Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

67 results found

Shelby, Joseph Orville

(Encyclopedia)Shelby, Joseph Orville, 1830–97, Confederate cavalry commander in the American Civil War, b. Lexington, Ky. He made a considerable fortune in rope manufacturing in Kentucky and Missouri. While in Mi...

Bradford, John

(Encyclopedia)Bradford, John, 1749–1830, pioneer printer of Kentucky, b. Virginia. He moved to Kentucky c.1779. Although he had no previous practical experience, he issued at Lexington on Aug. 11, 1787, the first...

Sears, Isaac

(Encyclopedia)Sears, Isaac, c.1730–86, American Revolutionary leader, b. West Brewster, Mass. A merchant sea captain, Sears won a reputation as a daring privateer during the French and Indian War. He was a leader...

Virginia Military Institute

(Encyclopedia)Virginia Military Institute (VMI), at Lexington; state supported; chartered and opened 1839 as the first state military college in the United States. Although one of the leading U.S. military institut...

Bascom, Henry Bidleman

(Encyclopedia)Bascom, Henry Bidleman băsˈkəm [key], 1796–1850, American Methodist minister and college president, b. Hancock, N.Y. At the age of 17 he became a preacher in the Ohio Methodist Conference and was...

Brown, Benjamin Gratz

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Benjamin Gratz, 1826–85, U.S. Senator (1863–67) and governor of Missouri (1871–73), b. Lexington, Ky. An able lawyer in St. Louis, Brown was a leader in the Free-Soil movement in Missouri...

Mann, Sally

(Encyclopedia)Mann, Sally, 1951–, American photographer, b. Lexington, Va., as Sally Munger, studied Bennington College, Hollins College (B.A. 1974, M.A. 1975). Interested in older photographic techniques, Mann u...

Barry, John

(Encyclopedia)Barry, John, 1745–1803, U.S. naval officer in the American Revolution, b. Co. Wexford, Ireland. He went as a youth to Philadelphia, where he was a trader and a shipmaster. In the Revolution he comma...

Morgan, Thomas Hunt

(Encyclopedia)Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 1866–1945, American zoologist, b. Lexington, Ky., Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1890. He was professor of experimental zoology at Columbia (1904–28) and from 1928 was director of the l...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Slo...

Browse by Subject