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Ames, Ezra

(Encyclopedia)Ames, Ezra, 1768–1836, American painter, b. Framingham, Mass. Early in his life he worked as a carriage painter, miniaturist, engraver, and decorator, first in Worcester, Mass., and later in Albany,...

liberal arts

(Encyclopedia)liberal arts, term originally used to designate the arts or studies suited to freemen. It was applied in the Middle Ages to seven branches of learning, the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and...

Arnold, Benedict

(Encyclopedia)Arnold, Benedict, 1741–1801, American Revolutionary general and traitor, b. Norwich, Conn. As a youth he served for a time in the colonial militia in the French and Indian Wars. He later became a pr...

Lewis, Sinclair

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Sinclair, 1885–1951, American novelist, b. Sauk Centre, Minn., grad. Yale Univ., 1908. Probably the greatest satirist of his era, Lewis wrote novels that present a devastating picture of midd...

Erie Canal

(Encyclopedia)Erie Canal, artificial waterway, c.360 mi (580 km) long; connecting New York City with the Great Lakes via the Hudson River. Locks were built to overcome the 571-ft (174-m) difference between the leve...

Swift, Jonathan

(Encyclopedia)Swift, Jonathan, 1667–1745, English author, b. Dublin. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest satirists in the English language. In 1713 Swift became dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl...

Dryden, John

(Encyclopedia)Dryden, John, 1631–1700, English poet, dramatist, and critic, b. Northamptonshire, grad. Cambridge, 1654. He went to London about 1657 and first came to public notice with his Heroic Stanzas (1659),...

Hughes, Langston

(Encyclopedia)Hughes, Langston (James Langston Hughes), 1902–67, American poet and central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, b. Joplin, Mo., grad. Lincoln Univ., 1929. He worked at a variety of jobs and lived in ...

Whitewater, in U.S. history

(Encyclopedia)Whitewater, popular name for a failed 1970s Arkansas real estate venture by the Whitewater Development Corp., in which Gov. (later President) Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were pa...

reading, mental process

(Encyclopedia)reading, process of mentally interpreting written symbols. Facility in reading is an essential factor in educational progress, and instruction in this basic skill is a primary purpose of elementary ed...