FREMONT 



FRENCH 



FREMONT, NEB., the county seat of Dodge 

 County, is situated in the east-central part of 

 the state, thirty-seven miles northwest of 

 Omaha. It is on the Platte River and on 

 the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago 

 & North Western and the Union Pacific rail- 

 roads. The area of the city is four square 

 miles. In 1910 the population was 8,718; in 

 1916 it was 9,925, by Federal estimate. Fre- 

 mont is in a farming section, has dairying and 

 live-stock interests, and is an important grain 

 market. Its industrial plants include machine 

 shops and mattress and incubator factories. 

 It is the seat of the Fremont Normal School, 

 and has a courthouse, Carnegie Library and 

 orphans' home (Lutheran). Fremont was set- 

 tled in 1857, incorporated in 1871 and obtained 

 a revised charter in 1901. 



FREMONT, OHIO, the county seat of San- 

 dusky County, is situated in the northwestern 

 part of the state, thirty miles southeast of 

 Toledo. It is at the head of navigation on 

 the Sandusky River, has boat and interurban 

 service, and is on the New York Central and 

 the Wheeling & Lake Erie railroads. The 

 area of the city is nearly four square miles. 

 In 1910 the population was 9,939; in 1916 it 

 was 10,882, by Federal estimate. 



Fremont has several public parks, a state 

 historical building and the Birchard Public 

 Library, which was founded in 1873 by Sardis 

 Birchard, an uncle of President Hayes. Spiegel 

 Grove, in Fremont, was the home of former 

 President Hayes. The town is situated in a 

 productive agricultural region and is sur- 

 rounded by rich oil and natural gas fields. 

 Power for manufacture is obtained by a large 

 dam and power plant, and among the principal 

 industrial plants are manufactories of electro- 

 carbons, machinery, boilers and engines, farm- 

 ing implements, cutlery, stoves and ranges, 

 shears, paper, underwear, beet sugar and lum- 

 ber products. 



A trading post, erected in 1785, and Fort 

 Stephenson, built in 1812, first occupied the 

 site of Fremont. Until 1850 the place was 

 known as Lower Sandusky, but that year it 

 was given its present name in honor of John C. 

 Fremont. 



FREM'STAD, OLIVE (born about 1870), a 

 dramatic soprano and tragic actress, a prom- 

 inent member of the Metropolitan Grand 

 Opera Company, New York City. By hard, 

 persistent effort, for she always had to earn 

 her own living, she fought her way to the intel- 

 lectual centers of the world. She was born at 



OLIVE FRBMSTAD 



Stockholm, Sweden, and in her native country 

 at the age of five appeared as a concert pianist, 

 When she was ten years old her parents settled 

 at Saint Peter, 

 Minn., and later 

 moved to Minne- 

 apolis, where she 

 taught music and 

 sang in choirs, 

 putting aside her 

 earnings to en- 

 able her to con- 

 tinue her studies. 

 Hard work made 

 a reality of her 

 dream to com- 

 plete her educa- 

 tion in Germany, 

 and in 1898 after 

 three years of study she appeared in opera at 

 the Cologne Opera House. She sang for over 

 ten years at Munich, and then became a mem- 

 ber of the Metropolitan Opera Company, New 

 York. She has sung in leading cities of the 

 United States and Canada in many notable 

 operas, although her greatest triumphs have 

 been achieved in Wagnerian roles. In Novem- 

 ber, 1916, Miss Fremstad was married to Harry 

 Lewis Brainerd, of New York City, and there 

 she makes her home. 



FRENCH ACADEMY, or ACADEMIE 

 FRANCHISE. See ACADEMY. 



FRENCH, ALICE (1850- ), an American 

 author of short stories, whose pen name is 

 OCTAVE THANET. The Bishop's Vagabond, pub- 

 lished in The Atlantic Monthly in January, 

 1884, forms the cornerstone of Miss French's 

 fame. It was the author's first attempt to 

 portray Southern character. Her style shows 

 an unmistakable masculine tendency, and her 

 interests are half masculine. She has an ex- 

 tensive knowledge of the relations between 

 capital and labor, and her interest in the sub- 

 ject is possibly deeper than that of any other 

 woman writer in the land. Her earliest work 

 was some very heavy essays on questions of 

 sociology. She spends a part of every summer 

 at Cape Cod, and it was there that she acquired 

 considerable skill in photography. An Ad- 

 venture in Photography is illustrated by actual 

 photographs of the adventurers, taken by the 

 author. As she has lived in the West and in 

 the South, her portrayals of life in those 

 regions are very real. Among her short stories 

 are Otto, the Knight and Knitting in the Sun. 

 Among her later works are The Man of the 



