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Connecticut Wits

(Encyclopedia)Connecticut Wits or Hartford Wits, an informal association of Yale students and rectors formed in the late 18th cent. At first they were devoted to the modernization of the Yale curriculum and declari...

Valdosta

(Encyclopedia)Valdosta văldŏsˈ tə [key], city (1990 pop. 29,806), seat of Lowndes co., S Ga., near the Fla. line, in a lake region; inc. 1860. Valdosta is a large naval stores market and a processing, distribut...

Rice University

(Encyclopedia)Rice University, at Houston, Tex.; coeducational; chartered 1891 as Rice Institute through a bequest of William Marsh Rice, opened 1912, renamed 1960. It follows the residential college system and has...

Wallingford

(Encyclopedia)Wallingford, town (1990 pop. 40,822), New Haven co., S Conn.; inc. 1670. Its silverware industry dates from c.1835. Fruit growing and the manufacture of plastics, steel, precision instruments, and har...

Beecher, Catharine Esther

(Encyclopedia)Beecher, Catharine Esther, 1800–1878, American educator, b. East Hampton, N.Y.; daughter of Lyman Beecher. She first taught in New London, Conn., and in 1824 founded a girls' school in Hartford. Lat...

Witte, Emanuel de

(Encyclopedia)Witte, Emanuel de āmäˈno͞oĕl də vĭtˈə [key], 1617–92, Dutch painter. Witte's paintings of architecture, genre scenes, seascapes, and portraits were influenced by the work of Elsheimer. Witt...

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins

(Encyclopedia)Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860–1935, American feminist and reformer, b. Hartford, Conn.; great-granddaughter of Lyman Beecher. Prominent as a lecturer and writer on the labor movement and feminism,...

Dwight, Timothy, 1752–1817, American clergyman, author, and educator

(Encyclopedia)Dwight, Timothy, 1752–1817, American clergyman, author, educator, b. Northampton, Mass., grad. Yale, 1769. He renounced legal for theological studies and after 1783 was pastor for 12 years of a Cong...

Wills, Helen Newington

(Encyclopedia)Wills, Helen Newington (Helen Wills Moody Roark), 1905–98, American tennis player, b. Centerville, Calif. She studied art at the Univ. of California and later gave exhibitions of her paintings and e...

near-death experience

(Encyclopedia)near-death experience, phenomenon reported by some people who have been clinically dead, then returned to life. Descriptions of the experience differ slightly in detail from person to person, but usua...