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Reclamation, United States Bureau of

(Encyclopedia)Reclamation, United States Bureau of, agency set up in the Dept. of the Interior under the Reclamation Act of 1902. It is charged with promoting regional economies by developing water and related land...

folktale

(Encyclopedia)folktale, general term for any of numerous varieties of traditional narrative. The telling of stories appears to be a cultural universal, common to pre-industrial, ancient, and more modern and develop...

Liotard, Jean-Étienne

(Encyclopedia)Liotard, Jean-Étienne zhäN ātyĕnˈ lyôtärˈ [key], 1702–89, Swiss painter. He is best known for his portraits and drawings in pastel, but he also made portraits in oil, paintings on glass and ...

Melville Island, Canada

(Encyclopedia)Melville Island, c.16,400 sq mi (42,500 sq km), Northwest Territories and Nunavut, Canada, N of Victoria Island; largest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands. Generally hilly (rising to c.1,500 ft/460 m), i...

Giottino

(Encyclopedia)Giottino jōt-tēˈnō [key], early Florentine painter of the school of Giotto. He is supposed to have lived in the first half of the 14th cent. and has been variously identified as Giotto di Stefano,...

Forbin, Claude, comte de

(Encyclopedia)Forbin, Claude, comte de klōd kôNt də fôrbăNˈ [key], 1656–1733, French naval commander. He fought in the Antilles (1680) and in Abraham Duquesne's Algerian campaign (1682–83) and from 1685 t...

Flint, Timothy

(Encyclopedia)Flint, Timothy, 1780–1840, American author, b. North Reading, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1800, and entered the ministry. As a missionary he traveled up and down the Mississippi valley from 1815 until 182...

Joliet

(Encyclopedia)Joliet jōˈlēĕtˌ [key], city (1990 pop. 76,836), seat of Will co., NE Ill., on the Des Plaines River; inc. 1857. It is a river port and an industrial shipping center, with limestone quarries and c...

Drexel, Anthony Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Drexel, Anthony Joseph drĕkˈsəl [key], 1826–93, American banker and philanthropist, b. Philadelphia. He entered (1838) at an early age the well-known banking firm of Drexel and Company, founded b...

Davis, Paulina Wright

(Encyclopedia)Davis, Paulina Wright, 1813–76, American lecturer and suffragist, b. Bloomfield, N.Y. Born Paulina Kellogg, she was married in 1833 to a merchant, Francis Wright, who died two years later. In 1849 s...