Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Kefauver, Carey Estes

(Encyclopedia)Kefauver, Carey Estes kēfôvər [key], 1903–63, U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1949–63), b. Madisonville, Tenn., known as Estes Kefauver. He became a Chattanooga lawyer and in 1938 was elected to t...

Lee, Richard Henry

(Encyclopedia)Lee, Richard Henry, 1732–94, political leader in the American Revolution, b. Westmoreland co., Va.; brother of Arthur Lee, Francis L. Lee, and William Lee. He served in the house of burgesses (1758...

Bowles, Chester Bliss

(Encyclopedia)Bowles, Chester Bliss bōlz [key], 1901–86, U.S. public official, b. Springfield, Mass.; grandson of Samuel Bowles (1851–1915). At first a journalist and an advertising man, Bowles was later (1942...

Perkins, Frances

(Encyclopedia)Perkins, Frances, 1882–1965, U.S. Secretary of Labor (1933–45), b. Boston. She worked at Hull House, was executive secretary of the New York Consumers' League (1910–12) and of the New York Commi...

Merrill, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Merrill, Robert, 1917–2004, American baritone, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Moishe Miller. In 1945 he won the Metropolitan Opera's Auditions of the Air and in the same year made his debut as Germont in Ver...

Singer, Israel Joshua

(Encyclopedia)Singer, Israel Joshua, 1893–1944, Polish-American novelist and playwright who wrote in Yiddish, older brother of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Living variously in Poland and Russia, he earned a literary re...

Harrison, Wallace Kirkman

(Encyclopedia)Harrison, Wallace Kirkman, 1895–1981, American architect and city planner, b. Worcester, Mass. Harrison designed the Trylon and Perisphere, the structures that came to symbolize the 1939 New York Wo...

Bagehot, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Bagehot, Walter băjˈət [key], 1826–77, English social scientist. After working in his father's banking firm, he edited (1860–77) the Economist (which had been founded by his father-in-law) and ...

Cheves, Langdon

(Encyclopedia)Cheves, Langdon chĭˈvĭs [key], 1776–1857, American statesman, b. Abbeville District (now Abbeville co.), S.C. Admitted to the bar in 1797, he became one of the leading lawyers of Charleston. In t...

Berger, Victor Louis

(Encyclopedia)Berger, Victor Louis, 1860–1929, American Socialist leader and congressman, b. Austria-Hungary. After studying at the universities of Budapest and Vienna, he emigrated (1878) to the United States an...

Browse by Subject