefore, Nicholson impressed about thirty citizens of Baltimore, an act expressly forbidden by Maryland law. Maryland governor Thomas Johnson demanded immediate release of the impressed men and Congress convinced Nicholson to release them all. Nicholson avoided impressment on land and instead stopped two American merchant ships at sea in 1780, to impress men from their crews.


title: Impressment

text: The individual states did not deny the concept of impressment for their own navies, but were reluctant to grant the right to the Continental Congress. The concept of drafting men into armed service remained contentious, even after adoption of the federal constitution.


title: Impressment

text: In 1795, the Jay Treaty went into effect, addressing many issues left unresolved after the American Revolution, and averting a renewed conflict. However, the treaty's neglect to address British impressment of sailors from American ships and ports became a major cause of complaint among those who disapproved of it. While non-British subjects were not impressed, at this point Britain did not recognize naturalised American citizenship and treated anyone born a British subject as still "British"; as a result, the Royal Navy impressed over 9,000 sailors who claimed to be American citizens.


title: Impressment

text: During the wars with France (1793 to 1815), the Royal Navy aggressively reclaimed British deserters on board ships of other nations, both by halting and searching merchant ships, and, in many cases, by searching American port cities. Although these impressments were illegal, Jefferson ignored them to remain on good terms with Britain as he was negotiating to obtain "the Floridas". This tolerance changed in 1805 when the British began seizing American merchantmen trading with the West Indies and condemning the ships and their cargoes as a prize and enforcing impressment on their crews.


title: Impressment

text: Under the Rule of 1756, in times of war direct trade between a neutral European state and a British colony was forbidden if such trade had not existed in time of peace. The Americans had found a way around this policy by "landing" cargoes from Europe in the United States and issuing certificates that duty had been paid. The ship would then sail, with the cargo never having been offloaded or duty actually paid, as now bona fide commerce between neutral America and the West Indies. The British became aware of the practice during the court case involving the seizure of the "Essex". The court ruled that the cargo of the "Essex" had never been intended for American markets so the voyage had not been "broken" and could thus be considered continuous. The end result was the blockade of New York Harbor by two British frigates, the "Cambrian" and the "Leander", which provoked public demonstrations.