Wise
Wise names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Wise ISAAC MAYER, a Jewish rabbi
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ISAAC MAYER, a Jewish rabbi; born in Bohemia, April 3, 1819; settled in New York City in 1846. He in Cincinnati, O. after 1854, and became president of the Hebrew Union resided , College. He was a leader of the reform movement in American Judaism; and besides editing the "Israelite " a weekly , journal, he wrote extensively. Among his works are: "History of the Israelitish Nation" (1854); "Essence of Judaism" (1860); "Judaism: Its Doctrines and Duties" (1862); "The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth" (1874); "The Cosmic God" (1876); "History of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth" (1880); "Judaism and Christianity" (1883); "Pronaos to Holy Writ" (1891); etc. He died in 1900.
Wise HENRY AUGUSTUS, an American naval officer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HENRY AUGUSTUS, an American naval officer; born in Brooklyn, N. Y., May 12, 1819; entered the navy as midshipman in 1834, and rose to chief of the bureau of ordnance in 1866. Under the pseudonym of "Harry Gringo," he wrote "Los Gringos; or, An Interior View of Mexico and Galifornia, with Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia" (1849); "Tales for the Marines" (1855); "Scampavias, from Gibel-Tasek to Stamboul" (1857); "The Story of the Gray African Parrot" (1856), a book for children; and "Captain Brand of the Centipede" (1860). He died in Naples, Italy, April 2, 1869.
Wise HENRY ALEXANDER, an American statesman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HENRY ALEXANDER, an American statesman; born in Drummondtown, Va., Dec. 3, 1806; was educated at Washington College, Pa.; admitted to the bar in 1828; member of Congress in 1833-1843; minister to Brazil, under President Tyler, in 1844-1847; and Democratic governor of Virginia in 1856-1860. He opposed secession, but in 1861 joined the Confederate army as Brigadier-General. He was defeated in the Kanawha valley in 1861, and at Roanoke Island in 1862. After the war he resumed the practice of law in Richmond, Va., and died there Sept. 12, 1876.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
All three men were long dead when Collier's compiled these notes in 1921, and the biographical facts still stand. What has moved is the institution Isaac Mayer Wise built: the Hebrew Union College he headed in Cincinnati merged with the Jewish Institute of Religion in 1950, and in 1972 it ordained Sally Priesand, the first woman rabbi in America — a step well beyond anything Reform Judaism contemplated in Wise's lifetime. Modern accounts of Henry Alexander Wise also foreground something Collier's passes over entirely: as governor of Virginia he refused clemency to John Brown after the 1859 Harpers Ferry raid and signed his death warrant, the act for which he is now chiefly remembered. Henry Augustus Wise's sea tales as "Harry Gringo" have faded from view, though they survive as source material for historians of the antebellum navy and the Pacific.
Written for this edition, 2026.