Skinner
Skinner names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Skinner CHARLES RUFUS, an American educator
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
CHARLES RUFUS, an American educator, born at Union Square, N. Y., in 1844. He was educated at Mexico Academy and Clinton Liberal Institution and received honorary degrees from Hamilton, Colgate, and Tufts. From 1867 to 1870 he was engaged in business in New York City; from 1870 to 1874 he was manager and city editor of the "Daily Times," Watertown, N. Y.; from 1877 to 1881 a member of the New York Assembly; from 1881 to 1885 a member of congress; from 1886 to 1892 Deputy State (N. Y.) Superintendent of Public Instruction; from 1892 to 1894 supervisor of Teacher's Institute; from 1895 to 1904 State Superintendent of Public Instruction; from 1906 to 1911 assistant appraiser of the port of New York; and since 1915 Legislative Librarian at Albany, N. Y. He wrote: "New York Question Book" (1890); "Arbor Day Manual" (1891); "Manual of Patriotism for the Schools of New York" (1900); "The Bright Side" (1909).
Skinner ROBERT P., an American consular officer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ROBERT P., an American consular officer, born in Massillon, Ohio, in 1866. He was educated in the public schools of Cincinnati, and from 1886 to 1897 he was owner and editor of the "Evening Independent," Massillon, Ohio. From 1897 to 1908 he was Consul at Marseilles, France; from 1908 to 1914, Consul General at Hamburg, and since July, 1914, Consul General at London, England. In 1903 he was appointed commissioner to establish relations and to negotiate a treaty between the United States and Ethiopia, and in 1912 he was commissioned to adjust the claims of foreign creditors against the republic of Liberia. He wrote "Abyssinia of Today" (1906).
Skinner OTIS, an American actor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
OTIS, an American actor, born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1858. He was educated at Hartford, Conn., in which OTIS SKINNER city he first appeared as an amateur reader and actor. In 1877 he made his professional début in Philadelphia. He then appeared successively at Niblo's, New York; with Lawrence Barrett; with Augustin Da Daly; and with Mme. Modjeska. Since 1895 he has appeared as star in many romantic productions. The best known of his later productions were "Kismet" (1911-1914); "Cock O' the Walk" (1915-1916); "Mr. Antonio" (1916-1918); "The Honor of the Family" (1918-1919); "The Joy of Peter Barban" (1919-1920).
What Has Changed in the Last Century
All three of Collier's 1921 sketches were written mid-career and now read as unfinished obituaries: Charles Rufus Skinner, then Legislative Librarian at Albany, died in 1928; Otis Skinner, whose "Kismet" run of 1911-14 Collier's singles out, carried the role into film and went on acting into the 1930s, dying in 1942. His daughter Cornelia Otis Skinner became better known than several of the plays listed here, as a monologuist and the author of the 1942 memoir of her father, "Family Circle." Robert P. Skinner's 1903 mission is the item that has aged best in historical importance, having produced the first commercial treaty between the United States and Ethiopia, concluded with Emperor Menelik II. The largest change is one no 1921 editor could have seen: to a reader today "Skinner" almost always means the psychologist B. F. Skinner, born in 1904 and not yet at college when this page was set.
Written for this edition, 2026.