Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor Barnum) fĭnˈēəs, bärˈnəm [key], 1810–91, American showman, b. Bethel, Conn. As a youth Barnum worked at diverse sales jobs and managed a boardinghouse. He made h...

(Encyclopedia) Bethel, town (2020 pop. 20,358), Fairfield co., SW Conn.; inc. 1855. Manufactures include wire, textiles, fabricated-metal and tool-and-die products; ch...

(Encyclopedia) Bridgeport, city (2020 pop. 148,654), Fairfield co., SW Conn., on Long Island Sound; inc. 1836. Long a chief industrial city in Connecticut, it makes el...

(Encyclopedia) Tom Thumb, 1838–83, American entertainer, whose original name was Charles Sherwood Stratton, b. Bridgeport, Conn. His career as General Tom Thumb began in 1842, when the showman P. T. Barnum gave hi...

(Encyclopedia) Lind, Jenny, 1820–87, Swedish soprano. She made her debut in 1838 as Agathe in Weber's Der Freischütz. She studied in Paris and sang in Germany, England, and Sweden. In 1849 she abandoned opera for...

(Encyclopedia) Ringling Brothers, seven brothers, sons of German-born August Rüngeling, who established an American circus empire. Albert C. (1852–1916), Otto (1858–1911), Alfred T. (1861–1919), Charles Edwar...

(Encyclopedia) circus [Lat.,=ring, circle], historically, the arena associated with the horse and chariot races and athletic contests known in ancient Rome as the Circensian games. The Roman circus was a round or ov...

(Encyclopedia) Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips Lovecraft), 1890–1937, American writer, b. Providence, R.I. A master of Gothic horror, fantasy, and science fiction of a most rococo variety, he is particularly not...

(Encyclopedia) Fowles, John, 1926–2005, English writer, b. Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, grad. Oxford, 1950. A complex, cerebral writer and a superb storyteller, Fowles was interested in manipulating the novel as a genre. ...

(Encyclopedia) Moore, Douglas Stuart, 1893–1969, American composer and teacher, b. Cutchogue, N.Y. Moore studied with Horatio Parker, Vincent D'Indy, Nadia Boulanger, and Ernest Bloch. In 1926 he joined the music ...