Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Booker T. Washington National Monument: see National Parks and Monuments (table)national parks and monuments (table). ...

(Encyclopedia) short story, brief prose fiction. The term covers a wide variety of narratives—from stories in which the main focus is on the course of events to studies of character, from the “short short” sto...

(Encyclopedia) Mount Vernon, NE Va., overlooking the Potomac River near Alexandria, S of Washington, D.C.; home of George Washington from 1747 until his death in 1799. The land was patented in 1674, and the house wa...

(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) Carpenter, Edward, 1844–1929, English author. Although ordained a minister in 1869, he became a Fabian socialist in 1874 and renounced religion. Among his works on social reform are Towards Democrac...

(Encyclopedia) Vittorini, Elio ĕˈlyō vēt-tōrēˈnē [key], 1908–66, Italian novelist, b. Syracuse, Sicily. Between 1934 and 1941 Vittorini translated the works of D. H. Lawrence, Poe, Faulkner, Hemingway, T. ...

(Encyclopedia) John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, philanthropic institution founded 1978 by John D. MacArthur (1897–1978), owner of a prominent insurance company and other businesses, and his wife Cath...

(Encyclopedia) Oxford, Edward de Vere, 17th earl of, 1550–1604, English poet, b. Castle Heddingham, Essex, educated at Queens' and St. John's colleges, Cambridge. He traveled in Italy, acted in and produced plays,...

(Encyclopedia) Ellington, Duke (Edward Kennedy Ellington), 1899–1974, American jazz musician and composer, b. Washington, D.C. Ellington made his first professional appearance as a jazz pianist in 1916. By 1918 he...

(Encyclopedia) rap music or hip-hop, African-American popular music style that originated in the mid-to-late ‘70s, which incorporates DJing, MCing, dance, and fashion. See studies by M. Costello and D....