Blair
Blair names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Blair HENRY WILLIAM, an American legislator
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HENRY WILLIAM, an American legislator, born in Campton, N. H., Dec. 6, 1834; received an academic education; was admitted to the bar in 1859; served through the Civil War, becoming Lieutenant-Colonel of the 15th New Hampshire Volunteers, and being twice wounded. After serving in both branches of the State Legislature he was a member of Congress in 1875-1879 and 1893-1895, and a United States Senator in 1879-1889. He is the author of what was known as the "Blair Common School Bill," designed to distribute a certain amount of Federal money for educational purposes among the various States in proportion to the number of illiterates. He was a strong opponent of Chinese immigration, and, when he was appointed and confirmed United States Minister to China, that government objected to receiving him. He was an earnest advocate of temperance reform, and wrote much in its behalf.
Blair JOHN INSLEY, an American philanthropist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN INSLEY, an American philanthropist, born in Belvidere, N. J., Aug. 22, 1802; was in early life a merchant and banker; subsequently becoming the individual owner of more miles of railroad property than any other man in the world. He acquired a very large fortune; loaned the Federal Government more than $1,000,000 in the early part of the Civil War; built and endowed, at a cost of more than $600,000, the Presbyterian Academy in Blairstown, N. J.; rebuilt Grinnell College, Iowa; erected Blair Hall and made other gifts to Princeton University; was equally liberal to Lafayette College; and had erected more than 100 churches in different parts of the West, besides laying out many towns and villages on the lines of his numerous railroads. He died in Blairstown, N. J., Dec. 2, 1899.
Blair MONTGOMERY, an American lawyer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
MONTGOMERY, an American lawyer, born in Franklin co., Ky., May 10, 1813; was graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1835; resigned from the army in 1836; admitted to the bar in 1839; began practice in St. Louis. He was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1843-1849; removed to Maryland in 1852; was United States Solicitor in the Court of Claims in 1855-1858. He acted as counsel for the plaintiff in the widely known Dred Scott case. In 1861-1864 he was Postmaster-General. In 1876-1877 he acted with the Democratic party in opposing Mr. Hayes' title to the office of President. He died in Silver Springs, Md., July 27, 1883.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
All three men were dead by the time Collier's went to press in 1921 — indeed Henry W. Blair, whom the entry describes in the present tense as an author and temperance advocate, had died in Manchester, N.H., in March 1920, so the account was already out of date on the day it was printed. His Blair Education Bill, which repeatedly passed the Senate in the 1880s but never the House, prefigured a federal role in school funding that arrived only with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The institutions the other two Blairs left behind are still going: the Presbyterian academy at Blairstown is now Blair Academy, Grinnell College and Lafayette continue, and Blair Hall remains a Princeton landmark. Montgomery Blair's reputation has shifted more than his biography — modern historians stress that he defended Dred Scott before the Supreme Court and pressed Lincoln to resupply Fort Sumter, while the family name survives in Washington through Blair House, the president's guest residence, bought by the government in 1942.
Written for this edition, 2026.