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Smith, Sydney

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Sydney, 1771–1845, English clergyman, writer, and wit, ordained in the Church of England in 1794. In 1798 he went as a tutor to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, occasionally preached, an...

Spender, Sir Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Spender, Sir Stephen, 1909–95, English poet and critic, b. London. His early poetry—like that of W. H. Auden, C. Day Lewis, and Louis MacNeice, with whom he became associated at Oxford—was inspi...

Isherwood, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Isherwood, Christopher ishˈərwo͝od [key], 1904–86, British-American author. After the appearance of his first novel, All the Conspirators (1928), Isherwood went to Germany. The four years he spen...

Allport, Gordon W.

(Encyclopedia)Allport, Gordon W. ôlˈpôrt [key], 1897–1967, American psychologist, b. Montezuma, Ind. One of the first psychologists to study personality, Allport researched human attitudes, prejudices, and rel...

Abel, I. W.

(Encyclopedia)Abel, I. W. (Iorwith Wilbur Abel) yôrˈwĭth [key], 1908–87, American labor leader, b. Magnolia, Ohio. In 1925 he went to work in a rolling mill in Canton, Ohio, and was appointed (1937) staff repr...

Fields, W. C.

(Encyclopedia)Fields, W. C. (William Claude Fields), 1880–1946, American comic actor, b. Philadelphia as Claude William Dukenfield. He began his career as a juggler, and much later appeared in the Ziegfeld Follie...

Handy, W. C.

(Encyclopedia)Handy, W. C. (William Christopher Handy), 1873–1958, American songwriter and band leader, b. Florence, Ala. Largely self-taught, Handy began his career as a cornet player in a minstrel show in 1896,...

Griffith, D. W.

(Encyclopedia)Griffith, D. W. (David Llewelyn Wark Griffith), 1875–1948, American movie director and producer, b. La Grange, Ky. Griffith was the first major American film director. He began his film career as an...

Friendly, Fred W.

(Encyclopedia)Friendly, Fred W., 1915–98, American broadcaster and author, b. New York City as Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer. He began his career at age 22 at a radio station in Providence where he wrote, produ...

Johnson, Richard W.

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Richard W., 1827–97, Union general in the Civil War, b. Livingston co., Ky., grad. West Point, 1849. Before the Civil War he served principally on the frontier. Johnson, made a brigadier ge...