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Morris

(Encyclopedia)Morris, family of prominent American landowners and statesmen. Richard Morris, d. 1672, left England after serving in Oliver Cromwell's army, became a merchant in Barbados, and emigrated to New York C...

Granger movement

(Encyclopedia)Granger movement, American agrarian movement taking its name from the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, an organization founded in 1867 by Oliver H. Kelley and six associates. Its local uni...

Dryden, John

(Encyclopedia)Dryden, John, 1631–1700, English poet, dramatist, and critic, b. Northamptonshire, grad. Cambridge, 1654. He went to London about 1657 and first came to public notice with his Heroic Stanzas (1659),...

jurisprudence

(Encyclopedia)jurisprudence jo͝orˌĭspro͞odˈəns [key], study of the nature and the origin and development of law. It is variously regarded as a branch of ethics or of sociology. Many of the major systematic ph...

Constitutional Convention

(Encyclopedia)Constitutional Convention, in U.S. history, the 1787 meeting in which the Constitution of the United States was drawn up. The convention at Philadelphia drew up one of the most influential document...

Supreme Court Justices (table)

(Encyclopedia)Supreme Court Justices(including dates on bench) Chief Justices Associate Justices ...

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

(Encyclopedia)Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807–82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body o...

Murdoch, Dame Iris

(Encyclopedia)Murdoch, Dame Iris (Dame Jean Iris Murdoch) mûrˈdŏk [key], 1919–99, British novelist and philosopher, b. Dublin, Ireland, grad. Oxford (1942). In 1948 she was named lecturer in philosophy at Oxfo...

Knights of the Golden Circle

(Encyclopedia)Knights of the Golden Circle, secret order of Southern sympathizers in the North during the Civil War. Its members were known as Copperheads. Dr. George W. L. Bickley, a Virginian who had moved to Ohi...

Mitchell, George John

(Encyclopedia)Mitchell, George John, 1933–, U.S. public official, b. Waterville, Maine. An attorney in private and government practice in the 1960s and 1970s, he was a protege of Senator Edmund Muskie. Generally ...