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Owen, Wilfred

(Encyclopedia)Owen, Wilfred, 1893–1918, English poet, b. Oswestry, Shropshire. He served as a company commander in the Artist's Rifles during World War I and was killed in France on Nov. 4, 1918, one week before ...

Johnson, Samuel, American clergyman, educator, and philosopher

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Samuel, 1696–1772, American clergyman, educator, and philosopher, b. Guilford, Conn., grad. Collegiate School (now Yale), 1714; father of William Samuel Johnson. He became a Congregationali...

Sully, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Sully, Thomas, 1783–1872, American painter, b. England. Having come to the United States as a child, he first studied with his brother Lawrence, a miniaturist, and later for a brief time with Gilber...

Wanamaker, John

(Encyclopedia)Wanamaker, John wŏnˈəmāˌkər [key], 1838–1922, American merchant, b. Philadelphia. He went into the men's clothing business in Philadelphia with Nathan Brown, his brother-in-law, in 1861. The f...

Whiskey Ring

(Encyclopedia)Whiskey Ring, in U.S. history, a group of distillers and public officials who defrauded the federal government of liquor taxes. Soon after the Civil War these taxes were raised very high, in some case...

Carey, Mathew

(Encyclopedia)Carey, Mathew, 1760–1839, American publisher, bookseller, and economist, b. Dublin. In his Dublin journal he violently attacked English rule of Ireland, was imprisoned for a month, fled to France, w...

Staël, Germaine de

(Encyclopedia)Staël, Germaine de zhĕrmĕnˈ də stäl [key], 1766–1817, French-Swiss woman of letters, whose full name was Anne Louise Germaine Necker, baronne de Staël-Holstein. Born in Paris, the daughter of...

Sapir, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Sapir, Edward səpērˈ [key], 1884–1939, American linguist and anthropologist, b. Pomerania. Sapir was brought to the United States in 1889. After teaching at the Univ. of California and the Univ. ...

Shahn, Ben

(Encyclopedia)Shahn, Ben (Benjamin Shahn), 1898–1969, American painter and graphic artist, b. Lithuania. Shahn emigrated to the United States in 1906. After working in lithography until 1930, his style crystalliz...

Dana, James Dwight

(Encyclopedia)Dana, James Dwight, 1813–95, American geologist, mineralogist, and naturalist, b. Utica, N.Y., grad. Yale, 1833. His studies of the S Pacific, NW United States, Europe, and elsewhere led to changes ...