Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Wanamaker, John wŏnˈəmāˌkər [key], 1838–1922, American merchant, b. Philadelphia. He went into the men's clothing business in Philadelphia with Nathan Brown, his brother-in-law, in 1861. The f...

(Encyclopedia) Vergennes, Charles Gravier, comte de shärl grävyāˈ kôNt də vĕrzhĕnˈ [key], 1717–87, French statesman. After serving as ambassador at Trier, Constantinople, and Stockholm (where in 1772 he p...

(Encyclopedia) Whiskey Ring, in U.S. history, a group of distillers and public officials who defrauded the federal government of liquor taxes. Soon after the Civil War these taxes were raised very high, in some case...

(Encyclopedia) Goodman, Benny (Benjamin David Goodman), 1909–86, American clarinetist, composer, and band leader, b. Chicago. Goodman studied clarinet at Hull House. In Chicago he had the opportunity to hear (and ...

(Encyclopedia) Grellet, Stephen grĕlĕtˈ [key], 1773–1855, Quaker missionary, b. France; son of well-to-do Roman Catholic parents. His name originally was Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier. He fled France at the ...

(Encyclopedia) Ward, Barbara Mary, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, 1914–81, British writer. Educated at the Sorbonne and at Oxford, she joined the staff of the Economist in 1939 and became foreign editor in 1940. F...

(Encyclopedia) Cullum, George Washington kŭlˈəm [key], 1809–92, American army officer, b. New York City, grad. West Point, 1833. In the Civil War, Cullum was made a brigadier general of volunteers (Nov., 1861) ...

(Encyclopedia) Jackson, William Henry, 1843–1942, American artist and pioneer photographer of the West, b. Keeseville, N.Y. After serving with the Union army in the Civil War he traveled overland to California (18...

(Encyclopedia) Staël, Germaine de zhĕrmĕnˈ də stäl [key], 1766–1817, French-Swiss woman of letters, whose full name was Anne Louise Germaine Necker, baronne de Staël-Holstein. Born in Paris, the daughter of...

(Encyclopedia) Weizsäcker, Richard Karl Freiherr von, 1920–2015, German political leader. After serving in World War II, Weizsäcker earned a law degree from the Univ. of Göttingen (1953), then worked in the pri...