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Biddle, Nicholas, American financier

(Encyclopedia)Biddle, Nicholas, 1786–1844, American financier, b. Philadelphia. After holding important posts in the American legations in France and England, he returned to the United States in 1807 and became o...

Turkish language

(Encyclopedia)Turkish language, member of the Turkic subdivision of the Altaic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (see Uralic and Altaic languages). Turkish is the official language of Turkey and one ...

Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe

(Encyclopedia)Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 1793–1864, American ethnologist, b. near Albany, N.Y. He gave enormous impetus to the study of Native American culture and may be regarded as the foremost pioneer in Native ...

Barnburners

(Encyclopedia)Barnburners, radical element of the Democratic party in New York state from 1842 to 1848, opposed to the conservative Hunkers. The name derives from the fabled Dutchman who burned his barn to rid it o...

parody

(Encyclopedia)parody, mocking imitation in verse or prose of a literary work. The following poem by Robert Southey was parodied by Lewis Carroll: “You are old, Father William,” the young man cried; “The few l...

gold rush

(Encyclopedia)gold rush, influx of prospectors, merchants, adventurers, and others to newly discovered gold fields. One of the most famous of these stampedes in pursuit of riches was the California gold rush. The d...

matriarchy

(Encyclopedia)matriarchy, familial and political rule by women. Many contemporary anthropologists reject the claims of J. J. Bachofen and Lewis Morgan that early societies were matriarchal, although some contempora...

Lin, Maya Ying

(Encyclopedia)Lin, Maya Ying mīˈə [key], 1959–, American architect and sculptor, b. Athens, Ohio. Lin's work is known for its visual poetry and sensitive mingling of highly abstract form with meaning. From an ...

Chautauqua movement

(Encyclopedia)Chautauqua movement, development in adult education somewhat similar to the lyceum movement. It derived from an institution at Chautauqua, N.Y. There, in 1873, John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller propo...

Actors Studio, The

(Encyclopedia)Actors Studio, The, organization founded 1947 in New York City by the directors Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis to train professional actors. Long directed (1948–82) by Lee Strasberg a...
 

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