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Moore, George

(Encyclopedia)Moore, George, 1852–1933, English author, b. Ireland. As a young man he lived in Paris, studying at various art schools. Inspired by Zola, Flaubert, Turgenev, and the 19th-century French realists, M...

Gordimer, Nadine

(Encyclopedia)Gordimer, Nadine nādēnˈ gôrˈdəmər [key], 1923–2014, South African writer, b. Springs. A member of the African National Congress, Gordimer fought apartheid in her political life and in her wri...

megachurch

(Encyclopedia)megachurch, large Protestant church with an average weekly attendance of 2,000 or more; relatively uncommon until after 1970. In the United States, where most megachurches are located, there were more...

Shakers

(Encyclopedia)Shakers, popular name for members of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, also called the Millennial Church. Members of the movement, who received their name from the tremblin...

Bach, Johann Christian

(Encyclopedia)Bach, Johann Christian bäkh [key], 1735–82, German musician and composer; son of J. S. Bach. He went to Italy in 1754, became a Roman Catholic, and composed church music and operas. In 1760 he bec...

Wells-Barnett, Ida Bell

(Encyclopedia)Wells-Barnett, Ida Bell, 1862–1931, African-American civil-rights advocate and feminist, b. Holly Springs, Miss. Born a slave, she attended a freedman's school and was orphaned at 16. She moved (188...

Capote, Truman

(Encyclopedia)Capote, Truman käpōˈtē [key], 1924–84, American author, b. New Orleans as Truman Streckfus Persons. During his lifetime, the witty, diminutive writer was a well-known public personage, hobnobbin...

Jim Crow laws

(Encyclopedia)Jim Crow laws, in U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The name is believed to be derived...

Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones

(Encyclopedia)Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones, 1862–1937, American novelist, b. New York City, noted for her subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted fictional studies of New York society at the turn of the 20th cent. T...

Coles, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Coles, Robert, 1929–, American child psychiatrist, b. Boston, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1950), Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons (M.D., 1954). He began working with children while in the air fo...