Showing 3241 results

Authority record

Wekerle, Gerda R.

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/77604603
  • Person
  • 1947-

Gerda Wekerle is a professor and community advocate. Born in 1947 in Heidelberg, Germany, she was educated at York University and received her PhD. D. (Sociology) from Northwestern University in 1974. A professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, Wekerle began her teaching career at York in 1972, where she also teaches courses in the School of Women’s Studies and the Graduate Programme in Geography. Wekerle is a prolific writer, as well as an activist and consultant at the local, national, and international levels. Her work has focused on topics such as housing, women and environments, urban public policy, social planning, social policy, transportation, urban development, qualitative research methods, and women and public policy.

Weinstock, Marky

  • http://viaf.org/106341651
  • Person
  • 1975-

"Marky Weinstock is a popular children's entertainer, award winning songwriter, physician, and respected educator. He continues to perform across the continent and overseas, picking up new instruments and stories to share along the way. His unforgettable concerts and parades have become festival favourites, filled with singing, dancing, group participation and lots of laughter." http://www.markyweinstock.com/about.html

Weinstein, Larry

  • 51897466
  • Person
  • 1956-

Larry Weinstein is a director, producer and writer. He is one of the founding members of Rhombus Media Inc., a production company based in Toronto. Weinstein specializes in film and television related to music and music history. He has directed and produced such films as All That Bach (1985), Making Overtures (1985), Greta Kraus (ca. 1985), Ravel (1987), Eternal Earth,( 1987), For the Whales (1989), The Radical Romantic: John Weinzweig (1990), Noches on los jardines de Espana (1990), Life and Death of Manuel de Falla (1991), My War Years: Arnold Schoenberg (1992), Weinzeig's World (1992), El retablo de Maese Pedro (1992), Concierto de Aranjuez (1993), Shadows and Light (1993), Concerto! (1993), The Music of Kurt Weill - September Songs (an episode of Great Performances broadcast in 1994), Satie and Suzanne (1994), Solidarity Song: The Hanns Eisler Story (1995), Hong Kong Symphony (1997), The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin (1997), Tuscan Skies: Andrea Bocelli (2001), Ravel's Brain (2001), Toothpaste (2002), Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen (2003),Beethoven's Hair (2005), Burnt Toast (2005, Mozartballs (2006), Toscanini in His Own Words (2009), Inside Hana's Suitcase (2009), Devil's Delight, God's Wrath (2011), Mulroney: The Opera (2011), Wrath (2011), and Our Man in Tehran (2013).

Weinstein has received numerous awards throughout his career, including Gemini awards for Beethoven's Hair (Best Direction in a Performing Arts Program or Series, 2005) and September Songs: the Music of Kurt Weill (Best Music, Variety Program or Series, with Niv Fichman, 1997). His 1985 film Making Overtures: The Story of a Community Orchestra was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. In 1998, Weinstein and other Rhombus Media principals, Niv Fichman, Barbara Willis Sweete, and Sheena MacDonald, were granted honorary doctorates from York University.

Weidinger, Matt

  • Person

“Matt Weidinger [...] is a singer/songwriter and a multi instrumentalist. He has three original albums under his belt and although considers the Hammond Organ, his instrument of choice, is equally comfortable on piano, guitar, bass and mandolin. He joined forces with Lance Anderson in 12-piece band called "Matchedash Parish" whose debut album Saturday Night earned them a 2020 Maple Blues Awards nomination for New Artist of the Year.” https://www.mattweidinger.com/bio

Wedgwood, Frances Julia

  • https://viaf.org/viaf/2828012/
  • Person
  • 9 July 1833 - 26 November 1913

(from Wikipedia entry)

Frances Julia "Snow" Wedgwood (9 July 1833 - 26 November 1913) was an English feminist novelist, biographer, historian and literary critic. She was "a young woman of extreme passions and fastidious principles" and "at once a powerful reasoner and an inexorable critic of reason". Wedgwood was the daughter and the eldest of the six children of Hensleigh Wedgwood and his wife Fanny Mackintosh, the daughter of Sir James Mackintosh. She was a great-granddaughter of the potter Josiah Wedgwood and niece of Charles Darwin. Her strong intellect was apparent early and she taught herself Latin, Greek, French, German and drawing, however her only formal education was at the age of thirteen at Rachel Martineau's school in Liverpool. Her mother ran a salon in Cumberland Place attended by Macaulay, Thackeray, F. D. Maurice, Ruskin, and Carlyle. Wedgwood was acknowledged as "the cleverest of her generation" in the extended Wedgwood-Darwin-Mackintosh family and she acquired renown as a "brilliant conversationalist with a passion for scientific and theological debate". In her twenties she wrote the novels "An Old Debt" and "Framleigh Hall" addressing "intellectual conflict, confused gender roles, and ill-starred sexual passion", which were well received by the public. Faced with her father's disapproval of her writing skills and topics, however, Wedgwood abandoned a third novel despite encouragement by Mrs Gaskell, whom she assisted in research for The Life of Charlotte Brontë (published in 1857). She concluded that "she had no imaginative powers" and that her "mind was 'merely analytical'". Due to expectations on an unmarried woman in a large family and by her chronic deafness, Wedgwood's work was severely impeded. "Her reading and writing were done between five and seven in the morning" and most of her life was spent caring for ill relatives and for relatives’ children. She published some book reviews while caring for a brother, then in 1861 an article on the theological significance of On the Origin of Species. In response Charles Darwin wrote her a letter stating "I must tell you how much I admire your Article (...) I think that you understand my book perfectly, and that I find a very rare event with my critics", expressing himself inspired to - and challenged by - further thought on the topics she had brought up.

She was a close friend of Robert Browning for some years, correspondence with whom survives for the years 1863 to 1870.

In 1870, Wedgwood published a much lauded book on the life and historical significance of John Wesley. She set up her own household in Notting Hill and in the following years she helped Charles Darwin translate the works of Linnaeus as well as publishing an array of clear and precise articles on science, religion, philosophy, literature, and social reform. At her London home, Wedgwood also worked on "a history of the evolution of ethics in the great world civilizations, from earliest antiquity down to the scientific positivism and theological modernism of the mid-nineteenth century", which was published as "The Moral Ideal: a Historic Study" in 1888. The success of this work led to the republication of her novels.

Upon the death of her mother in 1889 she gave up her own house to care for her father.

Five years later, she published a follow-up work to "The Moral Ideal" - "The Message of Israel" - with the aim of re-interpreting the Judaeic tradition critically in the light of ‘modernism’. In 1909 a collection of her major articles was published. She was also persuaded to work on a biography of her great-grandfather, which was finished after her death by Professor C. H. Herford. Throughout her life Wedgwood was interested in the boundaries between scientific knowledge and religious belief and was influenced by James Martineau, Alexander John Scott, and especially Thomas Erskine. In her later years she donated extensively for the construction and extension of Church of England churches. She had been active in the anti-vivisection movement since the 1860s and bequeathed it much of her fortune upon her death on 26 November 1913.

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Julia_Wedgwood .

Webb, Jimmy

  • http://viaf.org/33636158
  • Person
  • 1946-

“Jimmy Layne Webb is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He achieved success at an early age, winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the age of 21. During his career, he established himself as one of America's most successful and honored songwriter/composers. [...] Webb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990. He received the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993, the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award in 2003, the ASCAP "Voice of Music" Award in 2006 and the Ivor Novello Special International Award in 2012. According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the 50 years between 1940 and 1990. Webb is the only artist ever to receive Grammy Awards for music, lyrics and orchestration.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Webb

Webb, Clement C.J.

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/29618091
  • Person
  • 1865-1964

Author of theological and philosophical works.

Waves

  • Corporate body
  • 1972-1980

'Waves' was a literary magazine originally produced at York University (1972-1980), that grew out of a poetry workshop conducted by Irving Layton at the university in the 1970-1971 school year. The journal was devoted to prose and poetry, and was issued three times a year. The editor of 'Waves,' Bernice Lever, also served as office and business manager, circulation manager, and eventually became owner of 'Waves,' in 1976. From 1980 until it ceased publication in 1987, 'Waves' was produced in her home.

Waters, Wallace

  • Person

This is the administrative history or biographical sketch (RAD 1.7B)

Warwick Publishing

  • Corporate body

Warwick Publishing was established by James Williamson in 1990 as a producer of books for other publishers. Its mandate expanded in 1992, when Warwick published its first seven titles. Five years later, the company's annual report announced its intention to expand into other fields, including magazines, music, electronic publishing, and newspapers. Music came first with the creation of Sensation Records in October 1998. The new company focused on producing jazz and blues recordings under the influence of Jeff Healey, its Creative Director, well known blues guitarist, and highly respected collector of classic jazz. Expansion into magazines occurred in February 1999, when Warwick Publishing purchased "Classical Music Magazine" from Derek (Deroy) Copperthwaite and his son, Anthony. The magazine was established in 1978 as "Music Magazine," taking a "plain English" approach to covering classical music in Canada as well as its international influences. Photography was a major component of the magazine, featuring a "candid photojournalistic style, which captures people at their most natural and expressive moments." The magazine was renamed "Classical Music Magazine" in July 1991, and continued to offer articles, interviews and reviews focusing on recent developments, the careers of performing artists and conductors, the release of books and audio recordings, and the history of classical music. Following the purchase of magazine by Warwick Publishing, it was renamed "Opus" and given an expanded editorial focus that included jazz and opera. The company's connection with jazz was strengthened in November 2000, when Warwick Publishing purchased "Coda : the journal of jazz and improvised music." "Coda" was established in May 1958 by John Norris, who served as its editor until 1976. The magazine acquired a significant international readership, with more than 60 percent of its circulation distributed beyond Canada by 2004. It is highly regarded by jazz enthusiasts for its emphasis upon innovative trends in improvised music as well as the genre's traditional roots. The magazine's interviews, articles, reviews of recordings, clubs and concerts, and news columns feature the work of several writers who have had a long association with "Coda," and have resulted in frequent nomination as the best periodical covering jazz in the annual poll of the Jazz Journalist Association. Photography has also been a major component of the magazine's success. Issues have been illustrated not only with the publicity photographs submitted by recording companies and agencies, but also with photography of live performances. A significant percentage of these performance images were taken by Bill Smith, who was appointed art director of "Coda" in 1963, and served as co-editor from 1976 to 1983 and as editor from 1983 until the magazine's purchase in 2000.

Warre, Edmond, 1837-1920

  • Person
  • 1837-1920

Edmond Warre (February 12, 1837 – January 22, 1920) was the head master of Eton College from 1884 to 1905.

Warner, Mary Jane

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/105794697
  • Person
  • 1941-

Mary Jane Warner (nee Evans) graduated from the University of Toronto in 1963 with a B.A. in English, and obtained her teaching certificate from the Ontario College of Education the following year. She taught at elementary and secondary schools in Toronto from 1964 to 1969. Warner also trained as a dancer with the National Ballet School, receiving the intermediate certificate from the Royal Academy of Dancing in 1968 and the Certificate in Dance from the Ontario Department of Education in 1969. Warner undertook training in Labanotation through the Conneticut College School of Dance and Ohio State University, receiving the Advanced Teacher’s Certificate in 1970. She then enrolled in the graduate dance program at Ohio State, receiving a M.A. with emphasis on history and notation in 1971, and a Ph.D. in theatre and dance with in 1974. After lecturing at Newberry College in South Carolina in 1973-1974, Warner was appointed Director of Dance at Kirkland College in Clinton, New York, where she taught until 1980. She joined York University’s Department of Dance in 1981, and has taught courses in dance history, movement analysis and notation, teaching dance, and ballet. In addition to supervising the work of many graduate students and maintaining an active record of publishing and conference presentations, Warner served as Chair of the department from 1988-1993 and 2006-2010, four terms as Graduate Program Director, and as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts from 1993-1996. Warner was the principal founder and administrator of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies Program at York University, and served on a group that developed dance curriculum for Ontario high schools. She is a Fellow of the International Council of Kinetography Laban, and author of "Laban notation scores : an international bibliography," vols. I-IV (Columbus, 1984-1999), as well as "Toronto dance teachers, 1825-1925" (Toronto, 1995).

Warkentin, John, 1928-

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/112774103
  • Person

John Warkentin is a geographer, teacher and photographer. Born at Lowe Farm, Manitoba, he received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Manitoba in 1948 and a PhD from the University of Toronto in 1961. He was an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Manitoba, engaged in research on the settlement and regional geography of Western Canada,and also taught briefly in Newfoundland and Greenland. In 1963 he became an Assistant Professor at York University. Dr. Warkentin taught at York University until he retired as Professor of Geography in 1993. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Professor Warkentin is the author of "The Western Interior of Canada" (1964),and co-author with Dr. Richard I. Ruggles of "The Historical Atlas of Manitoba", published by the Manitoba Historical Society. He has also published text books on the historical geography of Canada, and more recently on public monuments in Toronto.

Ware, Peter

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/36037127
  • Person
  • 1951-

Wardrop, Graham

  • http://viaf.org/42145003652161341145
  • Person

Ward, Mary (Arnold)

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/27084321
  • Person
  • 11 June 1851 - 24 March 1920

(from Wikipedia entry)

Mary Augusta Ward née Arnold; (11 June 1851 - 24 March 1920), was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward. Mary Augusta Arnold was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, into a prominent intellectual family of writers and educationalists. Mary was the daughter of Tom Arnold, a professor of literature, and Julia Sorrell. Her uncle was the poet Matthew Arnold and her grandfather Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugby School. Her sister Julia married Leonard Huxley, the son of Thomas Huxley, and their sons were Julian and Aldous Huxley. The Arnolds and the Huxleys were an important influence on British intellectual life. Mary's father Tom Arnold was appointed inspector of schools in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and commenced his role on 15 January 1850. Tom Arnold was received into the Roman Catholic Church on 12 January 1856, which made him so unpopular in his job (and with his wife) that he resigned and left for England with his family in July 1856. Mary Arnold had her fifth birthday the month before they left, and had no further connection with Tasmania. Tom Arnold was ratified as chair of English literature at the contemplated Catholic university, Dublin, after some delay. Mary spent much of her time with her grandmother. She was educated at various boarding schools (from ages 11 to 15, in Shifnal, Shropshire) and at 16 returned to live with her parents at Oxford, where her father had a lecturership in history. Her schooldays formed the basis for one of her later novels, Marcella (1894).

On 6 April 1872, not yet 21 years old, Mary married Humphry Ward, a fellow and tutor of Brasenose College, and also a writer and editor. For the next nine years she continued to live at Oxford, at 17 Bradmore Road, where she is commemorated by a blue plaque. She had by now made herself familiar with French, German, Italian, Latin and Greek. She was developing an interest in social and educational service and making tentative efforts at literature. She added Spanish to her languages, and in 1877 undertook the writing of a large number of the lives of early Spanish ecclesiastics for the Dictionary of Christian Biography edited by Dr William Smith and Dr. Henry Wace. Her translation of Amiel's Journal appeared in 1887. Mary Augusta Ward began her career writing articles for Macmillan's Magazine while working on a book for children that was published in 1881 under the title Milly and Olly. This was followed in 1884 by a more ambitious, though slight, study of modern life, Miss Bretherton, the story of an actress. Ward's novels contained strong religious subject matter relevant to Victorian values she herself practised. Her popularity spread beyond Great Britain to the United States. Her book Lady Rose's Daughter was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1903, as was The Marriage of William Ashe in 1905. Ward's most popular novel by far was the religious "novel with a purpose" Robert Elsmere, which portrayed the emotional conflict between the young pastor Elsmere and his wife, whose over-narrow orthodoxy brings her religious faith and their mutual love to a terrible impasse; but it was the detailed discussion of the "higher criticism" of the day, and its influence on Christian belief, rather than its power as a piece of dramatic fiction, that gave the book its exceptional vogue. It started, as no academic work could have done, a popular discussion on historic and essential Christianity. Ward helped establish an organisation for working and teaching among the poor. She also worked as an educator in the residential settlement movements she founded. Mary Ward's declared aim was "equalisation" in society, and she established educational settlements first at Marchmont Hall and later at Tavistock Place in Bloomsbury. This was originally called the Passmore Edwards Settlement, after its benefactor John Passmore Edwards, but after Ward's death it became the Mary Ward Settlement. It is now known as the Mary Ward Centre and continues as an adult education college; affiliated with it is the Mary Ward Legal Centre.

She was also a significant campaigner against women getting the vote. In the summer of 1908 she was approached by George Nathaniel Curzon and William Cremer, who asked her to be the founding president of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. Ward took on the job, creating and editing the Anti-Suffrage Review. She published a large number of articles on the subject, while two of her novels, The Testing of Diana Mallory and Delia Blanchflower, were used as platforms to criticise the suffragettes. In a 1909 article in The Times, Ward wrote that constitutional, legal, financial, military, and international problems were problems only men could solve. However, she came to promote the idea of women having a voice in local government and other rights that the men's anti-suffrage movement would not tolerate.

During World War I, Ward was asked by United States President Theodore Roosevelt to write a series of articles to explain to Americans what was happening in Britain. Her work involved visiting the trenches on the Western Front, and resulted in three books, England's Effort - Six Letters to an American Friend (1916), Towards the Goal (1917), and Fields of Victory (1919). Mary Augusta Ward died in London, England, and was interred at Aldbury in Hertfordshire, near her beloved country home Stocks.

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Augusta_Ward

Ward, Lester Frank

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/30333275
  • Person
  • 18 June 1841 - 18 April 1913

(from Wikipedia entry)

Lester F. Ward (June 18, 1841 - April 18, 1913) was an American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist. He served as the first president of the American Sociological Association.

Ward was a pioneer who promoted the introduction of sociology courses into American higher education. His belief that society could be scientifically controlled was especially attractive to intellectuals during the Progressive Era. His influence in certain circles (see: the Social Gospel) was affected by his opinions regarding organized priesthoods, which he believed had been responsible for more evil than good throughout human history.

Ward emphasized the importance of social forces which could be guided at a macro level by the use of intelligence to achieve conscious progress, rather than allowing evolution to take its own erratic course as proposed by William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer. Ward emphasized universal and comprehensive public schooling to provide the public with the knowledge a democracy needs to successfully govern itself. Lester Frank Ward was born in Joliet, Illinois, the youngest of 10 children born to Justus Ward and his wife Silence Rolph Ward. Justus Ward (d.1858) was of old New England colonial stock, but he wasn't rich, and farmed to earn a living. Silence Ward was the daughter of a clergyman; she was a talented perfectionist, educated and fond of literature.

When Lester Frank was one year of age the family moved closer to Chicago, to a place called Cass, now known as Downers Grove, Illinois about twenty-three miles from Lake Michigan. The family then moved to a homestead in nearby St. Charles, Illinois where his father built a saw mill business making railroad ties. Ward first attended a formal school at St. Charles, Kane Co., IL, in 1850 when he was nine years old. He was known as Frank Ward to his classmates and friends and showed a great enthusiasm for books and learning, liberally supplementing his education with outside reading.

Four years after Ward started attending school, his parents, along with Lester and an older bother, Erastus, traveled to Iowa in a covered wagon for a new life on the frontier. Four years later, in 1858, Justus Ward unexpectedly died, and the boys returned the family to the old homestead they still owned in St. Charles. Ward's estranged mother, who lived two miles away with Ward's sister, disapproved of the move, and wanted the boys to stay in Iowa to continue their father's work.

The two brothers lived together for a short period of time in the old family homestead they dubbed "Bachelor's Hall," doing farm work to earn a living, and encouraged each other to pursue an education and abandon their father's life of physical labor.

In late 1858 the two brothers moved to Pennsylvania at the invitation of Lester Frank's oldest brother Cyrenus (9 years Lester Frank's senior) who was starting a business making wagon wheel hubs and needed workers. The brothers saw this as an opportunity to move closer to civilization and to eventually attend college.

The business failed, however, and Lester Frank, who still didn't have the money to attend college, found a job teaching in a small country school; in the Summer months he worked as a farm laborer. He finally saved the money to attend college and enrolled in the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute in 1860. While he was at first self-conscious about his spotty formal education and self learning, he soon found that his knowledge compared favorably to his classmates, and he was rapidly promoted. It was while attending the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute that he met Elizabeth "Lizzie" Carolyn Vought (some sources cite Bought), and fell deeply in love. Their "rather torrid love affair" was documented in Ward's first journal Young Ward's Diary. They married on Aug. 13, 1862.

Almost immediately afterward, Ward enlisted in the Union Army and was sent to the Civil War front where he was wounded three times. After the end of the war he successfully petitioned for work with the federal government in Washington, DC, where he and Lizzie then moved.

Lizzie assisted him in editing a newsletter called "The Iconoclast," dedicated to free thinking and attacks on organized religion. She gave birth to a son, but the child died when he was less than a year old. Lizzie died in 1872. Rosamond Asenath Simons was married to Lester F. Ward as his second wife in the year 1873. By the early 1880s the new field of sociology had become dominated by ideologues of the left and right, both determined to claim "the science of society" as their own. The champion of the conservatives and businessmen was Herbert Spencer; he was opposed on the left by Karl Marx. Although Spencer and Marx disagreed about many things they were similar in that their systems were static: they both claimed to have divined the immutable stages of development that a society went through and they both taught that mankind was essentially helpless before the force of evolution.

With the publication of the two volume, 1200 page, Dynamic Sociology--Or Applied Social Science as Based Upon Statical Sociology and the Less Complex Sciences(1883), Lester Ward hoped to restore the central importance of experimentation and the scientific method to the field of sociology. For Ward science wasn't cold or impersonal; it was human-centered and results-oriented. As he put it in the Preface to Dynamic Sociology, "The real object of science is to benefit man. A science which fails to do this, however agreeable its study, is lifeless. Sociology, which of all sciences should benefit man most, is in danger of falling into the class of polite amusements, or dead sciences. It is the object of this work to point out a method by which the breath of life may be breathed into its nostrils."

Ward theorized that poverty could be minimized or eliminated by the systematic intervention of society. Mankind wasn't helpless before the impersonal force of nature and evolution - through the power of Mind, man could take control of the situation and direct the evolution of human society. This theory is known as telesis. Also see: meliorism, sociocracy and public sociology. A sociology which intelligently and scientifically directed the social and economic development of society should institute a universal and comprehensive system of education, regulate competition, connect the people together on the basis of equal opportunities and cooperation, and promote the happiness and the freedom of everyone. Ward was a strong advocate for equal rights for women and even theorized that women were naturally superior to men, much to the scorn of mainstream sociologists. In this regard, Ward presaged the rise of feminism, and especially the difference feminism of writers such as Harvard's Carol Gilligan, who have developed the claims of female superiority. Ward is now considered a feminist writer by historians such as Ann Taylor Allen. However, Clifford H. Scott claims that some suffragists ignored him. Ward's persuasion on the question of female intelligence as described by himself: "And now from the point of view of intellectual development itself we find her side by side, and shoulder to shoulder with him furnishing, from the very outset, far back in prehistoric, presocial, and even prehuman times, the necessary complement to his otherwise one-sided, headlong, and wayward career, without which he would soon have warped and distorted the race and rendered it incapable of the very progress which he claims exclusively to inspire. And therefore again, even in the realm of intellect, where he would fain reign supreme, she has proved herself fully his equal and is entitled to her share of whatever credit attaches to human progress hereby achieved." Clifford H. Scott argues that practically all the suffragists ignored him. Ward's views on the question of race and the theory of white supremacy underwent considerable change throughout his life.

Ward was a Republican Whig and supported the abolition of the American system of slavery. He enlisted in the Union army during the Civil war and was wounded three times. However, a close reading of his "Dynamic Sociology" will uncover several statements that would be considered racist and ethnocentric by today's standards. There are references to the superiority of Western culture and the savagery of the American Indian and black races, made all the more jarring by the modern feel of much of the rest of the book.

However, Ward lived in Washington D.C., then the center of anthropological research in the US; he was always up-to-date on the latest findings of science and in tune with the developing zeitgeist, and by the early twentieth century, perhaps influenced by W.E.B. Du Bois and German-born Franz Boas he began to focus more on the question of race.

During this period his views on race were arguably more progressive and in tune with modern standards than any other white academic of the time, with, of course, the exception of Boas, who is sometimes credited with doing more than any other American in combating the theory of White supremacy. Ward, given his age and reputation, could afford to take a somewhat radical stand on the politically explosive question of White supremacy, but Boas did not have those advantages.

After Ward's death in 1913, and with the approach of World War I, Franz Boas came to be seen by some, including W.H. Holmes, the head of National Research Council (and who had worked with Ward for many years at the U.S. Geological Survey), as possibly being an agent of the German government determined to sow revolution in the US and among its troops.

The NRC had been set up by the Wilson administration in 1916 in response to the increased need for scientific and technical services caused by World War I, and soon Boas's influence over the field of anthropology the US began to wane. By 1919, Boas was censured by the American Anthropological Association for his political activities, a censure which would not be lifted until 2005. (See also: Scientific racism, Master race, and Institutional racism) (the source for the information about Boas is Gossett, Thomas F.; Race: The History of an Idea in America) Ward is often categorized as been a follower of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Ward's article "Neo-Darwinism and Neo-Lamarckism" shows Ward had a sophisticated understanding of this subject. While he clearly described himself as being a Neo-Lamarckian, he completely and enthusiastically accepted Darwin's findings and theories. On the other hand, he believed that, logically, there had to be a mechanism that would allow environmental factors to influence evolution faster than Darwin's rather slow evolutionary process. The modern theory of Epigenetics suggests that Ward was correct on this issue, although old-school Darwinians continue to ridicule Larmarkianism. While Durkheim is usually credited for updating Comte's positivism to modern scientific and sociological standards, Ward accomplished much the same thing 10 years earlier in the United States. However, Ward would be the last person to claim that his contributions were somehow unique or original to him. As Gillis J. Harp points out in "The Positivist Republic", Comte's positivism found a fertile ground in the democratic republic of the United States, and there soon developed among the pragmatic intellectual community in New York City, which featured such thinkers as William James and Charles Sanders Peirce and, on the other hand, among the federal government scientists in Washington D.C. (like Ward) a general consensus regarding positivism. In "Pure Sociology: A Treatise on the Origin and Spontaneous Development of Society"(1903) Ward theorizes that throughout human history conflict and war has been the force that is most responsible for human progress. It was through conflict that hominids gained dominance over animals. It was through conflict and war that Homo Sapiens wiped out the less advanced hominid species and it was through war that the more technologically advanced races and nations expanded their territory and spread civilization. Ward sees war as a natural evolutionary process and like all natural evolutionary processes war is capricious, slow, often ineffective and shows no regard for the pain inflicted on living creatures. One of the central tenets of Wards world view is that the artificial is superior to the natural and thus one of the central goals of Applied Sociology is to replace war with a system that retains the progressive elements that war has provided but without the many downsides. Ward influenced a rising generation of progressive political leaders, such as Herbert Croly. In the book Lester Ward and the Welfare State, Commager details Ward's influence and refers to him as the "father of the modern welfare state".

As a political approach, Ward's system became known as social liberalism, as distinguished from the classical liberalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which featured such thinkers as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. While classical liberalism had sought prosperity and progress through laissez-fare, Ward's "American social liberalism" sought to enhance social progress through direct government intervention. Ward believed that in large, complex and rapidly growing societies human freedom could only be achieved with the assistance of a strong democratic government acting in the interest of the individual. The characteristic element of Ward's thinking was his faith that government, acting on the empirical and scientifically based findings of the science of sociology, could be harnessed to create a near Utopian social order.

Progressive thinking had a profound impact on the administrations of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson and on the liberal wing of the modern Democratic Party. Ward's ideas were in the air but there are few direct links between his writings and the actual programs of the founders of the welfare state and the New Deal.

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Frank_Ward .

Ward, James

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/32359835
  • Person
  • 27 January 1843 - 4 March 1925

(from Wikipedia entry)

James Ward (27 January 1843 - 4 March 1925) was an English psychologist and philosopher. He was a Cambridge Apostle. He was born in Kingston upon Hull, the eldest of nine children. His father was an unsuccessful merchant. Ward was educated at the Liverpool Institute and Mostyn House, but his formal schooling ended when his father became bankrupt.
Apprenticed to a Liverpool architect for four years, Ward studied Greek and logic and was a Sunday School Teacher. In 1863, he entered Spring Hill College, near Birmingham, to train for the Congregationalist ministry. An eccentric and impoverished student, he remained at Spring Hill until 1869, completing his theological studies as well as gaining a University of London BA degree.
In 1869-1870, Ward won a scholarship to Germany, where he attended the lectures of Isaac Dormer in Berlin before moving to Göttingen to study under Hermann Lotze. On his return to Britain Ward became minister at Emmanuel Congregational Church in Cambridge, where his theological liberalism unhappily antagonized his congregation. Sympathetic to Ward's predicament, Henry Sidgwick encouraged Ward to enter Cambridge University. Initially a non-collegiate student, Ward won a scholarship to Trinity College in 1873, and achieved a first class in the moral sciences tripos in 1874. With a dissertation entitled 'The relation of physiology to psychology', Ward won a Trinity fellowship in 1875. Some of this work, An interpretation of Fechner's Law, was published in the first volume of the new journal Mind (1876).
For the rest of his life, the Dictionary of National Biography reports that he
held himself aloof from all institutional religion; but he did not tend towards secularism or even agnosticism; his early belief in spiritual values and his respect for all sincere religion never left him.
During 1876-1877 he returned to Germany, studying in Carl Ludwig's Leipzig physiological institute. Back in Cambridge, Ward continued physiological research under Michael Foster, publishing a pair of physiological papers in 1879 and 1880.
However, from 1880 onwards Ward moved away from physiology to psychology. His article Psychology for the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was enormously influential - criticizing associationist psychology with an emphasis upon the mind's active attention to the world.
He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1919 to 1920; his wife Mary (née Martin) was a member of the Ladies Dining Society in Cambridge, with 11 other members.
Ward died in Cambridge, and was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium. Ward defended a philosophy of personalistic panpsychism based on his research in physiology and psychology which he defined as a "spiritualistic monism". In his Gifford Lectures and his book Naturalism and Agnosticism (1899) he argued against materialism and dualism and supported a form of panpsychism where reality consists in a plurality of centers of activity. Ward's philosophical views have a close affinity to the pluralistic idealism of Leibniz. Ward had believed that the universe is composed of "psychic monads" of different levels, interacting for mutual self- betterment. His theological views have been described by some as a "personal panentheism". Described by Nina Cust as Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. Author of "Naturalism and Agnosticism", "Psychological Principles" and "A Study of Kant".

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ward_(psychologist) .

Ward, Humphry, 1845-1926

  • https://viaf.org/viaf/37208812/
  • Person
  • 1845-1926

Humphry Ward (1845–1926), son of the Rev. Henry Ward and Jane Sandwith. Married Mary Augusta [known as Mrs Humphry Ward] on April 6, 1872. Following the success of his anthology The English Poets in 1879, Humphry Ward resolved to give up academic life. He took a position on The Times in January 1881, and a year later became the newspaper's principal art critic and occasional leader writer.

Wang, Li

  • Person

“With playing that The Toronto Star describes as “flawless technique combined with a light touch to produce the most exquisite tonal effects”, pianist Li Wang has earned the recognition as one of Canada's finest artists. Gold medal winner of the First Canadian Chopin Piano Competition, Mr. Wang has enjoyed success on the international competition circuit, claiming awards and distinctions in the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition, 43rd Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona, the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition held in Budapest, and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, in which he was the only Canadian accepted to compete. In performances, Mr. Wang has been heard as recital soloist and chamber musician around the globe, a highlight of which was to perform an all-Chopin recital at the International Chopin Festival in Antonin, Poland, in September 2000. As well, Mr. Wang has been featured as concerto soloists with acclaimed orchestras such as the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the MATAV Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, and the Sinfonia Cultura Orchestra of Brazil. In Canada, Mr. Wang’s performances has been broadcasted on CBC, CJRT, Classical 96.3FM, and BRAVO! arts channel, OMNI TV, Fairchild TV, and CityTV. Additionally, Mr. Wang is one of the recording artists for the Celebration Series of The Royal Conservatory’s 2015 Piano Syllabus; a recipient of the Steinway and Sons’ Top Teacher Award; and has served as judge for the Canadian Chopin Piano Competition. Born in Beijing, Mr. Wang began his piano studies with his father, and furthered his musical training at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur de Musique in Paris under Brigitte Engerer, and The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School in Canada under the tutelage of James Anagnoson. A resident of Toronto, Mr. Wang is currently piano faculty at both The Glenn Gould School and The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists.” https://www.rcmusic.com/bios/li-wang

Walters, Prof. Henry Guy

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/43380010
  • Person
  • 1856-

American author of "The Wisdom of Passion" (1901), "Loves of Great Men and Other Essays," "Motives of Human Nature," "The Nervous System of Jesus," and "Wisdom of Passion."
A pen name used by Walters was Salvarona. Is associated with the American Institute of Scientific Research, an organization that appears to have been involved in investigating psychic phenomena and Spiritualism.

Walter, John, 1873-1968

  • Person
  • 1873-1968

John Walter was a newspaper proprietor, working with The Times from 1898 to ca. 1967. The Times newspaper had been founded by his great-great-grandfather in 1785.

Walrond, T.

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/17610157
  • Person
  • 1824-1887

Most likely Theodore Walrond, author of entries in the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) and editor of "Letters and journals of James, eighth earl of Elgin, governor of Jamaica, governor-general of Canada, envoy to China, viceroy of India."

Waller, Dr. Augustus Desiré

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/19198897
  • Person
  • 18 July 1856 - 11 March 1922

(from Wikipedia entry)

Augustus Desiré Waller FRS (18 July 1856 - 11 March 1922) was a British physiologist and the son of Augustus Volney Waller. He was born in Paris, France.

He created the first practical ECG machine with surface electrodes.

He died in London.

Fore more information, see Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Desir%C3%A9_Waller .

Wallace, Skye

  • http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q88463630
  • Person

“Skye Wallace is a Canadian singer-songwriter currently based in Toronto, Ontario. Wallace has released five studio albums: This Is How We Go, Living Parts, Something Wicked, Skye Wallace, and "Terribly Good".” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Wallace

Walk off the Earth

  • http://viaf.org/176174175
  • Corporate body
  • 2006-

“Walk off the Earth is a Canadian indie pop band from Burlington, Ontario. The group is known for its music videos of covers and originals. The band is well known for covering pop-genre music on YouTube, making use of instruments such as the ukulele and the theremin, as well as looping samples. The band's recorded music and videos are produced by member and multi-instrumentalist Gianni "Luminati" Nicassio.” Members include Gianni Nicassio, Joel Cassady, Sarah Blackwood, David Speirs, Adam Michael, CJ Hinds; and previous members included Peter Kirkwood, Mike Taylor, and Ryan Marshall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_off_the_Earth

Waggett, Rev. Phillip Napier

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/26609910
  • Person
  • 1862-1939

Most likely Rev. Phillip Napier Waggett (1862-1939) author of "Knowledge and Virtue," "St.Anthony an the Greyfriars."

Waddington, Miriam, 1917-2004

  • F0478
  • Person
  • 1917-2004

Miriam Waddington was a Canadian poet, short story writer and translator.

Voysey, Rev. Charles

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/17066379
  • Person
  • 1828-1912

(from Wikipedia entry)

Charles Voysey (1828–1912) was a priest of the Church of England who was condemned by the Privy Council for heterodoxy and went on to found a Theist Church.

Voysey was sacked from a curacy of St Mark's, Whitechapel, having denied the doctrine of eternal punishment. He later became vicar of Healaugh near Tadcaster, Yorkshire, but soon ran into difficulties there. He was prosecuted by William Thomson, Archbishop of York, starting in 1869. He was summoned before the Chancery Court of the diocese of York for heterodox teaching and deprived of his living. He appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which gave its judgement in 1871:

The Appellant is charged with having offended against the Laws Ecclesiastical by writing and publishing within the diocese of London certain sermons or essays, collected together in parts and volumes, the whole being designated by the title of "The Sling and the Stone," in which he is alleged to have maintained and promulgated doctrines contrary and repugnant to or inconsistent with the Articles of Religion and Formularies of the Church of England.

His appeal dismissed, Voysey lost his benefice. Moving to London, Voysey began holding services in St George's Hall, Langham Place, and founded the Theistic Church in Swallow Street, Piccadilly. He continued to preach and teach up to his death. He befriended Guy Aldred, the "Boy Preacher" in Holloway, in 1903.
For more information, see Wikipedia entry at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Voysey_%28theist%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Voysey_(architect)

Vollebekk, Leif

  • http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30728187
  • Person

“Leif Vollebekk is a Canadian indie folk singer-songwriter, whose 2017 album Twin Solitude was a shortlisted finalist for the 2017 Polaris Music Prize and the 2018 Juno Award for Adult Alternative Album of the Year.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Vollebekk

Vollé, Yvan

  • http://viaf.org/106377266
  • Person
  • 1968-

Yvan Vollé is a "musician, animator, song-writer, and poet". Vollé plays the guitar, ukulele, harmonica, and piano. Mariposa Festival Program, 2011, p. 55

Vollant, Florent

  • http://viaf.org/34735591
  • Person
  • 1959-

"Florent Vollant (born August 10, 1959 in Labrador) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. An Innu from Maliotenam, Quebec, he was half of the popular folk music duo Kashtin, one of the most significant musical groups in First Nations history. He has subsequently released four solo albums." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florent_Vollant

Volavka, Zdenka

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/61176925
  • Person
  • [19--]-1990

Zdenka Volavka, art professor and research associate at the Royal Ontario Museum, was born in Czechoslovakia and received her PhD from Charles University, Prague. She immigrated to Canada in 1968, and was Professor in the Department of Visual Arts, York University. Her research focused on analyzing the social context of visual art, material culture, history, and ethnography of west-central Africa. Her approach to studying African art combined extensive fieldwork with ethnographic, historical, scientific and linguistic analysis. Zdenka also studied the role of copper in the lives of the peoples of the lower Zaïre basin.

Her life's work was inspired by a trip in 1976 to the Musee de l'Homme in Paris, where she recognized the regalia of Ngoyo kinship labelled (for more than forty years) as a fishing basket. This was particularly important as no permanent regalia from any kingdoms in the whole of Central African have been recovered and only one set had ever even been seen by a foreign researcher. This research was published posthumously in "The Crown and the Ritual: The Royal Insignia of Ngoyo".

At York University, a research fellowship is honoured in her name to assist students engaged in field-based art historical research, which may include comparative study through collections as well as field activities, focusing on the art of the indigenous peoples of Africa and/or North America.

She is survived by her husband, Larry Landa, and son, Robert Landa.

Vogt, Gordon, 1947-1985

  • Person

Gordon [A.] Vogt was born on 17 September 1947 and educated at Queen's University where he received an M.A. in English in 1973. Vogt became intrested in theatre while at Queen's and remained active in local theatre in Kingston upon his graduation. In 1977, he began work as a freelance journalist for CBC radio and later became a theatre critic for the CBC arts program "Stereo Morning". Vogt subsequently sang as a vocalist with the Rainbow Gardens Jazz Orchestra. He died on 10 July 1985. Throughout his life, he remained interested in the life and work of Bing Crosby and was an avid collector of Crosby memorabilia.

Voaden, Herman Arthur, 1903-1991

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/47566252
  • Person
  • 1903-1991

Herman Arthur Voaden (1903-1991) was a teacher, playwright, director, editor, and arts activist. Herman Voaden was born in London, Ontario in 1903. He graduated from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, with a B.A. (Honours) in 1923 and an M.A. in 1926. He also later pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Chicago and at Yale University. Voaden taught high school in Ottawa, Windsor, and Sarnia. Then, in 1928, he became head of the Department of English at the Toronto Central High School of Commerce. He remained in this position until his retirement in 1964. Voaden also served as Director of the Modern Drama Course at the University of Toronto in 1929 and as the Director of the Summer Course Drama and Play Production at Queen's University from 1934 to 1936. During the 1920's and 1930's, Voaden was recognized as an innovative playwright, director and editor. In 1934, he established the Play Workshop, the leading Canadian experimental theatre company of the 1930's. He also wrote seven major plays: Rocks, Earth Song, Hill-Land, Murder Pattern, Ascend As the Sun, Emily Carr and Marie Chapdelaine. Further, Voaden edited a dozen play anthologies and studies, beginning in 1930 with Six Canadian Plays. In addition to play writing and producing, he held several key administrative positions in Canadian arts organizations. He served as the first President of the Canadian Arts Council, 1945-1948; as a member of the Canadian Delegation to the First General Assembly of UNESCO in Paris, 1946; as the National Director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, 1966-1968; and as the President of the Canadian Guild of Crafts, 1968-1970. He also ran on behalf of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in three federal elections and one by-election from 1945 to 1954. For his contribution to Canadian theatre and culture, Voaden received numerous honors: the English Centennial Award in 1965; the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 1977; an Honorary Life Membership in the Association for Canadian Theatre History in 1980; the Theatre Ontario Maggie Bassett Award in 1987; and a Diplome d'honneur from the Canadian Conference of the Arts in 1989. Further, Voaden was made a Fellow in the Royal Society of Arts in 1970 and a Member of the Order of Canada in 1974. He also received an honorary doctorate from Saint Mary's University, Halifax, in 1988. Herman Voaden was married to Violet Kilpatrick from 1935 until her death in 1984. Herman Voaden died in Toronto in 1991.

Vinnick, Suzie

  • http://viaf.org/105514579
  • Person
  • 1976-

"Suzie Vinnick is a Canadian roots and blues singer-songwriter. She performs as a solo artist and contributes to variety of band projects, including The Marigolds (with Gwen Swick and Caitlin Hanford), Vinnick Sheppard Harte (with Kim Sheppard and Elana Harte), Betty and the Bobs and as a duo with Rick Fines. Originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Vinnick is currently based in Toronto, Ontario. Her music has appeared in commercials for Tim Hortons, Interac, Ontario Foodland, Tetley's Tea and Shoppers Drug Mart, as well as the soundtracks for MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives, ReGenesis and the film A Touch of Grey." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzie_Vinnick

Vinci, Ernesto, 1898-1983

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/212931860
  • Person
  • 1898-1983

Ernesto Vinci (1898-1983), teacher and singer, was born in Gnesen, Prussia (now a part of Poland) as Ernst Wreszynski. Raised as a Reform Jew by father Adolf Wreszynski and mother, Anna Kalinski, he used the surname Wygram professionally during his time in Germany and in Milan, Italy. The evidence is that the surname Vinci was adopted as a professional name in Italy and was used to distinguish his singing persona from his medical career in North America. It is doubtful that he used the names Vinci or Wygram to disguise a Jewish background, since all early correspondence and documents, including immigration records, bear his given name. However, his son was unaware of his Jewish heritage until 1999. Vinci was educated in Berlin (medical degree, 1924) and in Milan (second medical degree, 1933). He began voice training as a medical student and by 1936 was employed as a professional baritone in Italy and Switzerland. In 1939 he emigrated to Canada and took a position with the Halifax Ladies College and Conservatory of Music. In 1945 he joined the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, and the Royal Conservatory of Music, later adding the Banff School of Fine Arts to his teaching schedule. In his capacity as a voice teacher, Vinci trained some of the best-known singers in Canadian opera (Portia White, Joan Maxwell, Andrew MacMillan, Patricia Rideout). He introduced opera to Alberta and Nova Scotia and he was responsible for programming opera for servicemen during World War II. He retired from the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory in 1979 and moved to Shediac, New Brunswick. He died in Moncton in November, 1983.

Vesely, Tim

  • http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7804424
  • Person
  • 1963-

“Tim Vesely is a Canadian musician and songwriter. He is best known as a founding member of the indie rock band Rheostatics, in which he shared vocal duties with bandmates Dave Bidini and Martin Tielli.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Vesely

Vernay, Douglas V. (Douglas Vernon)

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/109499411
  • Person
  • 1924-2019

Douglas V. Verney was born in Liverpool, England in 1924. He obtained his B.A. in 1948, his M.A. in 1949 at Oxon and subsequently graduated from the University of Liverpool with a Ph.D. in 1954. He was a professor at Atkinson College, York University from 1961. Professor Verney began his academic career as a lecturer in Helsinki, Finland in 1948. The following year he was an assistant lecturer at the university of Liver pool and subsequently became a full lecturer from 1951 to 1961. In 1961 he became an Associate Professor and was also acting Dean at Atkinson College, York University. He became a Full Professor and, in 1962, Chairman of the department of Political Science at York University, a position he held until 1967. Professor Verney has published numerous articles and conference papers, as well as six books: 'Parliamentary reform in Sweden 1866-1921'(1957), 'Public enterprise in Sweden' (1959), 'The analysis of political systems' (1959), 'Political patterns in today's world' (1968), 'British government and politics: life without a declaration of independence' (1976), 'Three civilizations, two cultures, one state: Canada's political traditions' (1986).

Verch, April

  • http://viaf.org/34140672
  • Person
  • 1978-

April Verch, born 7 April 1978 in the Ottawa Vallery in northeastern Ontario, "with two decades leading her own band and with 14 albums in her name [two nominated for JUNO awards]", she is "best known for her deep expertise in the distinctive Ottawa Valley fiddle and step dancing styles. [.. She also performs] regional Canadian roots, American old-time, 50’s country, and Scandinavian folk music [...]. Verch got her first taste of career musicianship touring with established acts like Canadian country music legend Tommy Hunter and Celtic pop band Mad Pudding as a backing fiddler. But her dream was always to form her own band, representing the Ottawa Valley and the sounds of home. In 2000, she first began touring under her own name, the April Verch Band."  http://aprilverch.com/about-april/

Vera, Yvonne

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/87213590
  • Person
  • 1964-2005

Yvonne Vera (1964-2005) was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. A prominent African writer of English fiction, Vera published five novels and a collection of short stories during her short career. Her award-winning works have been translated into several languages. Vera graduated from Hillside Teacher's College in 1984, and taught English literature at Njube High School. In 1987, she immigrated to Canada and married John Jose, a Canadian teacher whom she had met while he was teaching at Njube.

Vera attended York University in Toronto, Canada, completing an Hons. BA (English) in 1990, an MA (English) in 1991, and a PhD (English) in 1995. While working on her PhD she taught literature courses at York and a summer creative writing course at Trent University in 1995. Vera’s career as a fiction writer began in earnest while she was still a student at York: she wrote a collection of short stories, entitled “Why Don't You Carve Other Animals?”, as well as the novels “Nehanda” (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize), “Without a Name” and “Under the Tongue.” Her novel “Butterfly Burning” was awarded the German Literature Prize and chosen as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, both in 2002. “The Stone Virgins” was published in 2002, and was awarded the MacMillan Writers' Prize for Africa. She also edited “Opening Spaces: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing by African Women.” Vera was a keynote speaker and participant at numerous national and international literary festivals.

In the late 1980s Vera was diagnosed HIV­-positive, but did not disclose this publicly during her lifetime. Jose and Vera separated in 1995, and she moved back to Zimbabwe. In 1997, Vera became director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. She returned to Canada in 2004, accompanied by Jose, to seek treatment for her worsening condition. She continued to work on her novel “Obedience” during this time, and was awarded the Swedish PEN Tucholsky Prize in 2004. Vera passed away at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto on April 7, 2005.

Ericah Gwetai published her daughter's biography, “Petal Thoughts,” in 2008 with Mambo Press in Zimbabwe. “Obedience,” the novel Yvonne Vera was working on at the time of her death, remains unpublished.

Venn, John

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/88054980
  • Person
  • 4 August 1834 - 4 April 1923

(from Wikipedia entry)

John Venn FRS (4 August 1834 - 4 April 1923), was a British logician and philosopher. He is famous for introducing the Venn diagram, which is used in many fields, including set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science. John Venn was born on 4 August 1834 in Kingston Upon Hull, Yorkshire to Martha Sykes and Rev. Henry Venn, who was the rector of parish of Drypool. His mother died when he was three years old. Venn descended from a long line of church evangelicals, including his grandfather John Venn. He would follow his family lineage and become an Anglican priest, ordained in 1859, serving first at the church in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and later in Mortlake, Surrey.

He was educated by private tutors until 1853 where he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1857, he got his degree in mathematics and became a fellow. In 1862, he returned to Cambridge University as a lecturer in moral science, studying and teaching logic and probability theory.

In 1868, he married Susanna Carnegie Edmonstone with whom he had one son, John Archibald Venn.

In 1883, he resigned from the clergy having concluded that Anglicanism was incompatible with his philosophical beliefs. In the same year, Venn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in the same year was awarded a Sc.D. by Cambridge.

He died on 4 April 1923. His death is unspecified.

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Venn .

Vaughan, Rev. Bernard

  • https://viaf.org/viaf/8280751/
  • Person
  • 1847-1922

(from Wikipedia entry)

Bernard Vaughan (1847-1922) was an English Roman Catholic clergyman, brother of Herbert and John Stephen Vaughan. He was born at Herefordshire. He was educated at Stonyhurst, and became a member of the Society of Jesus. His uncle was also a Jesuit, Richard Vaughan SJ, who went on design Sacred Heart Church in Edinburgh.

Author of "The Sins of Society" (1906),"Society, Sin, and the Saviour" (1907),"Socialism" (1910),"The Our Father, Our Country's Need Today"(1911),"Socialism from the Christian Standpoint" (1913), and "What of Today?" (1914).

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Vaughan

Vassanji, M.G.

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/96951910
  • Person
  • 1950-

Moyez G. Vassanji (1950- ), author and nuclear physicist, was born in Nairobi, Kenya and raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He began his studies at the University of Nairobi but left in 1970 to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Vassanji later completed a Ph.D. in nuclear physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He immigrated to Canada in 1978 to work at the Chalk River atomic power station in Ontario. Vassanji moved to Toronto in 1980 to work at the University of Toronto as a research associate and lecturer, and soon began writing fiction. He edited "A Meeting of Streams : South Asian Canadian Literature" in 1985. His first novel, "The Gunny Sack," was published in 1989, and was awarded the 1990 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best first novel (Africa). That year, he and his wife, Nurjehan Aziz, founded "The Toronto South Asian Review," a journal devoted to South Asian Canadian writers. It was renamed "The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad" in 1993 to reflect the wider community of immigrant writers in Canada. Vassanji gave up his work as a nuclear physicist in 1989 to turn his full attention to writing. He is the author of several novels: "No New Land" (1990), "The Book of Secrets" (1993), "Amriika" (2000), "The In-between World of Vikram Lall" (2003), "The Assassin's Song" (2007), "The Magic of Saida" (2012), “Nostalgia” (2016), “A Delhi Obsession” (2019), and “Everything There Is" (2023). He is also the author of three collections of short stories - "Uhuru Street" (1990), "When She Was Queen" (2005), and “What We Are” (2021) - as well as two memoirs, "A Place Within: Rediscovering India" (2008), “And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa” (2014), and a biography of Mordecai Richler published by Penguin Canada in 2009 as part of its Exceptional Canadians Series. He is the first repeat winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, winning in its inaugural year for "The Book of Secrets" and later for "The In-between World of Vikram Lall," and was shortlisted for the prize for "The Assassin's Song." Vassanji was made a Member of the Order of Canada in October 2004 for his contributions to writing and the arts, and an honorary Doctor of Letters by York University in June 2005. "The In-between World of M.G. Vassanji," a television documentary about his life, was first broadcast in 2006.

Vanier College (Toronto, Ont.)

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/137164987
  • Corporate body
  • 1966-

Vanier College was established in 1966-1967 as a residential and teaching College. Like the other colleges on campus it is affiliated with a Faculty, in Vanier 's case, the Faculty of Arts, specifically the Humanities Division which is housed there, along with the departments/programmes of Classics, Creative Writing, Religious Studies and Social and Political Thought.
Vanier is headed by a Master with the legislative College Council, Fellows, the Senior Tutor and Residence Dons. The College is home to the 'Vandoo ' [student newspaper], the literary publication, 'Existere', the Vanier College Productions, the Open End pub, and houses several departmental student associations (Psychology, Classics, Education, etc.).

Vanier College. Residence Council

  • Corporate body

The Residence Council is the main advisory body to the Master on matters concerning the Vanier residences. It has the power to make rules for the effective operation of the residences, subject to the approval of the Master. The Council is composed of eleven students elected to represent each of the floors in residence, along with five representatives chosen by the Council of Dons and Assistant Dons, the Residence Tutor and an ex-officio recording secretary.

Vanier College Council

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/123113692
  • Corporate body

The College Council, highest legislative body in the College, is made up of students and Fellows elected by their peers. The Council is an advisory body to the Master, with responsibility for an annual budget that is made up of student levies and grants from the College budget. It has responsibility to regulate the common rooms of the College and the games room. The College Council has oversight of the College pub (the 'Open End' ), social activities, the College literary publication ('Existere' ), the College newspaper ('Vandoo '), and inter-college athletics. The Council has an executive of a Chair, treasurer, and secretary, as well as committees nominated by the Council.

Vanderhorst, Jan

  • Person

“Jan Vanderhorst is the host of "Just Us Folk", a show devoted to acoustic roots music including contemporary and traditional folk, singer-songwriters, acoustic blues and bluegrass music. Jan showcases new and established performers in the world of folk music. Throughout the year Jan travels to folk festivals near and far to interview performers and discuss their craft. Jan has been a stage MC at many festivals and a judge for both the Canadian Folk Music Awards and the Junos Awards. Jan has also served on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals. Just Us Folk has been on the air in Brantford since 1981, currently on AM 1380. Just Us Folk also airs on 100.7 The Breeze in Winnipeg.” https://www.folkmusicontario.ca/membership/member-profile/jan-vanderhorst/

van Hove, Fred

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/33683823
  • Person
  • 1937-2022

van Eeden, Martha

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/51216608
  • Person
  • 18 February 1857-10 June 1943

Born 18 February 1856 in Deventer, Netherlands., Martha van Vloten was the daughter of polymath, theologian, scientist, philosopher and free thinker Johannes von Vloten (18 January 1818 - 21 September 1883) and his wife Elisabeth van Gennep.
She had two sisters Betsy and Kitty. and four brothers: William, Frank, Odo and Gerlof.
Betsy married painter Willem Witsen and later ethnomusiologist Johann Sebastian Brandts Buys. Kitty married the poet Albert Verwey.
The Van Vloten daughers were brought up in a free thinking household where women's education was encouraged. All three daughters attended the School for Girls in Haarlem.
Martha was a translator of Hans Christian Andersen's work.
She married the psychiatrist and utopian Frederick van Eeden on 15 April 1886. Together they had two sons, Hans and Paul.
The couple divorced 29 July 1907.
Martha Van Vloten died 10 June 1943.

For more information, see: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_van_Vloten and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_van_Eeden_(schrijver).

van Eeden, Geertruida

  • Person
  • 1873-1952

Gerertuida Woutrina Everts (Truida) was a classical singer who went to live on the utopian colony Walden in 1900.
She began a relationship with the colony's founder psychiatrist Dr. Frederick Van Eeden in 1901 but the couple did not marry until 21 August 1907, after he had divorced his first wife Martha Van Volten. The couple had a son Hugo in 1909 and another son Evert in 1910. Truida died in 1952.

van Eeden, Dr. Frederik Willem

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_van_Eeden
  • Person
  • 3 April 1860- 16 June 1932

(from Wikipedia entry)

Frederik Willem van Eeden (3 April 1860, Haarlem – 16 June 1932, Bussum) was a late 19th-century and early 20th-century Dutch writer and psychiatrist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, and had top billing among the editors of De Nieuwe Gids (The New Guide) during its celebrated first few years of publication, starting in 1885. Van Eeden was the son of the director of the Royal Tropical Institute in Haarlem. In 1880 he studied English at Leiden University where he pursued a bohemian lifestyle and wrote poetry. Whilst living in the city, he coined the term Lucid dream in the sense of mental clarity, a term that nowadays is a classic term in Dream literature and study. In his early writings, he was strongly influenced by Hindu ideas of selfhood, by Boehme's mysticism, and by Fechner's panpsychism.

He went on to become a prolific writer, producing many critically acclaimed novels, poetry, plays, and essays. He was widely admired in the Netherlands in his own time for his writings, as well as his status as the first internationally prominent Dutch psychiatrist.

Van Eeden's psychiatrist practice included treating his fellow Tachtiger Willem Kloos as a patient starting in 1888. His treatment of Kloos was of limited benefit, as Kloos deteriorated into alcoholism and increasing symptoms of mental illness. Van Eeden also incorporated his psychiatric insights into his later writings, such as in a deeply psychological novel called "Van de koele meren des doods" (translated in English as "The Deeps of Deliverance"). Published in 1900, the novel intimately traced the struggle of a woman addicted to morphine as she deteriorated physically and mentally.

His best known written work, "De Kleine Johannes" ("Little Johannes"), which first appeared in the premiere issue of De Nieuwe Gids, was a fantastical adventure of an everyman who grows up to face the harsh realities of the world around him and the emptiness of hopes for a better afterlife, but ultimately finding meaning in serving the good of those around him. This ethic is memorialized in the line "Waar de mensheid is, en haar weedom, daar is mijn weg." ("Where mankind is, and her woe, there is my path.")

Van Eeden sought not only to write about, but also to practice, such an ethic. He established a commune named Walden, taking inspiration from Thoreau's book Walden, in Bussum, North Holland, where the residents tried to produce as much of their needs as they could themselves and to share everything in common, and where he took up a standard of living far below what he was used to. This reflected a trend toward socialism among the Tachtigers; another Tachtiger, Herman Gorter, was a founding member of the world's first Communist political party, the Dutch Social-Democratic Party, in 1909.

Van Eeden visited the U.S. He had contacts with William James and other psychologists. He met Freud in Vienna, whom he practically introduced in the Netherlands. He corresponded with Hermann Hesse and was a friend of the in London (UK) living Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin.

Van Eeden also had a keen interest in Indian philosophy. He translated Tagore’s Gitanjali.

In late years of his life, Van Eeden became a Roman Catholic.

Victoria Welby in a letter to Prof. Patrick Geddes describes him as "A poet, a scholar, a philosopher, a psychologist: but above all a practical socialist, in a good, even if in somewhat utopian sense. He has turned his Dutch estate into a Labour Colony...His new book is to be called "Happy Humanity", and I said that it was a mean word."

For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_van_Eeden .

Valdy

  • http://viaf.org/262150010
  • Person
  • 1945-

"Paul Valdemar Horsdal, CM (born 1 September 1945[1]), commonly known as Valdy, is a Canadian folk and country musician whose solo career began in the early 1970s. He is known for "Rock and Roll Song", his first mainstream single. Valdy is the winner of two Juno Awards for Folk Singer of the Year and Folk Entertainer of the Year, and has received seven additional Juno nominations. His fourteen albums, including four which are certified gold, have achieved sales of nearly half a million copies." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdy

Vaitiekunas, Vincent

  • Person
  • -2006

Vincent Vaitiekunas(-2006) is a film maker and professor. Born in Lithuania, he studied architecture and opera in Germany after World War II. He immigrated to Canada in 1947, studied at the Ontario College of Art and graduated from Sterndale Bennett's Canadian Theatre School in 1953. In the following years he designed stage sets for theatre companies in Toronto and under the stage name of Vincent Edward he acted in Canadian and British feature films. In 1956, Vaitiekunas became an award-winning professional filmmaker including stints as a film director, editor, screenwriter and producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto, Crawley Films in Ottawa and Toronto, National Film Board in Montreal and Toronto and many other independent Canadian and American film production companies. He has garnered many awards for his work including Silver and Bronze medals at the New York International Film Festival, the Certificate of Merit at Filmex, Etrogs at Canadian Film Awards, and the Diploma of Merit at the Edinburgh International Film Festival ("Explore Expo 67", 1967) He was also chosen to represent Canada's best documentary work in the Salute to Documentary retrospective in Montreal with his film, "Strike". He was appointed a Resident Artist in Film at Simon Fraser University from 1972-1974 and in 1974 he became an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Video, York University. In 1982, Vaitiekunas received the OCUFA Teaching Award given by the Ontario Council of University Faculty Associations. He retired in 1993 but continued teaching part-time until 1999 and has been was named Professor Emeritus of the Department of Film and Video at York.

Vailati, Giovanni

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/7468169
  • Person
  • 24 April 1863 - 14 May 1909

(from Wikipedia entry)

Giovanni Vailati (24 April 1863 - 14 May 1909) was an Italian proto-analytic philosopher,historian of science, and mathematician. Vailati was born in Crema, Lombardy, and studied engineering at the University of Turin. He went on to lecture in the history of mechanics there from 1896 to 1899, after working as assistant to Giuseppe Peano and Vito Volterra. He resigned his university post in 1899 so that he could pursue his independent studies, making a living from high-school mathematics teaching. During his lifetime he became internationally known, his writings having been translated into English, French, and Polish, though he was largely forgotten after his death in Rome. He was rediscovered in the late 1950s. He did not publish any complete books, but left about 200 essays and reviews across a range of academic disciplines. Vailati's view of philosophy was that it provided a preparation and the tools for scientific work. For that reason, and because philosophy should be neutral between rival beliefs, conceptions, theoretical structures, etc., the philosopher should avoid the use of special technical language, but should use the language that she finds used in those areas in which she is interested. That is not to say that the philosopher should merely accept whatever she finds; an ordinary-language term may be problematic, but its deficiencies should be corrected rather than replacing it with some new technical term.

His view of truth and meaning was influenced by philosophers such as C.S. Peirce and Ernst Mach. He carefully distinguished between meaning and truth: "the question of determining what we mean when we propound a given proposition is entirely different from the question of deciding whether it is true or false. Nevertheless, having decided what is meant, the work of deciding whether it is true or false is crucial. Vailati held a moderate positivist view, in both science and philosophy:

"it must be demanded of anybody who advances a thesis that he be capable of indicating the facts which according to him should obtain (or have obtained) if his thesis were true, and also their difference from other facts which according to him would obtain (or have obtained) if it were not true"

Vailati's influences and contacts were many and varied, belying the oversimple label often attached to him: "the Italian pragmatist". While owing much to Peirce and William James (between whose thought he was one of the first to distinguish), he also acknowledged the influence of Plato and George Berkeley (both of whom he saw as important precursors of, or influences on, pragmatism), Gottfried Leibniz, Victoria Welby-Gregory G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Peano, and Franz Brentano. He corresponded with many of his contemporaries.

His early work included papers on symbolic logic, focusing on its rôle in philosophy, and distinguishing between logic and psychology and epistemology. Vailata's main historical interests concerned mechanics, logic, and geometry, and he was an important contributor to a number of areas, including the study of post-Aristotelian Greek mechanics, of Galileo's predecessors, of the notion and rôle of definition in the work of Plato and Euclid, of mathematical influences on logic and epistemology, and of the non-Euclidean geometry of Gerolamo Saccheri. He was particularly interested in the ways in which what might be seen as the same problems are addressed and dealt with at different times.

His historical work was interrelated with his philosophical work, involving the same fundamental views and methodology. Vailati saw the two as differing in approach rather than subject matter, and believed that there should be co-operation between philosophers and scientists in the pursuit of historical studies. He also held that a complete history demanded that one take into account the relevant social background.

The superseding of scientific theories and other results doesn't involve their destruction, for their importance is increased by their being superseded: "Every error shows us a rock to be avoided, while not every discovery shows us a path to be followed.

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Vailati .

Upward, Allen E.

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/79298680
  • Person
  • 1863 - 12 November 1926

(from Wikipedia entry)

Allen Upward (1863 - 12 November 1926) was a poet, lawyer, politician and teacher. His work was included in the first anthology of Imagist poetry, Des Imagistes, which was edited by Ezra Pound and published in 1914.

Upward was brought up as a member of the Plymouth Brethren and trained as a lawyer at the Royal University of Dublin (now University College Dublin). While living in Dublin, he wrote a pamphlet in favour of Irish Home Rule.

Upward later worked for the British Foreign Office in Kenya as a judge. Back in Britain, he defended Havelock Wilson and other labour leaders and ran for election as a Lib/Lab candidate in the 1890s.

He wrote two books of poetry, Songs of Ziklag (1888) and Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar. He also published a translation Sayings of Confucious and a volume of autobiography, Some Personalities (1921).

Upward wrote a number of now-forgotten novels: The Prince of Balkistan (1895), A Crown of Straw (1896), A Bride's Madness (1897), The Accused Princess (1900) (source: Duncan, p. xii), "''The International Spy: Being a Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War" (1905), and Athelstane Ford.

His 1913 book "The Divine Mystery" is an anthropological study of Christian mythology.

In 1908, Upward self-published a book (originally written in 1901) which he apparently thought would be Nobel Prize material: The New Word. This book is today known as the first citation of the word "Scientology", although it is used in the book in a disparaging way to describe "science elevated to unquestioning doctrine". It is unknown whether L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Scientology-organization, knew of this book.

In 1917 the British Museum refused to take Upwards' manuscripts, "on the grounds that the writer was still alive," and Upward burned them.

He shot himself in November 1926. Ezra Pound would a decade later satirically remark that this was due to his disappointment after hearing of George Bernard Shaw's Nobel Prize award which Shaw won in 1925.

For more information, see Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Upward .

Uppal, Priscila

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/85959547
  • Person
  • 1976-2018

Priscila Uppal was born in Ottawa in 1974. She is a poet, novelist and Professor of Creative Writing at York University. She completed a double honours B.A. in English and Creative Writing and a Ph.D in English Literature at York University in 1997 and 2002, respectively, and an M.A. in English from the University of Toronto in 1998. She has published nine collections of poetry including 'Ontological Necessities' (2006), 'Traumatology' (2010) and 'Successful Tragedies: Poems 1998-2010' (2010). Her work has appeared in national and international magazines. Her first novel 'The Divine Economy of Salvation' and the anthology 'Uncommon Ground : A Celebration of Matt Cohen' which she co-edited with Graeme Gibson, Dennis Lee and Wayne Grady, were both published in 2002. Uppal's second novel 'To Whom it May Concern' was published in 2009. She is also the editor of 'The Exile Book of Poetry in Translation: Twenty Canadian Poets Take on the World' (2009), 'The Exile Book of Canadian Sports Stories' (2010), and The Best Canadian Poetry in English' (2011). Her works have been published internationally.

University Women's Club of North York

  • Corporate body
  • 1951-

The University Women's Club of North York received its charter as the first suburban club and 70th member of the Canadian Federation of University Women in October 1951. The impetus for the establishment of this club came from Grace Morgan in conversation with some of her apartment building neighbours. These initial discussions led to an organizational meeting attended by Morgan and nine others at her home on October 18. The inaugural meeting, attended by 20 graduates, was held on October 31 and officers were elected including Margaret Wright as the first President and Morgan as Honourary President. In a short time, membership was up to 53 and this increased to 400 by 1976. The UWCNY offers a variety of opportunities for the intellectual enrichment of its members through general meetings, lectures, study and interest groups in areas such as money management, current events, art appreciation and book studies. Since 1954, through its scholarship fund, the club provides bursaries and awards to local area female students attending post-secondary institutions.

United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/153153778
  • Corporate body
  • 1936-

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America was established in 1936, with the first Canadian local in Toronto created the following year. The union, long considered on the left-wing of Canadian labour unions, was dismissed from the Canadian Congress of Labour in 1949 for suspected Communist ties and it was not until 1973 that the union was re-admitted to the Canadian Labour Congress. The UE had forty-seven locals in Canada (1993) including locals in Toronto, Guelph, Peterborough and Montreal. In that year decreasing membership lead to an affiliation with the Canadian Auto Workers.

Union Duke

  • http://viaf.org/2165624831242241103
  • Corporate body

“Union Duke is two fifths country, two fifths city, and one fifth whiskey. They have been described as a raucous collision of alt-rock and twang, bringing crowds to their feet with songs from the heart. Soaring harmonies, driving rhythm, and an infectious enthusiasm have seen these five guys from youth to young manhood and helped carve out a space for themselves in the annals of Canadiana.”

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