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West, Jerry

(Encyclopedia)West, Jerry (Jerome Alan West), 1938–, American basketball player, b. Cheylan, W.Va. One of the game's great shooting guards, he led West Virginia Univ. to the 1959 National Collegiate Athletic Asso...

Thomson, James , 1834–82, Scottish poet and essayist

(Encyclopedia)Thomson, James, 1834–82, Scottish poet and essayist. He is remembered for his darkly pessimistic poem The City of Dreadful Night. He was raised in an orphan asylum and became (1851) an army teacher ...

Warren, Mercy Otis

(Encyclopedia)Warren, Mercy Otis, 1728–1814, American writer, b. Barnstable, Mass.; sister of James Otis and wife of James Warren, who was speaker of the Massachusetts house of representatives. An ardent patriot,...

Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount

(Encyclopedia)Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount klăvˈərəs, dŭndēˈ [key], 1649?–1689, Scottish soldier, known as Bonnie Dundee. After service abroad under William of Orange (later William III...

Du Pont

(Encyclopedia)Du Pont do͞opŏnt [key], family notable in U.S. industrial history. The Du Pont family's importance began when Eleuthère Irénée Du Pont established a gunpowder mill on the Brandywine River in N De...

Waller, Fats

(Encyclopedia)Waller, Fats, 1904–43, American jazz musician, singer, and composer, whose original name was Thomas Wright Waller, b. New York City. Waller began playing the piano as a child, and later studied with...

Rainey, Gertrude "Ma"

(Encyclopedia)Rainey, Gertrude "Ma," 1886–1939, African-American blues singer and songwriter, b. Columbus, Ga., as Gertrude Melissa Nix Pridgett. Rainey's place and...

vorticism

(Encyclopedia)vorticism vôrˈtĭsĭzəm [key], short-lived 20th-century art movement related to futurism. Its members sought to simplify forms into machinelike angularity. Its principal exponent was a French sculp...

Secord, Laura (Ingersoll)

(Encyclopedia)Secord, Laura (Ingersoll) sēˈkôrd [key], 1775–1868, Canadian heroine of the War of 1812. Born in Massachusetts, she was taken by her parents to Canada after the American Revolution. In 1813 she l...

Beresford, Bruce

(Encyclopedia)Beresford, Bruce, 1940–, Australian film director, b. Sydney, grad. Sydney Univ. (1962). Beresford moved to England, worked for the British Film Institute (1966–71), and made several modest films....