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crown

(Encyclopedia)crown, circular head ornament, symbolizing sovereign dignity. (For crowns worn by nobles, see coronet.) The use of the crown as a symbol of royal rank is of ancient tradition in Egypt and the Middle E...

spiritism

(Encyclopedia)spiritism or spiritualism, belief that the human personality continues to exist after death and can communicate with the living through the agency of a medium or psychic. The advocates of spiritism ar...

Benjamin, Judah Philip

(Encyclopedia)Benjamin, Judah Philip, 1811–84, Confederate statesman and British barrister, b. Christiansted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, of Jewish parents. His family moved (c.1813) to Wilmington, N.C., and final...

Morris

(Encyclopedia)Morris, family of prominent American landowners and statesmen. Richard Morris, d. 1672, left England after serving in Oliver Cromwell's army, became a merchant in Barbados, and emigrated to New York C...

Levelers

(Encyclopedia)Levelers or Levellers, English Puritan sect active at the time of the English civil war. The name was apparently applied to them in 1647, in derision of their beliefs in equality. The leader of the mo...

Granger movement

(Encyclopedia)Granger movement, American agrarian movement taking its name from the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, an organization founded in 1867 by Oliver H. Kelley and six associates. Its local uni...

jurisprudence

(Encyclopedia)jurisprudence jo͝orˌĭspro͞odˈəns [key], study of the nature and the origin and development of law. It is variously regarded as a branch of ethics or of sociology. Many of the major systematic ph...

Dryden, John

(Encyclopedia)Dryden, John, 1631–1700, English poet, dramatist, and critic, b. Northamptonshire, grad. Cambridge, 1654. He went to London about 1657 and first came to public notice with his Heroic Stanzas (1659),...

Mills, Charles Wade

(Encyclopedia)Mills, Charles W., 1951–2021, philosopher and political theorist, b. London, Ph.D. University of Toronto, 1985. Born in the U.K. and raised in Jamaica...

Loyalists

(Encyclopedia)Loyalists, in the American Revolution, colonials who adhered to the British cause. The patriots referred to them as Tories. Although Loyalists were found in all social classes and occupations, a dispr...