Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Spencer, Sir Stanley, 1891–1959, English painter. In his landscapes and his often highly erotic portraits and religious-allegorical scenes, Spencer's paintings express a highly personal magic realis...

(Encyclopedia) Thomson or Thompson, Mortimer Neal, 1831–75, American journalist and humorist who used the pseudonym Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P.B., b. Riga, N.Y. He joined the staff of the New York Tribune in 185...

(Encyclopedia) Fallows, Samuel, 1835–1922, American clergyman, bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, b. England, grad. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1859. He served with the Union army in the Civil War and afterward held...

(Encyclopedia) Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich yōˈhän hīnˈrĭkh pĕsˌtälôtˈsē [key], 1746–1827, Swiss educational reformer, b. Zürich. His theories laid the foundation of modern elementary education. He stu...

(Encyclopedia) duel, prearranged armed fight with deadly weapons, usually swords or pistols, between two persons concerned with a point of honor. The duel may have originated in the wager of battle, an early mode of...

(Encyclopedia) Alcott, Louisa May, 1832–88, American author, b. Germantown, Pa.; daughter of Bronson Alcott. Mostly educated by her father, she was a friend of Emerson and Thoreau, and her first book, Flower Fable...

(Encyclopedia) Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822–93, 19th President of the United States (1877–81), b. Delaware, Ohio, grad. Kenyon College, 1843, and Harvard law school, 1845. He became a moderately successful l...

(Encyclopedia) Redgrave, family of English actors. Sir Michael Redgrave, 1908–85, b. Bristol, Eng., was an actor, director, and writer. After his first professional performance in Counsellor-at-Law (1934), he appe...

(Encyclopedia) bureaucracy byo͝orŏkˈrəsē [key], the administrative structure of any large organization, public or private. Ideally bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical authority relations, defined spher...

(Encyclopedia) Sioux or Dakota, confederation of Native North American tribes, the dominant group of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock, which is divided into several separate branches (see Native American languages)...