(Encyclopedia) Wolfe, Thomas Clayton, 1900–1938, American novelist, b. Asheville, N.C., grad. Univ. of North Carolina, 1920, M.A. Harvard, 1922. An important 20th-century American novelist, Wolfe…
(Encyclopedia) Bierce, Ambrose GwinettBierce, Ambrose Gwinettămˈbrōz gwĭnĕtˈ bĭrs [key], 1842–1914?, American satirist, journalist, and short-story writer, b. Meigs co., Ohio. He fought with extreme…
(Encyclopedia) Gaddis, William, 1922–98, American novelist, b. New York City. An erudite master of satire and black comedy, he was both praised and criticized for his avant-garde techniques—…
(Encyclopedia) Parker, Charlie “Bird” (Charles Christopher Parker, Jr.), 1920–55, American musician and composer, b. Kansas City, Kans. He began playing alto saxophone in 1933 and, shifting from one…
(Encyclopedia) NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), organization that sanctions American stock-car races, est. 1948. It held its first race in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1948 and…
(Encyclopedia) Washington, Booker Taliaferro, 1856–1915, American educator, b. Franklin co., Va. Washington was born into slavery; his mother was a mulatto slave on a plantation, his father a white…
(Encyclopedia) King, Coretta Scott, 1927–2006, American civil-rights leader, b. Heiberger, Ala.; the wife (1953–68) of Martin Luther King, Jr. After her husband's assassination, she carried on his…
(Encyclopedia) James, William, 1842–1910, American philosopher, b. New York City, M.D. Harvard, 1869; son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James and brother of the novelist Henry James. In 1872…
(Encyclopedia) Johnson, Philip Cortelyou, 1906–2005, American architect, museum curator, and historian, b. Cleveland, grad. Harvard Univ. (B.A., 1927). One of the first Americans to study modern…
