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Crane, Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Crane, Stephen, 1871–1900, American novelist, poet, and short-story writer, b. Newark, N.J. Often designated the first modern American writer, Crane is ranked among the authors who introduced realis...

Barnum, P. T.

(Encyclopedia)Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor Barnum) fĭnˈēəs, bärˈnəm [key], 1810–91, American showman, b. Bethel, Conn. As a youth Barnum worked at diverse sales jobs and managed a boardinghouse. He made h...

Revere, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Revere, Paul, 1735–1818, American silversmith and political leader in the American Revolution, b. Boston. In his father's smithy he learned to work gold and silver, and he became a leading silversmi...

Orwell, George

(Encyclopedia)Orwell, George, pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair, 1903–50, British novelist and essayist, b. Bengal, India. He is best remembered for his scathingly satirical and frighteningly political novels, Animal F...

Ottawa, city, Canada

(Encyclopedia)Ottawa ŏtˈəwə [key], city (1991 pop. 313,987), capital of Canada, SE Ont., at the confluence of the Ottawa and Rideau rivers and across the Ottawa from Gatineau, Que. The Rideau Canal separates th...

Southern Pacific Company

(Encyclopedia)Southern Pacific Company, transportation system chartered (1865) in California and later reincorporated in Kentucky (1885) and Delaware (1947). Small railroads—known collectively as the Southern Pac...

Mills, Charles Wade

(Encyclopedia)Mills, Charles W., 1951–2021, philosopher and political theorist, b. London, Ph.D. University of Toronto, 1985. Born in the U.K. and raised in Jamaica...

Morrison, Toni

(Encyclopedia)Morrison, Toni, 1931–2019, American writer, b. Lorain, Ohio, as Chloe Ardelia (later Anthony) Wofford; B.A. Howard Univ., 1953, M.F.A. Cornell, 1955. Her fiction is noted for its poetic language, lu...

Mendelssohn, Felix

(Encyclopedia)Mendelssohn, Felix (Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn) mĕnˈdəlsən, Ger. yäˈkôp lo͝otˈvĭkh fāˈlĭks mĕnˈdəls-zōnˌ [key], 1809–47, German composer; grandson of the Jewish philosopher Mos...

James, Cyril Lionel Robert

(Encyclopedia)James, C. L. R., 1901–1989, Trinidadian historian, journalist, and communist activist, b. Tunapuna, Trinidad and Tobago. A social theorist, anti-colon...