Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Proudhon, Pierre Joseph pyĕr zhôzĕfˈ pro͞odhôNˈ [key], 1809–65, French social theorist. Of a poor family, Proudhon won an education through scholarships. Much of his later life was spent in p...

Proust, Joseph Louis

(Encyclopedia)Proust, Joseph Louis zhôzĕfˈ lwē pro͞ost [key], 1754–1826, French chemist. He was professor of chemistry at the artillery school in Segovia, Spain, and director of the laboratory of Charles IV ...

Raff, Joseph Joachim

(Encyclopedia)Raff, Joseph Joachim yōˈzĕf yōˈäkhĭm räf [key], 1822–82, Swiss-German composer and pianist, largely self-taught. He was a friend and follower of Liszt, who produced his opera King Alfred at ...

Rainey, Joseph Hayne

(Encyclopedia)Rainey, Joseph Hayne, 1832–87, first African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, b. Georgetown, S.C. The son of a free man, he fled to the West Indies during the Civil War. Return...

Ramée, Joseph Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Ramée, Joseph Jacques zhôzĕfˈ zhäk rämāˈ [key], 1764–1842, French architect. He left France in 1792 and was active in Germany (where he built the Hamburg Exchange) and in Denmark. He lived i...

Pelletier, Pierre Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Pelletier, Pierre Joseph pyĕr zhôzĕfˈ pĕlətyāˈ [key], 1788–1842, French chemist. With J. B. Caventou, he was cofounder of alkaloid chemistry and codiscoverer of quinine, strychnine, brucine,...

Vien, Joseph-Marie

(Encyclopedia)Vien, Joseph-Marie zhôzëfˈ-märēˈ vyăNˈ [key], 1716–1809, French neoclassical painter. A protégé of the comte de Caylus, he won the Prix de Rome and studied in Italy. He was appointed direc...

St. John, John Pierce

(Encyclopedia)St. John, John Pierce, 1833–1916, American political reformer, b. Brookville, Ind. He traveled in the West and in South America, fought in the Union army in the Civil War, and after 1869 practiced l...

Nicodemus

(Encyclopedia)Nicodemus nĭkˌədēˈməs [key], in the Gospel of St. John, member of the Sanhedrin sympathetic to Jesus. He helped Joseph of Arimathea to bury him. Among the New Testament Apocrypha is a Gospel of ...

Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron, 1834–1902, English historian, b. Naples; grandson of Sir John Francis Edward Acton and of Emmerich Joseph, duc de Dalberg. Denied entrance into C...