Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Wise, John

(Encyclopedia)Wise, John, 1652–1725, American clergyman, exponent of the democratic principles of modern Congregationalism, b. Roxbury, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1673. He was pastor at Ipswich, Mass., from 1680 until...

Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck

(Encyclopedia)Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck, 1899–1980, American physicist, b. Middletown, Conn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1922. As a professor at Harvard, Van Vleck developed fundamental theories on the quantum mechanics of m...

Galbraith, John Kenneth

(Encyclopedia)Galbraith, John Kenneth gălˈbrāth [key], 1908–2006, American economist and public official, b. Ontario, Canada, grad. Univ. of Toronto (B.S., 1931), Univ. of California, Berkeley (M.S., 1933; Ph....

Ashbery, John

(Encyclopedia)Ashbery, John, 1927–2017, American poet, b. Rochester, N.Y., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1949), Columbia (M.A., 1951). Among the most acclaimed and influential American poets of his era, he was (1960s–70...

Smibert, John

(Encyclopedia)Smibert or Smybert, John both: smīˈbərt [key], 1688–1751, American portrait painter, b. Scotland, the first skillful painter in New England. After his apprenticeship to an Edinburgh house painter...

Paine, John Knowles

(Encyclopedia)Paine, John Knowles, 1839–1906, American composer, organist, and educator, b. Portland, Maine, studied in Berlin. In 1862 he began to teach music at Harvard and held (from 1875) the first chair of m...

Reed, John

(Encyclopedia)Reed, John, 1887–1920, American journalist and radical leader, b. Portland, Oreg. After graduating from Harvard in 1910, he wrote articles for various publications and from 1913 was attached to the ...

Bishop, John Michael

(Encyclopedia)Bishop, John Michael, 1936–, American biologist, b. York, Penn., M.D. Harvard, 1962. He worked (1964–68) as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., before joining the f...

Carpenter, John Alden

(Encyclopedia)Carpenter, John Alden, 1876–1951, American composer, b. Park Ridge, Ill.; pupil of J. K. Paine at Harvard and of Elgar. His music, refined and skillfully written, influenced by French impressionism,...

Chapman, John Jay

(Encyclopedia)Chapman, John Jay, 1862–1933, American essayist and poet, b. New York City, grad. Harvard, 1885. He was admitted to the bar in 1888, but after 10 years abandoned law for literature. Active in the an...

Browse by Subject