Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Kushner, Tony ko͝oshˈnər [key], 1956–, American playwright, b. New York City. He was a little-known off-Broadway playwright with several interesting works, e.g., Yes, Yes, No, No (1985) and A Bri...

(Encyclopedia) Burns, Robert, 1759–96, Scottish poet. Burns's art is at its best in songs such as “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,” “My Heart's in the Highlands,” and “John Anderson My Jo.” Two collections...

(Encyclopedia) North West Company, fur-trading organization in North America in the late 18th and early 19th cent.; it was composed of Montreal trading firms and fur traders. After 1810 the rivalry between the Nor...

(Encyclopedia) Pétain, Henri Philippe äNrēˈ fēlēpˈ pātăNˈ [key], 1856–1951, French army officer, head of state of the Vichy government (see under Vichy). In World War I he halted the Germans at Verdun (1...

(Encyclopedia) Harlem Renaissance, term used to describe a flowering of African-American literature and art in the 1920s, mainly in the Harlem district of New York City. During the mass migration of African American...

(Encyclopedia) Scott, Sir Walter, 1771–1832, Scottish novelist and poet, b. Edinburgh. He is considered the father of both the regional and the historical novel. Scott's narrative poems introduced a form of v...

(Encyclopedia) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), organization composed mainly of American blacks, but with many white members, whose goal is the end of racial discrimination and seg...

(Encyclopedia) Teamsters Union, U.S. labor union formed in 1903 by the amalgamation of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union. Its full name is the International Brotherhood of Teamste...

(Encyclopedia) Colorado [1] kŏlərădˈə, –rădˈō, –räˈdō [2] kŏlərāˈdə, –räˈdə [key]. 1 Great river of the SW United States, 1,450 mi (2,334 km) long, rising in the Rocky Mts. of N Colo., and f...

(Encyclopedia) Jacobites jăkˈəbītsˌ [key], adherents of the exiled branch of the house of Stuart who sought to restore James II and his descendants to the English and Scottish thrones after the Glorious Revolut...