whiskey or whisky Any of several distilled liquors made from a fer¬ mented mash of cereal grains. Whiskeys are distinctive because of differ¬ ences in raw materials and production methods. All are aged in wooden containers. The earliest direct account of whiskey making is found in Scottish records from 1494. Scotch whisky (this spelling is also used by Canadians) is usually somewhat light in body, with a distinctive smoky malt flavour; it is made primarily from malted barley that has been heated over a peat fire, fermented, distilled, and blended with similar whiskies made by different distillers. Irish whiskeys, lighter-bodied and lacking any smoky flavor, are not malt-fired and may be mixed with neutral grain spirits. Canadian whisky, light in colour and flavour, is a blend of highly flavoured and neutral grain whiskies. In the U.S., the largest producer and consumer of whiskey, both straight (at least 51% single-mash) and blended whiskeys are produced, derived from both sour and sweet mashes. (Sour mashes are fermented with both fresh and previously fer¬ mented yeast; sweet mashes employ only fresh yeast.) Bourbon, first pro¬ duced in Bourbon Co., Ky., is a full-bodied unblended whiskey derived from a sour mash of corn grain. Whiskeys are consumed both unmixed and in cocktails, punches, and other beverages.
Whiskey Rebellion (1794) American uprising to protest a federal liquor tax. Farmers in western Pennsylvania rebelled against paying a tax on their locally distilled whiskey and attacked federal revenue collectors. After 500 armed men burned the home of the regional tax inspector, Pres. George Washington ordered 13,000 federal troops to the area. The rebel¬ lion quickly dissolved without further violence. The event established the authority of federal law within the states and strengthened support for the Federalists’ advocacy of a strong central government.
Whiskey Ring (1875) Group of U.S. whiskey distillers who defrauded the government of taxes. The ring operated mainly in St. Louis, Milwau¬ kee, and Chicago and kept liquor taxes after bribing Internal Revenue officials in Washington, D.C. A secret investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department resulted in 238 indictments and 110 convictions. While not involved, Pres. Ulysses S. Grant was tarnished by the scandal; his private
secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was indicted but acquitted on Grant’s tes¬ timony. The Republican Party allegedly received some of the illegally held tax money.
whist 1 Card game. It belongs to a family that includes bridge whist and bridge, each of which developed in succession from the original game of whist. The essential features of card games in the whist family are: four people usually play, two against two as partners; a full 52-card deck is dealt out evenly so that each player holds 13 cards; the object of play is to win tricks, and win or loss is determined by the number of tricks taken (as dis¬ tinct from games such as pinochle, in which it is determined by the value of card points taken in tricks). Whist originated in 17th-century England.
whistler See goldeneye
Whistler, James (Abbott) McNeill (b. July 14, 1834, Lowell, Mass., U.S.—d. July 17, 1903, London, Eng.) U.S.-born British painter, etcher, and lithographer. He attended West Point but soon abandoned the army for art. In 1855 he arrived in Paris to study painting and adopted a bohemian lifestyle. In 1863 he moved to London, where he had consid¬ erable success, becoming widely famous for his wit and large public pres¬ ence. During the 1860s and ’70s he began to use musical terms in the titles of his paintings, such as Symphony and Harmony, reflecting his belief in the “correspondences” between the arts. During this period he started to paint his “nocturnes”—scenes of London, especially of Chelsea, that have poetic intensity. For them he evolved a special technique by which paint, in a very liquid state he called a sauce, was stroked onto the canvas in fast sweeps of the brush, somewhat in the manner of Japanese calligraphy (he was an outspoken advocate of Japanese arts). From the 1870s onward he was preoccupied by the problems of portrait painting, creating a number of masterpieces, including Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: The Artist’s Mother (1871-72), known as Whistler’s Mother. These paintings underline his aestheticism, his liking for simple forms and muted tones, and his dependence on the 17th-century Spanish painter Diego VelAzquez. In 1877 he brought a libel suit against John Ruskin for attacking his Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875); he won his case but received damages of only a farthing, and the costs of the suit temporarily bankrupted him. Considered one of the leading paint¬ ers of his day, after his death his reputation declined. Only in the later 20th century did Whistler begin to receive serious acclaim once again.
whistling swan Species ( Cygnus columbianus) of North American swan that calls with a soft, musical note. It has a black bill, usually with a small yellow spot near the eye. It breeds in the Arctic tundra and win¬ ters in shallow fresh or salt water, especially along eastern and western U.S. coasts.
Whitby, Synod of Meeting of the Christian church of the Anglo- Saxon kingdom of Northumbria in 664 or, possibly, 663, to decide whether to follow Celtic or Roman usages, which had been reintroduced to southern England by St. Augustine of Canterbury in 597. Though Northumbria had been mainly converted by Celtic missionaries, the king decided for Rome, believing that Rome followed the teaching of St. Peter, holder of the keys to heaven. The decision contributed to the unification of the English church and brought it into close contact with the rest of Europe.
White, Byron R(aymond) (b. June 8, 1917, Fort Collins, Colo., U.S.—d. April 15, 2002, Denver, Colo.) U.S. jurist. An accomplished ath¬ lete, he played football with the Pittsburgh Pirates (now Steelers) and the Detroit Lions. He attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar before studying law at Yale. White clerked for Fred M. Vinson and later practiced corporate law in Colorado. In 1961 he was named deputy U.S. attorney general by Pres. John F. Kennedy, and the following year he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. His opinions and votes on the court were generally moderate to conservative. He retired in 1993.
White, E(lwyn) B(rooks) (b. July 11, 1899, Mount Vernon, N.Y., U.S.—d. Oct. 1, 1985, North Brooklin, Maine) U.S. essayist and literary stylist. White attended Cornell University and in 1927 joined The New Yorker, he would contribute to it and later to Harper’s magazine over several decades. He collaborated with James Thurber on Is Sex Necessary? (1929). His novels Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte’s Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970) are classics of children’s literature. White’s revision of The Elements of Style (1959) by his professor William Strunk became a standard style manual for writers. He received a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 1978.
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White ► White House I 2053
White, James (Springer) and Ellen (Gould) orig. Ellen Gould Harmon (respectively b. April 8, 1821, Palmyra, Me., U.S.—d. June 8, 1881, Battle Creek, Mich.; b. Nov. 26, 1827, Gorham, Me.—d. July 16, 1915, St. Helena, Cal.) Cofounders of the Seventh-Day Adventists. James was a schoolteacher and then a minister who accepted the Adventist views of William Miller (1782-1849). He married Ellen Harmon in 1846; she had become a Millerite in 1840, at 13. A visionary, Ellen had more than 2,000 visions before she died; these helped guide the Seventh-Day Adven¬ tist Church, which was formed in 1863. They preached together until James’s death. Ellen continued, speaking on many subjects, notably tem¬ perance, and was regarded by some as a prophet. Of her many books, the best known is Steps to Christ.