Wagner Vvag-norV, Otto (b. July 13, 1841, Penzing, near Vienna, Austrian Empire—d. April 11, 1918, Vienna) Austrian architect and teacher. In 1893 his general plan (not executed) for Vienna won a major competition, and in 1894 he was appointed professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Kiinste. As a teacher, Wagner soon broke with tradition by insisting on function, material, and structure as the bases of architectural design. Among his notable buildings, all in the Art Nouveau style, are a number of stations for the City Railway of Vienna (1894—97) and the Postal Savings Bank (1904-06). The latter, which had little decoration, is recognized as a milestone in the history of modern architecture, par¬ ticularly for the curving glass roof of its central hall. Wagner’s lectures were published in 1895 as Moderne Architektur.
Wagner Vvag-narV, (Wilhelm) Richard (b. May 22, 1813, Leipzig, Ger.—d. Feb. 13, 1883, Venice, Italy) German composer. His childhood was divided between Dresden and Leipzig, where he had his first com¬ position lessons; his teacher refused payment because of his talent. His first opera, The Fairies (1834), was followed by The Ban on Love (1836); the premiere performance was so unprepared that the event was a fiasco, and he henceforth determined not to settle for modest productions. The success of Rienzi (1840) led him to be more adventurous in The Flying Dutchman (1843) and even more so in Tannhauser (1845). Caught up in the political turmoil of 1848, he was forced to flee Dresden for Zurich. During this enforced vacation, he wrote influential essays, asserting (fol¬ lowing G.W.F. Hegel) that music had reached a limit after Ludwig van Beethoven and that the “artwork of the future” would unite music and the¬ atre in a Gesamtkunstwerk (“total artwork”). In 1850 he saw Lohengrin produced. He had begun his most ambitious work. The Ring of the Nibe- lung, a four-opera cycle. The need for large-scale unity brought him to the concept of the leitmotiv. He ceased work on the Ring’s third opera, Siegfried, in the throes of an adulterous love with Mathilde Wesendonk and wrote an opera of forbidden love, Tristan und Isolde (1859), which also seemed to break the bonds of tonality. He published the Ring libret¬ tos in 1863, with a plea for financial support, and Louis II of Bavaria responded, inviting Wagner to complete the work in Munich. From the late 1860s to the early 1880s, Wagner completed work on Die Meisters- inger, Siegfried, Gotterddmmerung, and the long-deferred Parsifal, as he also oversaw the building of the great festival theatre at Bayreuth (1872— 76) that would be dedicated to his operas. His astonishing works made Wagner one of the most influential and consequential figures in the his¬ tory of Western music and, indeed, of Western culture. In the late 20th
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century his undoubted musical stature was challenged somewhat by the strongly racist and anti-Semitic views expressed in his writings, and evi¬ dence of anti-Semitism in his operas was increasingly documented.
Wagner Vwag-norV Robert F(erdinand) (b. June 8, 1877, Nastat- ten, Hesse-Nassau, Ger.—d. May 4, 1953, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. politician. He immigrated with his family to New York City in 1885. He became active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the state legisla¬ ture (1904-19) and as a justice of the state court of appeals (1919-26). In the U.S. Senate (1927—49), he became an ally of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and introduced New Deal labour and social-reform legislation, including the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), the National Labor Relations Act (known as the Wagner Act), and the Social Security Act. He cosponsored the Wagner-Steagall Act (1937), which created the U.S. Housing Authority. His son, Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1910-91), served as mayor of New York (1954-65).
Wagner Act or National Labor Relations Act (1935) Labour legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. Sponsored by Sen. Robert F. Wagner, the act protected workers’ rights to form unions and to bargain collectively. A three-member National Labor Relations Board was estab¬ lished to protect against unfair labour practices; it could order elections to allow workers to choose which union they wanted to represent them. The act also prohibited employers from engaging in unfair labour prac¬ tices such as setting up a company union and firing or otherwise discrimi¬ nating against workers who organized or joined unions. The act, considered the most important piece of labour legislation in the 20th cen¬ tury, helped ensure union support for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 election.
Wagner-Jauregg Vvag-nor-'yau-rekV Julius orig. Julius Wag¬ ner, knight von Jauregg (b. March 7, 1857, Weis, Austria—d. Sept. 27, 1940, Vienna) Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist. Knowing that malaria could be controlled with quinine and having observed that patients with some nervous disorders improved after infections with fever, he induced malaria to treat syphilis patients who had central nervous system disorders. For thus controlling an incurable fatal disease, he was awarded a 1927 Nobel Prize. Though antibiotics replaced this treatment for syphi¬ lis, it led to the development of fever therapy.
wagon Four-wheeled vehicle designed to be drawn by draft animals. Wagons have been used from the 1st century bc; early examples used spoked wheels with metal rims, pivoted front axles, and linchpins to secure the wheels. Ninth-century improvements in suspension made the wagon preferable to the two-wheeled cart, especially for carrying freight and agricultural produce.
Wagram \'va-,gram. Battle of (July 5-6, 1809) Victory by French forces under Napoleon against Austria. In an attempt to break French control of Germany, Austria’s 158,000 troops under Archduke Charles (1771-1847) were deployed along a 14-mi (23-km) front on either side of the village of Wagram, near Vienna. The attack by Napoleon and his 154,000 French troops split the centre of the Austrian line. By the time reinforcements arrived, Charles’s army was in retreat, and four days later he asked for an armistice. Heavy use of artillery (the heaviest in any war to that time) caused more than 40,000 Austrian casualties and about 34,000 French.
wagtail Any of 7-10 passerine species in the genus Motacilla and the forest wagtail ( Dendronanthus indi- cus) of Asia. Wagtails continually pump their long tail up and down; the forest wagtail wags its entire body from side to side. They inhabit beaches, meadows, and streamsides, nesting on the ground and roosting in trees. Males of the white, or pied, wagtail (M. alba), common across Eurasia, are white and gray or white and black. The only New World spe¬ cies, the yellow wagtail (M. flava ), breeds in Alaska and migrates to Asia.
Wahhab \wa-'hab\, Muham¬ mad ibn ( Abd al- (b. 1703, ‘Uyaynah, Arabia—d. 1792,
Gray wagtail (Motacilla cinerea).
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Al-DirTyah) Islamic theologian and founder of the Wahhabi movement. Educated in Medina, he spent several years teaching in Iraq and Iran. He reacted against what he perceived as the extremism of various sects of Sufism, setting out his ideas in the Book of Unity (1736). He stressed a conservative observation of Islam, rejecting polytheism and condemning reverence of saints and the decoration of mosques. His views were con¬ troversial; eventually he settled in Nejd, where, in alliance with Ibn Sa'ud, his teachings found favour and grew dominant.
Wahhabi \wa-‘hab-e\ Member of a Muslim puritan movement founded in the 18th century by Muhammad ibn c Abd al-Wahhab. Members call them¬ selves al-Muwahhidun, a name derived from their emphasis on the abso¬ lute oneness of God. They reject all acts implying polytheism, including the veneration of saints, and advocate a return to the original teachings of Islam as found in the Qu’ran and the HadIth. They supported the estab¬ lishment of a Muslim state based on Islamic canon law. Adopted by the ruling Saudi family in 1744, the movement controlled all of Nejd by the end of the 18th century. It was assured of dominance on the Arabian Pen¬ insula with the creation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and in the 20th century—supported by Saudi wealth—it engaged in widespread missionary work throughout the Islamic world.