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harem

(Encyclopedia)harem hârˈəm [key] [Arabic], term applied to women's apartments in a Muslim household. In the ancient Arab world women enjoyed a certain amount of freedom. However, with the advent of Islam, the ve...

Kempe, Margery

(Encyclopedia)Kempe, Margery kĕmp [key], d. 1438 or afterward, English religious writer, b. King's Lynn. She was the wife of a prominent citizen and the mother of 14 children. Her autobiography, The Book of Marger...

Southcott, Joanna

(Encyclopedia)Southcott, Joanna southˈkət [key], 1750–1814, English religious visionary. Uneducated, even illiterate, she spent her earlier years in domestic service. She began c.1792 to claim the gift of proph...

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...

Bustamante, Sir Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Bustamante, Sir Alexander bŭsˌtəmănˈtē [key], 1884–1977, prime minister of Jamaica (1962–67). Born William Alexander Clarke, the son of an Irish father and a Jamaican mother, he was adopted...

Penelope

(Encyclopedia)Penelope pənĕlˈəpē [key], in Greek mythology, wife of Odysseus and the mother of Telemachus. In Homer's Odyssey she is pictured as a chaste and faithful wife. When Odysseus was away, she was surr...

Pogány, Willy

(Encyclopedia)Pogány, Willy vĭlˈē pōˈgänyə [key], 1882–1955, American artist, b. Hungary, studied in Budapest, Munich, and Paris. Arriving in New York City in 1914 from England, he soon achieved renown as...

Wilhelmina

(Encyclopedia)Wilhelmina vĭlˌhĕlmēˈnä [key], 1880–1962, queen of the Netherlands (1890–1948), daughter and successor of William III. Her mother, Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont, was regent until 1898. Wilhelmina ...

yaws

(Encyclopedia)yaws or frambesia, tropical infection of the skin caused by a spirochete (Treponema pertenue) closely related to that causing syphilis. Yaws, however, is not a sexually transmitted disease, i.e., it i...

Vonnoh, Bessie Potter

(Encyclopedia)Vonnoh, Bessie Potter vŏnˈō [key], 1872–1955, American sculptor, b. St. Louis, studied under Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago. She was Taft's assistant in his work for the World's Colu...