Yip Harburg Early life and career Where was Harburg born? born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City How did he get the name Yip? He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Did Yip attend college? City College What was Harburg's first job? worked on the school paper Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated What did he graduate with a degree in? I don't know. Did Harburg have a family? Harburg married and had two children,
Was Harburg religious?
Was Yip Harburg religious?
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.  He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who met over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".  After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 - $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.  Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.  Harburg was a staunch critic of religion and an atheist. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on god and religion. CANNOTANSWER
His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow".  He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics.  He also was an ardent critic of religion.

Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.

He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".

After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.

Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.

Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.

Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."

Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:

Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and  women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.

Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.

Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.

Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.

Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).

Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.

On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.

On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.

In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments.  The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow".  The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.

Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane  (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)

Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist.  The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"

Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist

Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist

Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)

Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)

References

Further reading

Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993). 
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).

External links

The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)

E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
 E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.

1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea
Harburg () is a quarter (Stadtteil) in the Harburg borough (Bezirk) of Hamburg, Germany. It used to be the capital of the Harburg district in Lower Saxony. In 2020, the population was 25,979.

History
A castle named Horeburg, meaning swamp castle, was probably erected by the counts of Stade, to secure the eastern border of the county. The oldest records mentioning the castle date back to 1133 and 1137. Outside the castle a settlement developed. As to religion Harburg belonged to the Diocese of Verden (till 1648). In 1257 the area became part of the Duchy of Brunswick and Lunenburg. After its dynastic partition in 1267 Harburg was part of the Brunswick-Lunenburgian Principality of Lunenburg (Celle). In 1288 the settlement outside the castle was granted municipal rights and in 1297 town privileges. The town was then the centre of the Bailiwick of Harburg (Vogtei Harburg).

After Duke Otto (1495–1549), who co-ruled Lunenburg-Celle with his brother Duke Ernest I the Confessor, had married a woman unconformable to his rank, he was urged to retire from co-ruling the principality in 1527. Otto could reach an agreement, allowing him and his family to live in Harburg castle and to rule his own precinct, the Bailiwick of Harburg, however, as a subfief of Lunenburg-Celle. Thus Harburg became the capital of the Principality of Harburg, which continued to exist under Otto's son, Duke Otto II of Harburg (1528–1603) and grandson Duke William Augustus (1564–1642). With the latter's death the Brunswick-Lunenburgian branch of Harburg was extinct in the male line and the area reunited with Lunenburg-Celle proper.

In 1705 the Lunenburg-Celle line was extinct and the principality inherited by Duke George Louis of Brunswick and Lunenburg (Calenberg), ruling the Principality of Calenberg, which managed to be upgraded as Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg, colloquially named after its capital Electorate of Hanover, in 1708. In 1714 Prince-Elector George Louis ascended the British throne as George I, ruling Hanover and Britain in personal union.

During this period (in 1720–23) the town was the notional headquarters of the abortive Harburg Company which, with a charter from King George I of Great Britain and funded by a dubious lottery scheme, was supposed to deepen the river and improve the harbour. When the lottery was forbidden to operate in England as fraudulent and illegal, the scheme foundered. Its principal proponent, John Barrington, was expelled from the British Parliament.

During the Great French War Harburg suffered changing conquests, liberations and occupations, until it was first annexed by Westphalia (1807), only to be annexed by France in 1810. Harburg then became the capital of the Canton d'Harbourg within the Arrondissement de Lunebourg of the Département des Bouches-de-l'Elbe. After the French defeat in 1813 Harburg returned to Hanover, which was upgraded to the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814. The Hanoveran-British personal union ended in 1837. Hanover, including Harburg, was defeated and annexed by Prussia in 1866, joining united Germany in 1871. Since the 19th century the town has been distinguished as Harburg upon Elbe (Harburg an der Elbe or Harburg/Elbe) from the homonymous town in Bavaria.

With the defeat of Germany and the abdication of the monarchs in Germany in 1918, Prussia adopted a democratic government as a German state and was formally named Free State of Prussia. In 1927 Harburg/Elbe merged with Wilhelmsburg into Harburg-Wilhelmsburg. On 1 April 1937 Harburg-Wilhelmsburg was disentangled from Prussia – according to the "Greater Hamburg Act" – and ceded to the state of Hamburg, which on 1 April 1938 incorporated the city into a unitary city state municipality (Einheitsgemeinde), thus abolishing Harburg(-Wilhelmsburg)'s municipal independence dating back to 1288.

Geography
In 2006 according to the statistical office of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, the quarter had an area of . Harburg, situated in the southern side of Hamburg, borders with the quarters of Neuland, Gut Moor, Rönneburg, Wilstorf, Eißendorf, Heimfeld and Wilhelmsburg (in the district of Mitte). From this one it is physically separated by the river Elbe.

Demographics
The population of Harburg in 2006 was 21,193. The population density was . 14.3% were children under the age of 18, and 14.1% were 65 years of age or older. 31.3% were immigrants. 1,619 people were registered as unemployed. In 1999 there were 11,668 households, out of which 16% had children under the age of 18 living with them, and 55% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 1.76.

Population by year

In 2006 there were 6,738 criminal offences in the quarter (318 crimes per 1000 people).

Education
The quarter has three elementary schools and four secondary schools in the Harburg quarter.

Infrastructure

Health systems
In 2006, 154 physicians in private practice and 16 pharmacies were counted in the Harburg quarter.

Transportation

The quarter is serviced by the rapid transit system of the city train with several stations. The Hamburg-Harburg railway station is also a station for long-distance passenger trains for the German railway company.

According to the Department of Motor Vehicles (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt), 5,148 private cars were registered (246 cars/1000 people) in the quarter.

See also

Hamburg-Harburg station
Harburg-Wilhelmsburg
Technical University of Hamburg

References

General

 Statistical office Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein Statistisches Amt für Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein, official website

External links

Quarters of Hamburg
Harburg, Hamburg Harburg Castle in Harburg, Bavaria, in the Donau-Ries district, is an extensive mediaeval complex from the 11th / 12th century. Originally it was a Staufer castle and was owned by the princely House of Oettingen-Wallerstein. Since 2000 the castle belongs to the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein Cultural Foundation, which has the mission to preserve unique castle for the present and future.

History 

The first record of the castle is dated 1150, when the Staufer Henry Berengar wrote a letter to his aunt Bertha of Sulzbach, Empress of Byzantine before he went into the Battle of Flochberg. But it is very likely that Harburg Castle was built in the 11th century, because at the end of this century Cuno de Horeburc (Kuno of Harburg), a noble man, was well known.

In 1530 the historian Hieronymus Wolf was a clerk at Harburg Castle.

Architecture 

This hill castle is a completely preserved facility with a remarkable building complex from the Middle Ages. In the 15th century the fortress was extended with residential buildings. From the 16th to the 18th century further extensions completed a prince's residence (ceremonial hall, castle church).

Pretty unique is the particularly well-preserved, late-medieval ring wall with defensive corridor.

References

External links 

 Burg Harburg on the official website of Harburg
 Burg Harburg on burgenseite.de
 Burg Harburg (official website of Harburg Castle)
 The House of Wallerstein

Castles in Bavaria
Buildings and structures in Donau-Ries
Royal residences in Bavaria