Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Peerce, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Peerce, Jan, 1904–85, American tenor, b. New York City as Jacob Pincus Perelmuth. Discovered by Arturo Toscanini, who chose him to be a soloist in a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Peerce...

Enders, John Franklin

(Encyclopedia)Enders, John Franklin, 1897–1985, American bacteriologist, b. West Hartford, Conn., grad. Yale, 1920, Ph.D. Harvard, 1930. He began teaching at Harvard in 1929, became associate professor in 1942, a...

Johnson, John Harold

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, John Harold, 1918–2005, African-American magazine publisher, b. Arkansas City, Ark. The son of a mill worker, he began his career editing a Chicago insurance company magazine. In 1942 he st...

Machen, John Gresham

(Encyclopedia)Machen, John Gresham grĕˈsəm māˈchən [key], 1881–1937, American Presbyterian clergyman, b. Baltimore. Ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1914, he became a leader of the fundamentalists in his...

Yerkes, Charles Tyson

(Encyclopedia)Yerkes, Charles Tyson yûrˈkēz, –kəs [key], 1837–1905, American financier, b. Philadelphia. He began his business career as a clerk in a Philadelphia grain commission house. He became a broker ...

Gray, John Chipman

(Encyclopedia)Gray, John Chipman, 1839–1915, American lawyer and teacher, b. Brighton, Mass. A graduate of Harvard Law School (1861), he served in the Civil War and then entered law practice in Boston; in 1869 he...

Johnson, John Albert

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, John Albert, 1861–1909, American political leader, governor of Minnesota, b. St. Peter, Minn. The son of poor parents, he left school early and worked at various trades until 1887, when he ...

Pedersen, Charles John

(Encyclopedia)Pedersen, Charles John, 1904–89, American chemist, b. Busan, Korea, M.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1927. After finishing his studies, Pedersen began work as a research chemist for the D...

Pemberton, John Clifford

(Encyclopedia)Pemberton, John Clifford, 1814–81, Confederate general in the American Civil War, b. Philadelphia. He served in the Seminole and Mexican wars and at various frontier posts. He resigned from the U.S....

Browse by Subject