Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Récamier, Juliette

(Encyclopedia)Récamier, Juliette zhülyĕtˈ rākämyāˈ [key], 1777–1849, celebrated French beauty and social figure, née Jeanne Françoise Julie Adelaïde Bernard. At 15 she married Jacques Récamier, a weal...

obscenity

(Encyclopedia)obscenity, in law, anything that tends to corrupt public morals by its indecency. The moral concepts that the term connotes vary from time to time and from place to place. In the United States, the wo...

Villanovan culture

(Encyclopedia)Villanovan culture, the culture of a people of N Italy in the early Iron Age (c.1100–700 b.c.). The term is derived from the town of Villanova, near Bologna, where the first excavations of a Villano...

Winchell, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Winchell, Walter, 1897–1972, journalist and broadcaster, b. New York City as Walter Winchel. He performed in vaudeville, and adopted a marquee's misspelling of his surname. After serving two years i...

bilingual education

(Encyclopedia)bilingual education, the sanctioned use of more than one language in U.S. education. The Bilingual Education Act (1968), combined with a Supreme Court decision (1974) mandating help for students with ...

Bynner, Witter

(Encyclopedia)Bynner, Witter bĭnˈər [key], 1881–1968, American poet, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1902. As a poet Bynner had a remarkable facility for catching the cadences of other writers and cultures. ...

Carman, Bliss

(Encyclopedia)Carman, Bliss kärˈmən [key], 1861–1929, Canadian poet, b. Fredericton, N.B. He studied at the universities of New Brunswick and Edinburgh and at Harvard. While at Harvard (1886–88) he began a f...

Bliss, Tasker Howard

(Encyclopedia)Bliss, Tasker Howard, 1853–1930, American army officer and statesman, b. Lewisburg, Pa., grad. West Point, 1875. He was (1898) chief of staff to Gen. James H. Wilson in the Puerto Rico campaign of t...

Williams, Tennessee

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Tennessee (Thomas Lanier Williams), 1911–83, American dramatist, b. Columbus, Miss., grad. State Univ. of Iowa, 1938. One of America's foremost 20th-century playwrights and the author of m...

Beckmann, Max

(Encyclopedia)Beckmann, Max mäks bĕkˈmän [key], 1884–1950, German painter. A member of the Berlin secession from 1908 to 1911, he was impressionistic in his early style. A subsequent expressionistic phase was...