Barker
Barker names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Barker FORDYCE, an American physician
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FORDYCE, an American physician, born in Wilton, Franklin co., Me., May 2, 1819. Completing courses at Bowdoin, Harvard, and in Europe, he enis found in the United States and on the tered upon the practice of his profession in Norwich in 1845. He made a specialty of obstetrics and diseases of women. After serving as Professor of Midwifery at Bowdoin, he removed to New York City in 1850. He was an incorporator of the New York Medical College and obstetrical surgeon to Bellevue Hospital. He wrote "Puerperal Diseases" and "On Seasickness." He died in New York City, May 30, 1891. BARKER (HARLEY) GRANVILLE, an English actor and playwright, born in 1877. He began his career as an actor, but soon became manager of the Court Theater in London. His first successes were made in several of Bernard Shaw's plays. He was better known as a playwright than as an actor. The revolutionary and realistic movement in the drama early attracted him and he became one of its chief exponents. He produced a number of plays in which prominence was given to social problems. He developed a high technical skill in writing these plays which were produced with with great success in England and in the United States. Some of his best known works were "The Marrying of Ann Leet" (1901); "Waste" (1907); "Prunella" 1913).
Barker WHARTON, an American financier and publicist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WHARTON, an American financier and publicist, born in Philadelphia in 1846. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1866 and afterward took post-graduate courses at that institution. He became a member of the banking firm of Barker Bros. and Co., and in 1887 was appointed special financial agent in the United States of the Russian Government. In 1887 he was in Russia as adviser of the Russian Government on the development of coal and iron mines, and later spent some time in China in an advisory capacity. He founded the Investment Co. of Philadelphia and he founded also the "Penn Monthly," which was merged in 1880 into "The American," of which he was publisher from 1880 to 1890. He was chief organizer of the opposition to a third term of General Grant and proposed Garfield for president. He was active in Republican politics until 1896, when he became a Populist and was antifusion Populist nominee for president in 1900. He was the leading advocate of a commercial union of all American nations. He opposed the annexation of the Philippines and urged the independence of the islands. From 1880 he was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. He was a member of many economic societies, and was a frequent contributor to magazines on economic subjects.
Barker ELSA, an American writer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ELSA, an American writer, born in Leicester, Vt. She was educated privately, and for several years acted as teacher and newspaper writer. In 1904 and 1905 she was lecturer for the New York Board of Education. Her books include "The Son of Mary Bethel" (1907); "The Frozen Grail and Other Poems" Poems" (1910); "War Letters from a Living Dead Man" (1914); "Songs of a Vagrom Angel" (1916). She also wrote several plays. She was a frequent contributor of poetry and prose to magazines.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's caught Harley Granville Barker in 1921 at the very moment his career turned: after his wartime remarriage he hyphenated his name to Granville-Barker, gave up writing plays almost entirely, and devoted himself to criticism, producing the Prefaces to Shakespeare (from 1927), which did more to shape twentieth-century Shakespeare staging than any of the social-problem dramas Collier's praised. His reputation now rests chiefly on The Voysey Inheritance, which the 1921 notice omits from its list, and on his Court Theatre seasons; he died in Paris in 1946. Wharton Barker, described here in the present tense as a living financier, died in 1921, the same year the volume appeared, and Elsa Barker lived until the 1950s, remembered less as a poet than for the "Living Dead Man" books she claimed were dictated to her by a dead judge through automatic writing. The account of Fordyce Barker, dead since 1891, needs no correction at all.
Written for this edition, 2026.