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Tinicum Island

(Encyclopedia)Tinicum Island tĭnˈĭkəm [key], area in the Delaware River, SW of Philadelphia, separated from the mainland by creeks and marshes. Site of the first European settlement in Pennsylvania, it was the ...

Villanova University

(Encyclopedia)Villanova University vĭlˌənōˈvə [key], at Villanova, Pa., near Philadelphia; Roman Catholic; est. 1842 as a men's school, coeducational since 1967. It has schools of arts and sciences, engineeri...

Godfrey, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Godfrey, Thomas, 1736–63, American poet and playwright, b. Philadelphia. The son of Thomas Godfrey, who invented the quadrant, he became apprenticed to a watchmaker after his father's early death. G...

Furness, Horace Howard

(Encyclopedia)Furness, Horace Howard fûrˈnĭs [key], 1833–1912, American Shakespearean scholar, b. Philadelphia; son of William Henry Furness. He was the editor of the New Variorum edition of Shakespeare (plays...

Peerce, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Peerce, Jan, 1904–85, American tenor, b. New York City as Jacob Pincus Perelmuth. Discovered by Arturo Toscanini, who chose him to be a soloist in a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Peerce...

Widener, Harry Elkins

(Encyclopedia)Widener, Harry Elkins wīdˈnər [key], 1885–1912, American bibliophile, b. Philadelphia. He had the greatest Robert Louis Stevenson collection in existence. Widener died at the age of 27 on the Tit...

Schoenberg, Arnold

(Encyclopedia)Schoenberg, Arnold ärˈnôlt shönˈbĕrkh [key], 1874–1951, Austrian composer, b. Vienna. Before he became a U.S. citizen in 1941 he spelled his name Schönberg. He revolutionized modern music by ...

saxophone

(Encyclopedia)saxophone, musical instrument invented in the 1840s by Adolphe Sax. Although it uses the single reed of the clarinet family, it has a conical tube and is made of metal. By 1846 there was a double fami...

Dallapiccola, Luigi

(Encyclopedia)Dallapiccola, Luigi lo͞oēˈjē dälˌläpēkˈkōlä [key], 1904–75, Italian composer, b. Pazan, Istria (now in Croatia). Dallapiccola was in a detention camp during World War I; because his wife ...

Hanson, Howard

(Encyclopedia)Hanson, Howard, 1896–1981, American composer, teacher, and conductor, b. Wahoo, Nebr. In 1921, Hanson won the Prix de Rome, becoming the first composer to enter the American Academy there. From 1924...