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oratory

(Encyclopedia)oratory, the art of swaying an audience by eloquent speech. In ancient Greece and Rome oratory was included under the term rhetoric, which meant the art of composing as well as delivering a speech. Or...

Paine, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Paine, Thomas, 1737–1809, Anglo-American political theorist and writer, b. Thetford, Norfolk, England. The son of a working-class Quaker, he became an excise officer and was dismissed from the servi...

International Ladies Garment Workers Union

(Encyclopedia)International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), former U.S. labor union, formed in 1900 by the amalgamation of seven local unions. At the turn of the century most of the workers in the garment ind...

Jay, John

(Encyclopedia)Jay, John, 1745–1829, American statesman, 1st chief justice of the United States, b. New York City, grad. King's College (now Columbia Univ.), 1764. He was admitted (1768) to the bar and for a time ...

almanac

(Encyclopedia)almanac, originally, a calendar with notations of astronomical and other data. Almanacs have been known in simple form almost since the invention of writing, for they served to record religious feasts...

Hearst, William Randolph

(Encyclopedia)Hearst, William Randolph, 1863–1951, American journalist and publisher, b. San Francisco. A flamboyant, highly controversial figure, Hearst was nonetheless an intelligent and extremely competent new...

Beard, Charles Austin

(Encyclopedia)Beard, Charles Austin, 1874–1948, American historian, b. near Knightstown, Ind. A year at Oxford as a graduate student gave him an interest in English local government, and after further study at Co...

Pennsylvania Dutch

(Encyclopedia)Pennsylvania Dutch [Ger. Deutsch=German], people of E Pennsylvania of German descent who migrated to the area in the 18th cent., particularly those in Northampton, Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Lebanon, Y...

Carson, Kit

(Encyclopedia)Carson, Kit (Christopher Houston Carson), 1809–68, American frontiersman and guide, b. Madison co., Ky. In 1811 he moved with his family to the Missouri frontier. After his father's death, he was ap...

Canadian art and architecture

(Encyclopedia)Canadian art and architecture, the various types and styles arts and structures produced in the geographic area that now constitutes Canada. For a discussion of the art of indigenous peoples of Canada...