Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

72 results found

Ingersoll, Robert Green

(Encyclopedia)Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833–99, American orator and lawyer, b. Dresden, N.Y. The son of a Congregational minister who eventually settled in Illinois, Ingersoll was admitted (1854) to the bar and b...

Mill, John Stuart

(Encyclopedia)Mill, John Stuart, 1806–73, British philosopher and economist. A precocious child, he was educated privately by his father, James Mill. In 1823, abandoning the study of law, he became a clerk in the...

Fourier, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Fourier, Charles shärl fo͞oryāˈ [key], 1772–1837, French social philosopher. From a bourgeois family, he condemned existing institutions and evolved a kind of utopian socialism. In Théorie des ...

Lawrence, Jacob

(Encyclopedia)Lawrence, Jacob (Jacob Armstead Lawrence), 1917–2000, American painter, b. Atlantic City, N.J. One of the most important African-American artists of the late 20th cent., Lawrence focused on social a...

Woodhull, Victoria (Claflin)

(Encyclopedia)Woodhull, Victoria (Claflin), 1838–1927, and Tennessee Claflin, 1846–1923, American journalists and lecturers, b. Ohio, sisters noted for their beauty and wildly eccentric behavior. As children th...

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 1950–, American scholar and critic, b. Keyser, W.Va., B.A. Yale, 1973, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1979, where he studied with Wole Soyinka. Gates is an expert on African-American lite...

Maupassant, Guy de

(Encyclopedia)Maupassant, Guy de gē də mōpäsäNˈ [key], 1850–93, French novelist and short-story writer, of an ancient Norman family. He worked in a government office at Paris and became known c.1880 as the ...

Norwich, city, England

(Encyclopedia)Norwich nôrˈĭj, –ĭch [key], city (1991 pop. 32,664) and district, county seat of Norfolk, E England, on the Wensum River just above its confluence with the Yare. Norwich is a principal city mark...

Cambridge, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Cambridge. 1 City (2020 pop. 13,096), seat of Dorchester co., E Md., Eastern Shore, a port of entry on the Choptank River at its mouth on ...

Borglum, Gutzon

(Encyclopedia)Borglum, Gutzon (John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum) gŭtˈsən dĕ lˈə mät bôrˈgləm [key], 1867–1941, American sculptor, b. Idaho; son of a Danish immigrant physician and rancher. He studied at ...

Browse by Subject