Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Hunt, Henry, 1773–1835, English radical politician. A powerful orator, popular with the laboring classes, Hunt was quarrelsome and stubborn but a sincere proponent of electoral and other reforms. He...

(Encyclopedia) Folger, Charles James fōlˈjər [key], 1818–84, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (1881–84), b. Nantucket, Mass. A lawyer of Geneva, N.Y., he held judicial posts and was (1861–69) a state senator....

(Encyclopedia) flamenco, Spanish music and dance typical of the Romani (Gypsy), or gitano. Flamenco dancing is characterized by colorful costumes, intense and erotic movements, stamping of the feet (zapateado), and ...

(Encyclopedia) Burger, Warren Earl, 1907–95, American jurist, 15th chief justice of the United States (1969–86), b. St. Paul, Minn. After receiving his law degree in 1931 from St. Paul College of Law (now Mitche...

(Encyclopedia) de Bary, Wm. Theodore băˈrē [key], 1919–2017, American scholar of Asian cultures, b. Bronx, N.Y., as William Theodore De Bary (he formally changed to Wm. to distinguish himself from his like-name...

(Encyclopedia) Brown, Charles Brockden, 1771–1810, American novelist and editor, b. Philadelphia, considered the first professional American novelist. After the publication of Alcuin: A Dialogue (1798), he wrote s...

(Encyclopedia) Firbank, Ronald (Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank), 1886–1926, English author. Of a delicate and eccentric nature, Firbank lived the life of a leisured aesthete. His novels, which have appealed to a s...

(Encyclopedia) Fox, Dixon Ryan, 1887–1945, American historian and educator, b. Potsdam, N.Y. He taught at Columbia from 1912 to 1934, becoming full professor in 1927. From 1934 until his death he was president of ...

(Encyclopedia) Heaviside, Oliver hĕvˈēsīdˌ [key], 1850–1925, English physicist. He did valuable work in telephony and in the theory of electrical conduction in cables and other areas of electric theory. He su...

(Encyclopedia) Kuhn, Walt, 1880–1949, American painter, b. New York City. At the age of 19 he worked as a cartoonist in San Francisco, contributing later to Life magazine. After travel and study in Europe he devot...