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Ellison, Ralph

(Encyclopedia)Ellison, Ralph (Ralph Waldo Ellison), 1914–94, African-American author, b. Oklahoma City, studied Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee Univ.). Originally a trumpet player and aspiring composer, he moved...

Hayes, Rutherford Birchard

(Encyclopedia)Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822–93, 19th President of the United States (1877–81), b. Delaware, Ohio, grad. Kenyon College, 1843, and Harvard law school, 1845. He became a moderately successful l...

Fontane, Theodor

(Encyclopedia)Fontane, Theodor tāˈōdôr fôntäˈnə [key], 1819–98, German writer. Although he is primarily important as a novelist, he did not begin to write fiction until he was almost 60 years old. Thereaf...

Reed, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Reed, Walter, 1851–1902, American army surgeon, b. Gloucester co., Va. In 1900 he was sent to Havana as head of an army commission to investigate an outbreak of yellow fever among American soldiers....

Davis, Charles Henry

(Encyclopedia)Davis, Charles Henry, 1807–77, American naval officer and scientist, b. Boston. Appointed a midshipman in 1823, Davis directed operations of the Coast Survey for a time along the New England coast. ...

Sharp, Cecil James

(Encyclopedia)Sharp, Cecil James, 1859–1924, English musician, best known for his researches in English folk music. In 1911 he founded the English Folk Dance Society. In the United States he collected (1914–18)...

Lawrence, Abbott

(Encyclopedia)Lawrence, Abbott, 1792–1855, American manufacturer and statesman, b. Groton, Mass. Apprenticed (1808) to his brother Amos, a Boston merchant, Abbott became (1814) a partner with Amos in the firm kno...

Compton, Karl Taylor

(Encyclopedia)Compton, Karl Taylor, 1887–1954, American physicist, b. Wooster, Ohio, grad. College of Wooster (Ph.B., 1908), Princeton (Ph.D., 1912); brother of A. H. Compton. He taught at Princeton from 1915 to ...

Fergusson, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Fergusson, Robert, 1750–74, Scottish poet, b. Edinburgh. He was a precursor of Robert Burns, who proclaimed his debt to Fergusson's Poems (1773). After careers in the clergy and in medicine, he work...

Green, Hetty

(Encyclopedia)Green, Hetty, 1835–1916, American financier, b. Henrietta Howland Robinson, New Bedford, Mass. She inherited a large fortune from her father and invested it so shrewdly that she was considered the g...