Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Wells-Barnett, Ida Bell, 1862–1931, African-American civil-rights advocate and feminist, b. Holly Springs, Miss. Born a slave, she attended a freedman's school and was orphaned at 16. She moved (188...

(Encyclopedia) Dick, Philip K. (Philip Kindred Dick), 1928–82, American science-fiction writer, b. Chicago. Dick often wrote of the psychological states of individuals caught in altered realities where the everyda...

(Encyclopedia) Bourgeois, Louise bo͞orzhwäˈ [key], 1911–2010, French-American sculptor, b. Paris. She married the art historian Robert Goldwater in 1938, emigrated to the United States, and became a citizen. He...

(Encyclopedia) business ethics, the study and evaluation of decision making by businesses according to moral concepts and judgments. Ethical questions range from practical, narrowly defined issues, such as a company...

(Encyclopedia) stratigraphy, branch of geology specifically concerned with the arrangement of layered rocks (see stratification). Stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which states that in a normal sequ...

(Encyclopedia) Brunel, Sir Marc Isambard ĭzˈəmbärdˌ bro͞onĕlˈ [key], 1769–1849, British engineer and inventor. Born in France, he came to the United States in 1793 as a royalist refugee. He became chief en...

(Encyclopedia) Hindu Kush hĭnˈdo͞o ko͝osh [key], a high mountain system, extending c.500 mi (800 km) W from the Pamir Knot, N Pakistan, into NE Afghanistan; rising to 25,236 ft (7,692 m) in Tirich Mir, on the bo...

(Encyclopedia) Hiroshige (Ando Hiroshige) änˈdō hērōˈshēgāˌ [key], 1797–1858, Japanese painter and color-print artist of the ukiyo-e school. His prolific work includes a series of landscapes (1833) entitl...

(Encyclopedia) Neer, Aert van der ärt vän dĕr nār [key], c.1603–77, Dutch landscape painter. Working mostly in Amsterdam, he excelled in painting unusual light effects, such as moonlight, sunsets, conflagratio...

(Encyclopedia) panther, name commonly applied to the leopard, especially to a black leopard. It is also used locally to designate various other cats including the jaguar and the puma. In animal systematics the gener...