Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Maimon, Salomon mīˈmôn [key], c.1754–1800, German philosopher, b. Polish Lithuania. He received a Jewish religious education and was influenced by the Talmudic tradition and particularly by Maimo...

(Encyclopedia) Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin Cummings), 1894–1962, American poet, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1915. His poetry, noted for its eccentricities of typography (notably the lack of capitalizati...

(Encyclopedia) Pasolini, Pier Paolo pyĕr päˈōlō päsōlēˈnē [key], 1922–75, Italian writer and film director. A former Roman Catholic and a Marxist, Pasolini brought to his work a combination of religious ...

(Encyclopedia) Ellison, Ralph (Ralph Waldo Ellison), 1914–94, African-American author, b. Oklahoma City, studied Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee Univ.). Originally a trumpet player and aspiring composer, he moved...

(Encyclopedia) Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 1802–87, American social reformer, pioneer in the movement for humane treatment of the insane, b. Hampden, Maine. For many years she ran a school in Boston. In 1841 she visited ...

(Encyclopedia) Allen, Richard, 1760–1831, American clergyman, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born a slave in Philadelphia and purchased his freedom. He became pastor of a black group tha...

(Encyclopedia) Propertius, Sextus sĕkˈstəs prōpûrˈshəs [key], c.50 b.c.–c.16 b.c., Roman elegiac poet, b. Umbria. He was a member of the circle of Maecenas. A master of the Latin elegy, he wrote with vigor,...

(Encyclopedia) Compton, Arthur Holly, 1892–1962, American physicist, b. Wooster, Ohio, grad. College of Wooster (B.S., 1913), Ph.D. Princeton, 1916. He was professor and head of the department of physics at Washin...

(Encyclopedia) Steinem, Gloria stīnˈəm [key], 1934–, American journalist and feminist, b. Toledo, Ohio, grad. Smith College (B.A., 1956). Steinem gained prominence as a spokeswoman for women's rights in article...

(Encyclopedia) Hemingway, Ernest, 1899–1961, American novelist and short-story writer, b. Oak Park, Ill. one of the great American writers of the 20th cent. Hemingway's fiction usually focuses on people living ...