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Haggard, Merle Ronald

(Encyclopedia)Haggard, Merle Ronald, 1937–2016, popular and influential American country singer-songwriter, b. Oildale, Calif. The outlaw poet of country music, he grew up in poverty and turned to petty crime as ...

Lynch, David (Keith)

(Encyclopedia)Lynch, David (Keith), 1946–, American film and television writer, producer, and director, b. Missoula, Mont. Trained as a painter, he studied at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, D.C. (1963–...

Ransom, John Crowe

(Encyclopedia)Ransom, John Crowe, 1888–1974, American poet and critic, b. Pulaski, Tenn., grad. Vanderbilt Univ. and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He is considered one of the great stylists of 20th-centu...

Philadelphia, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Philadelphia, city (2020 pop. 1,603,797), coextensive with Philadelphia co., SE Pa., on the Delaware River c.100 mi (160 km) upstream at the influx of t...

Adams, John, 2d President of the United States

(Encyclopedia)Adams, John, 1735–1826, 2d President of the United States (1797–1801), b. Quincy (then in Braintree), Mass., grad. Harvard, 1755. John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, founded one of the most di...

Motherwell, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Motherwell, Robert, 1915–91, American painter and writer, b. Aberdeen, Wash. Motherwell taught art at several colleges and during the early 1940s he became a cogent theoretician of abstract expressi...

Nozick, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Nozick, Robert, 1938–2002, American political philosopher, b. Brooklyn, N.Y.; grad. Columbia Univ. (B.A., 1959), Princeton (M.A., 1961; Ph.D., 1963). After teaching at Princeton and Rockefeller Univ...

O'Connor, Flannery

(Encyclopedia)O'Connor, Flannery (Mary Flannery O'Connor), 1925–64, American author, b. Savannah, Ga., grad. Women's College of Georgia (A.B., 1945), Iowa State Univ. (M.F.A., 1947). As a writer, O'Connor is high...

Bellows, George Wesley

(Encyclopedia)Bellows, George Wesley, 1882–1925, American painter, draftsman, and lithographer, b. Columbus, Ohio. The son of an engineer, architect, and builder, he left Ohio State Univ. in his senior year to st...

Canfield, Richard Albert

(Encyclopedia)Canfield, Richard Albert, 1855–1914, American gambler, b. New Bedford, Mass. A well-known gambling operator in Providence, R.I., Canfield went in the 1880s to New York, where his gambling establishm...