Squier
Squier names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Squier GEORGE OWEN SQUASH, a ball game of which tennis is believed to be a development
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GEORGE OWEN SQUASH, a ball game of which tennis is believed to be a development. It is played in a court at one end of which rises a wall and the contest revolves on the ability of the players, who are provided with rackets, to strike the ball and send it against the wall above a certain line, keeping it all the time within certain enclosed spaces indicated by a central line on the floor and cross lines which divide it usually into four spaces. The players wait till the ball bounces on the floor and meet it before it touches the floor a second time. Skill is shown both in measuring the amount of energy expended in striking the ball and so placing it within the enclosed spaces as to make it difficult for the opponent to meet it. Points are recorded against the player who fails to meet the ball on the bounce, or who sends it against the wall below the line indicated or who so places the ball that in rebounding from the wall it falls outside the indicated space on the floor. The game is exhilarating and players often acquire such skill in hitting that the ball is kept on the bounce for a considerable time. The game is more simple than tennis, and the racket and ball are usually of a heavier make, owing to the greater wear and tear.
Squier GEORGE OWEN, an American army officer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GEORGE OWEN, an American army officer, born at Dryden, Mich., in 1865. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1887 and received the degree of Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1903. In 1887 he was appointed second lieutenant of artillery and gradually rose to the rank of major general, which he received in 1917. Much of his service in the army was devoted to the Signal Corps, of which branch he was placed in command in 1913. In February, 1917, he was made chief signal officer of the United States Army, and from May 20, 1918, he was in charge of the army air service. His other assignments included service as United States military attaché in London in 1912. He did important research work in electricity, especially in connection with the telephone and telegraph. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, received the D.S.M., and was made a Knight Commander of the British Order of St. Michael and St. George. His scientific work was rewarded by the
Squier GEORGE OWEN award of the Elliott Cresson gold medal
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GEORGE OWEN award of the Elliott Cresson gold medal, and of the Franklin medal.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's caught George Owen Squier in 1921 at the height of his career as chief signal officer; he retired in 1923 after criticism of wartime aircraft production and died in 1934. The research in "telephone and telegraph" the entry praises was his work on multiplexing signals over power and telephone lines, which he commercialised as Wired Radio in 1922 — renamed Muzak in 1934, so that he is now remembered less as a general than as the father of piped background music. The squash entry, jumbled into his biography by a printing error, also states an old belief that has been dropped: squash is not the ancestor of tennis but a 19th-century Harrow offshoot of rackets, and the game Collier's called "more simple than tennis" is due to appear at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Written for this edition, 2026.