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Bok, Edward William

(Encyclopedia)Bok, Edward William, 1863–1930, American editor, b. Helder, Netherlands. His family emigrated to the United States in 1870. He founded the Brooklyn Magazine (later Cosmopolitan) in 1883. As editor (...

duPont, Margaret Osborne

(Encyclopedia)duPont, Margaret Osborne, 1918–2012, American tennis player, b. Joseph, Oreg. Known for her aggressive play and endurance, she was one of the finest female players in the mid-20th cent. Ranked numbe...

Havemeyer, Henry Osborne

(Encyclopedia)Havemeyer, Henry Osborne hăvˈəmīˌyər [key], 1847–1907, American industrialist, b. New York City. He inherited large family interests in sugar refining and, with his brother Theodore, expanded ...

Osborne, Thomas Burr

(Encyclopedia)Osborne, Thomas Burr, 1859–1929, American chemist, b. New Haven, Conn., grad. Yale, 1881. From 1886 he was with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. An authority on nutrition, especially...

Osborne, Thomas Mott

(Encyclopedia)Osborne, Thomas Mott, 1859–1926, American prison reformer, b. Auburn, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1884. As chairman (1913) of the state commission on prison reform he became a voluntary prisoner in the Aub...

Wilson, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Alexander, 1766–1813, American ornithologist, b. Scotland. He came to the United States c.1794, taught in rural New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and became a citizen in 1804. Encouraged by Willi...

Wilson, August

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, August, 1945–2005, American playwright and poet, b. Pittsburgh as Frederick August Kittel, Jr. Largely self-educated, Wilson first attracted wide critical attention with his Broadway debut, ...

Wilson, Benjamin

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Benjamin, 1721–88, English portrait painter and electrician who opposed Benjamin Franklin's theory of positive and negative electricity. Instead, Wilson supported Newton's gravitational-opti...

Wilson, Colin

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Colin, 1931–2013, English writer, b. Leicester. Born into a working-class family and largely self-educated, Wilson in many of his books exhorts humankind to expand its powers and realize its...

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