W. Averell Harriman (1891-1986), American industrialist and financier, had a distinguished second career as a top-level diplomatic negotiator for five Democratic presidents. He was governor of New York for one term. Harriman was born in 18...

The African American songwriter William Christopher Handy (1873-1958), known as the father of the blues, was the first person to notate and publish blues songs. He wrote over 60 blues, spirituals, and popular tunes. On Nov. 16, 1873, W. C....

W. H. Auden was a major English poet, probably the most important English-speaking poet born in the twentieth century. Noted especially for native lyrical gifts and highly developed technical expertise, he also displayed wide reading and a...

A World War II refugee, Werner Michael Blumenthal (born 1926) used his academic and business skills to reach the highest levels of American government, industry, and banking. W. Michael Blumenthal, one of two children of Ewald and Rose Val...

In a career spanning more than sixty years, W. Somerset Maugham wrote a handful of novels which are still studied as modernist works. His ear for language, the use of actual—sometimes grim—experience transformed into fictional ...

Wade Hampton III (1818-1902) was a Confederate general, South Carolina governor, and U.S. senator. In the 1880s he dominated politics in his native state. Wade Hampton III was descended from a prominent South Carolina family. Born on March...

Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881-1943) played a major political and military role in the history of Poland. He founded a secret nationalist organization, guided the modernization of the army, and led a government-in-exile when Poland was invaded b...

Walker Percy (1916-1990) won the National Book Award for fiction in 1961 for his first published novel, The Moviegoer. In five subsequent novels and numerous essays, he explored his chosen theme of "the dislocation of man in the modern age...

U.S. sports official, university chancellor, educator, and track coach, LeRoy Tashreau Walker (born 1918) became the first African American elected to serve as president and chief executive officer of the United States Olympic Committee in...

Although sometimes categorized as merely a "western writer," Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) was more than that: he wrote 30 books, both fiction and nonfiction, served as a mentor to many young writers, and worked in support of conservation is...

Henry Wallace (1836-1916) was an American agricultural publicist and editor of the newspaper Wallaces' Farmer from 1895 to 1916. Henry Wallace was born on a farm outside West Newton, Pa., on March 19, 1836. His parents were hardworking, re...

An American filmmaker and entrepreneur, Walter Elias Disney (1901-1966) created a new kind of popular culture in feature-length animated cartoons and live-action "family" films. Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, on Decembe...

"A great figure, the greatest assuredly in our literature—yet perhaps only a great childsumming up and transmitting into poetry all the passionate aspirations of an America that had passed through the romantic revolution, the poet of...

The English economist, social theorist, and literary critic Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) was virtually the founder in England of political psychology and political sociology. Walter Bagehot, born on Feb. 23, 1826, at Langport, Somerset, came...

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), a German philosopher and critic, published widely on such topics as technology, language, literature, the arts, and society. He left a large body of mostly unfinished work that has been slowly published in his ...

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr., (born 1916) was an American journalist and radio and television news broadcaster who became preeminent among the outstanding group of correspondents and commentators developed by CBS News after World War II. Wa...

Walter Francis White (1893-1955), general secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for 24 years, was an outspoken critic of lynching and racial injustice in America. Walter White was born in 1893 in Atlan...

The German-American architect, educator, and designer Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was director of the famed Bauhaus in Germany from 1919 to 1928 and served as the chair of architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design fro...

The American journalist and diplomat Walter Hines Page (1855-1918) edited several distinguished periodicals and served as ambassador to Great Britain during World War I. Born in Cary, N.C., on Aug. 15, 1855, Walter Hines Page was educated ...

Most experts consider Walter "Big Train" Johnson (1887-1946) to be the greatest pitcher in baseball history. Both feared and respected, Johnson combined a dominating fastball with a generous spirit. Unlike most pitchers of his era, he refu...

The American physicist Walter Maurice Elsasser (1904-1991) made original contributions to geophysics and to the discussion of the physical foundations of biology. Walter Maurice Elsasser was born in Germany on March 20, 1904. After univers...

Active in politics throughout his adult life, Walter F. (Fritz) Mondale (born 1928) served consecutively as Minnesota attorney general, U.S. senator, and U.S. vice president under Jimmy Carter. He lost the 1984 presidential election to inc...

American football legend, Walter Payton (1954-1999), earned a place in history with his career rushing record of 16,726 yards--an all-time high in the National Football League. The Hall-of-Fame running back played his entire 13-year career...

For all the opportunism, self-promotion, misjudgment, and personal failure that undeniably mark his long career, Sir Walter Ralegh remains the most credible embodiment that Tudor-Stuart England has to offer of the ideal of the Renaissance ...

Walter Reed (1851-1902), American military surgeon and head of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission, is widely known as the man who conquered yellow fever by tracing its origin to a particular mosquito species. Walter Reed was born on Sep...