Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Doctorow, E. L. (Edgar Lawrence Doctorow) dŏkˈtərōˌ [key], 1931–2015, American novelist, b. New York City. The author of a dozen novels, Doctorow is known for his skillful blending of fiction a...

(Encyclopedia) Griffith, D. W. (David Llewelyn Wark Griffith), 1875–1948, American movie director and producer, b. La Grange, Ky. Griffith was the first major American film director. He began his film career as an...

(Encyclopedia) Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich), 1909–2001, British art historian and scholar, b. Vienna, grad. Univ. of Vienna (1933). From a culturally prominent Austrian-Jewish family, he fled German...

(Encyclopedia) Murnau, Friedrich W. frēˈdrĭkh mo͝orˈnou [key], 1889–1931, German film director, b. as Friedrich W. Plumpe. He began directing films in Germany in 1919 and went to Hollywood in 1927. Murnau's f...

(Encyclopedia) Post, C. W. (Charles William Post), 1854–1914, American food manufacturer and developer of breakfast cereals, b. Springfield, Ill. He worked (1872–86) selling agricultural machines and invented a ...

(Encyclopedia) Carothers, Wallace Hume kərŭᵺˈərz [key], 1896–1937, American chemist, b. Burlington, Iowa. He received his doctorate at the Univ. of Illinois in 1924, then taught organic chemistry there and a...

(Encyclopedia) Lawrence, T. E. (Thomas Edward Lawrence), 1888–1935, British adventurer, soldier, and scholar, known as Lawrence of Arabia. While a student at Oxford he went on a walking tour of Syria and in 1911 j...

(Encyclopedia) La Rochejaquelein or La Rochejacquelin, Henri Du Vergier, comte de both: äNrēˈ dü vĕrzhyāˈ kôNt də lä rôshzhäkəlăNˈ [key], 1772–94, French commander, leader of the counterrevolutionar...

(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) Mohammed, W. Deen (Warith Deen Mohammed), 1933–2008, American Muslim leader, b. Detroit as Wallace Dean Muhammad. The son of Nation of Islam (Black Muslim) leader Elijah Muhammad, he attended religi...