Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Whitney Museum of American Art

(Encyclopedia)Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney with a core group of 700 artworks, many from her own collection. The museum was an outgrowth of the Whi...

Wyoming Valley

(Encyclopedia)Wyoming Valley, c.20 mi (30 km) long and 3 to 4 mi (4.8–6.4 km) wide, in Luzerne co., NE Pa., through which flows the Susquehanna River. Wilkes-Barre is the major city of this once-rich anthracite c...

Goucher College

(Encyclopedia)Goucher College gouˈchər [key], at Towson, Md., formerly at Baltimore; inc. 1885, opened 1888 by Methodists as a college for women, coeducational since 1987. It is named after John Franklin Goucher ...

Rosh ha-Shanah

(Encyclopedia)Rosh ha-Shanah hə-shäˈnə [key] [Heb.,=head of the year], the Jewish New Year, also known as the Feast of the Trumpets. It is observed on the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, occurring usual...

clarinet

(Encyclopedia)clarinet, musical wind instrument of cylindrical bore employing a single reed. The clarinet family comprises all single-reed instruments, including the saxophone. The predecessor of the modern clarine...

Dana, Richard Henry

(Encyclopedia)Dana, Richard Henry, 1787–1879, American poet and essayist, b. Cambridge, Mass.; son of Francis Dana. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1811. Critic and poet, Dana was a founder and ...

tuba

(Encyclopedia)tuba to͞oˈbə [key] [Lat.,=trumpet], valved brass wind musical instrument of wide conical bore. The term tuba is applied rather loosely to any low-pitched brass instrument other than the trombone; s...

Hamites

(Encyclopedia)Hamites, African people of caucasoid descent who occupy the Horn of Africa (chiefly Somalia and Ethiopia), the western Sahara, and parts of Algeria and Tunisia. They are believed to be the original se...

Wonder, Stevie

(Encyclopedia)Wonder, Stevie, 1950–, American singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, b. Saginaw, Mich., as Steveland Hardaway Judkins (changed to Steveland Hardaway Morris, 1961). Blind from birth, he played th...