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Brown, William Wells

(Encyclopedia)Brown, William Wells, 1814–84, African-American abolitionist, writer, and doctor, b. near Lexington, Ky. Born into slavery, the child of a black slave mother and a white slaveholding father, Brown f...

Bartlett, Robert Abram

(Encyclopedia)Bartlett, Robert Abram, 1875–1946, American arctic explorer, b. Brigus, near St. John's, N.L., Canada. He accompanied Robert E. Peary on the expeditions of 1897–98 and 1905–6, and in 1908–9 he...

Warren, Earl

(Encyclopedia)Warren, Earl, 1891–1974, American public official and 14th chief justice of the United States (1953–69), b. Los Angeles. He graduated from the Univ. of California Law School in 1912. Admitted (191...

Van Vechten, Carl

(Encyclopedia)Van Vechten, Carl văn vĕkˈtən [key], 1880–1964, American music critic, novelist, and photographer, b. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, grad. Univ. of Chicago, 1903. While he was a leading music and dance cri...

Griffes, Charles Tomlinson

(Encyclopedia)Griffes, Charles Tomlinson grĭfˈĭs [key], 1884–1920, American composer, b. Elmira, N.Y. A pupil of Humperdinck in Germany, he returned to the United States in 1907. Among his outstanding larger c...

Slocum massacre

(Encyclopedia)Slocum massacre, July 29–30, 1910, killing of an unknown number of African Americans by armed mobs of white men in the town of Slocum, Texas. The killings may have been precipitated by rumors that b...

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

(Encyclopedia)National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), organization composed mainly of American blacks, but with many white members, whose goal is the end of racial discrimination and seg...

Renoir, Pierre Auguste

(Encyclopedia)Renoir, Pierre Auguste rənwärˈ [key], 1841–1919, French impressionist painter and sculptor, b. Limoges. Renoir went to work at the age of 13 in Paris as a decorator of factory-made porcelain, co...