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Wittig, Georg

(Encyclopedia)Wittig, Georg, 1897–1987, German chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Marburg, 1926. During his career, Wittig was a professor at the universities of Braunschweig, Freiburg, Tübingen, and Heidelberg. He shared ...

mortmain

(Encyclopedia)mortmain môrtˈmānˌ [key] [Fr.,=dead hand], ownership of land by a perpetual corporation. The term originally denoted tenure (see tenure, in law) by a religious corporation, but today it includes o...

Mistral, Gabriela

(Encyclopedia)Mistral, Gabriela mēsträlˈ [key], 1889–1957, Chilean poet whose original name was Lucila Godoy Alcayaga. She was a teacher in and director of rural schools in Chile before she attained wider acc...

McCarthy, Mary Therese

(Encyclopedia)McCarthy, Mary Therese, 1912–89, American writer, b. Seattle, grad. Vassar, 1933. As drama critic for the Partisan Review (1937–45), she gained a reputation for wit, intellect, and acerbity. Her n...

Goldman, Emma

(Encyclopedia)Goldman, Emma, 1869–1940, American anarchist, b. Lithuania. She emigrated to Rochester, N.Y., in 1886 and worked there in clothing factories. After 1889 she was active in the anarchist movement, and...

Gilbreth, Frank Bunker

(Encyclopedia)Gilbreth, Frank Bunker, 1868–1924, b. Fairfield, Me., and his wife, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, 1878–1972, b. Oakland, Calif., pioneering American industrial engineers. He was a largely self-taught e...

folk high school

(Encyclopedia)folk high school, type of adult education that in its most widely known form originated in Denmark in the middle of the 19th cent. The idea as originally conceived by Bishop Nikolai Grundtvig was to s...

Fowles, John

(Encyclopedia)Fowles, John, 1926–2005, English writer, b. Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, grad. Oxford, 1950. A complex, cerebral writer and a superb storyteller, Fowles was interested in manipulating the novel as a genre. ...

Antonello da Messina

(Encyclopedia)Antonello da Messina äntōnĕlˈlō dä mās–sēˈnä [key], c.1430–79, Sicilian painter, b. Messina. Antonello appears to have had early contact with Flemish art. In his deft handling of the oil...

Jackson, Shirley

(Encyclopedia)Jackson, Shirley, 1916–65, American writer, b. San Francisco. She is best known for her stories and novels of horror and the occult, rendered more terrifying because they are set against realistic, ...