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Undset, Sigrid

(Encyclopedia)Undset, Sigrid sĭˈgrĭd o͝onˈsĕt [key], 1882–1949, Norwegian novelist. Poverty forced Undset to do secretarial work for a time (1898–1908). Her early novels of contemporary life, among them J...

Morland, George

(Encyclopedia)Morland, George, 1763–1804, English genre, animal, and landscape painter. A pupil of his father, Henry Morland (1716–97), a London portrait painter, he left his father's studio when he was 21 and ...

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

(Encyclopedia)Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, pseud. L.E.L., 1802–38, English poet and novelist. Although no longer highly regarded, she was one of the best-known and popular literary figures of her day. Dubbed the �...

Stanhope, Lady Hester Lucy

(Encyclopedia)Stanhope, Lady Hester Lucy, 1776–1839, English traveler. Leaving England in 1810, she traveled in the Levant, adopting Eastern male dress and a religion that was a composite of Christianity and Isla...

phlogiston theory

(Encyclopedia)phlogiston theory flōjĭsˈtŏn [key], hypothesis regarding combustion. The theory, advanced by J. J. Becher late in the 17th cent. and extended and popularized by G. E. Stahl, postulates that in all...

Monroe, Marilyn

(Encyclopedia)Monroe, Marilyn, 1926–62, American movie actress, b. Los Angeles as Norma Jean Baker or Norma Jeane Mortenson. Raised in orphanages after 1935 and first married at 14, Monroe, who began her career a...

Title IX

(Encyclopedia)Title IX, clause of the Educational Amendments of 1972 that reads: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be sub...

Baldwin, James

(Encyclopedia)Baldwin, James, 1924–87, American author, b. New York City. He spent an impoverished boyhood in Harlem, became a Pentecostal preacher at 14, and left the church three years later. He moved to Paris ...

Copperheads

(Encyclopedia)Copperheads, in the American Civil War, a reproachful term for those Northerners sympathetic to the South, mostly Democrats outspoken in their opposition to the Lincoln administration. They were espec...

Chesnutt, Charles Waddell

(Encyclopedia)Chesnutt, Charles Waddell wädĕlˈ [key], 1858–1932, American author and lawyer, b. Cleveland, Ohio. In 1887 he was admitted to the Ohio bar. His short stories were first published in the Atlantic ...