Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Brown, William Wells, 1814–84, African-American abolitionist, writer, and doctor, b. near Lexington, Ky. Born into slavery, the child of a black slave mother and a white slaveholding father, Brown f...

(Encyclopedia) brown recluse spider or violin spider, poisonous nocturnal spider, Loxoceles reclusa, most common in the SE and S central United States. Adults are 3⁄8 in. (10 mm) long and are light brown with a da...

(Encyclopedia) Brown, Olympia, 1835–1926, American Universalist minister and woman-suffrage leader, b. Prairie Ronde, Mich.; grad. Antioch College, 1860, and the theological school of St. Lawrence Univ., 1863. She...

(Encyclopedia) Brown, Jacob Jennings, 1775–1828, American general, b. Bucks co., Pa. In the War of 1812 he defeated (May, 1813) a British attempt to take Sackets Harbor, N.Y., and the next year became commander of...

(Encyclopedia) John Carter Brown Library: see Brown, John Carter. ...

(Encyclopedia) Séquard, Charles Édouard Brown-: see Brown-Séquard, Charles Édouard. ...

(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) Brown, Mather, 1761–1831, American portrait and historical painter, b. Boston. He studied under Benjamin West in London and continued to work in England. His portraits include those of George IV (Bu...

(Encyclopedia) Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald, 1881–1955, British anthropologist. He did fieldwork in the Andaman Islands and in Australia. Radcliffe-Brown fostered the development of social anthropology as a sc...

(Encyclopedia) Herreshoff, John Brown hĕrˈəs-hŏf [key], 1841–1915, American yacht and ship builder. Though totally blind from the time he was 15, he managed his own sail-boat building company until his brother...