whiting Species ( Merlangius merlangus ) of common marine food fish of the cod family (Gadidae), found in European waters and especially abundant in the North Sea. It feeds on invertebrates and small fishes. It has three dorsal and two anal fins; a chin barbel (a slender, fleshy feeler), if present, is very small. Whitings grow to less than 30 in. (70 cm) long. They are silvery, with a distinctive black blotch near the base of each pec¬ toral fin. Several species of the family Sciaenidae are also called whiting. See also whitefish.
Whitman, Marcus (b. Sept. 4, 1802, Rushville, N.Y., U.S.—d. Nov. 29, 1847, Waiilatpu, Oregon Territory) U.S. missionary and pioneer. A physician and Congregational missionary, he was sent to the Oregon region after offering his services to the American Board of Commission¬ ers for Foreign Missions. In 1836 he and his wife founded a mission among the Cay use Indians near present-day Walla Walla, Wash. He helped the Indians build houses and a corn-grinding mill, and his wife opened a
White-tailed deer buck (Odocoileus virginianus)
KARLH. MASLOWSKI
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Whitman ► wholesaling I 2055
mission school. In 1842 he traveled east to encourage settlement of the Oregon country. On his return he joined a caravan of 1,000 immigrants to the Columbia River valley. He cared for Indian children in an 1847 measles epidemic, but he was accused of sorcery when many died while white children survived. The Indians attacked the whites and massacred 14, including the Whitmans. Their deaths led Congress to organize the Oregon Territory in 1848.
Whitman, Walt(er) (b. May 31, 1819, West Hills, Long Island, N.Y., U.S.—d. March 26, 1892, Camden,
N.J.) U.S. poet, journalist, and essay¬ ist. Whitman lived in Brooklyn as a boy and left school at age 12. He went on to hold a great variety of jobs, including writing and editing for periodicals. His revolutionary poetry dealt with extremely private experi¬ ences (including sexuality) while cel¬ ebrating the collective experience of an idealized democratic American life. His Leaves of Grass (1st ed.,
1855), revised and much expanded in successive editions that incorporated his subsequent poetry, was too frank and unconventional to win wide acceptance in its day, but it was hailed by figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and exerted a strong influ¬ ence on American and foreign litera¬ ture. Written without rhyme or traditional metre, poems such as “I Sing the Body Electric” and “Song of Myself’ assert the beauty of the human body, physical health, and sexual¬ ity; later editions included “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” and the elegies on Abraham Lincoln “O Captain! My Captain!” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” Whitman served as a volunteer in Washington hospitals during the Civil War. The prose Democratic Vistas (1871) and Specimen Days & Collect (1882-83) drew on his wartime experiences and subsequent reflections. His powerful influence in the 20th century can be seen in the work of poets as diverse as Pablo Neruda, Fernando Pessoa, and Allen Ginsberg.
Whitney, Amos (b. Oct. 8, 1832, Biddeford, Maine, U.S.—d. Aug. 5, 1928, Portland, Maine) U.S. manufacturer. He was apprenticed at age 13. In 1860, with Francis Pratt, he founded the firm of Pratt & Whitney, origi¬ nally to manufacture thread spoolers. It later diversified into the manu¬ facture of innovative designs of guns, cannons, sewing machines, and typesetting machines; instruments for measurement developed there proved of great value to science and industry. Today a separate company, formed from the tool works in 1925, produces aircraft engines and space- propulsion systems as part of the United Technologies Corporation.
Whitney, Eli (b. Dec. 8, 1765, Westboro, Mass., U.S.—d. Jan. 8, 1825, New Haven, Conn.) U.S. inventor, engineer, and manufacturer. He is best remembered as the inventor of the cotton gin (1793), which led to greatly increased production of the short-staple cotton grown in much of the South, making the region prosperous. The most important innovation credited to Whitney may be the concept of mass production of interchange¬ able parts. His idea of manufacturing quantities of identical parts for assembly into muskets, after undertaking in 1797 to supply the U.S. gov¬ ernment with 10,000 muskets in two years, helped inaugurate the vastly important American System of manufacture.
Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt orig. Gertrude Vanderbilt (b.
Jan. 9, 1875, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. April 18, 1942, New York City) U.S. sculptor and art patron. Great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, she was born to great wealth and studied sculpture in New York City and Paris. Among her major works were the Titanic Memorial (1914-31) in Washington, D.C., and Victory Arch (1918-19) in New York. All her works were simple, direct, and traditional. In 1929 she offered to donate her col¬ lection of about 500 works by modern American artists to the Metropolitan Museum of Art but was refused by the traditionalist director. The next year she founded the Whitney Museum of American Art, also in New York City, which opened in 1931; today it is the foremost museum of American art.
Whitney, John Hay (b. Aug. 17, 1904, Ellsworth, Maine, U.S.—d. Feb. 8, 1982, Manhasset, N.Y.) U.S. multimillionaire and sportsman. The
son of Harry Payne Whitney and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, “Jock” Whitney attended Yale University and later the University of Oxford, which he left to manage the family fortune on his father’s death. He became an internationally ranked polo player, his stables produced notable racehorses, he invested in successful films and Broadway plays, and he boasted one of the finest art collections in the U.S. As a combat- intelligence captain in World War II, he was captured in France but escaped; he was later awarded the Legion of Merit. He served as ambas¬ sador to Britain (1956-61). As publisher and (from 1961) editor in chief of the New York Herald Tribune , he tried to revitalize the paper, but it folded in 1966. He founded the John Hay Whitney Foundation in 1946.
Whitney, Mount Peak in the Sierra Nevada, southeast-central Califor¬ nia, U.S. Located in Sequoia National Park, it is 14,494 ft (4,418 m) high, the highest point in the continental U.S. outside of Alaska. It was first climbed in 1873.
Whitney, William C(ollins) (b. July 5, 1841, Conway, Mass., U.S.—d. Feb. 2, 1904, New York, N.Y.) U.S. politician. He practiced law in New York City, where he helped Samuel Tilden overthrow the corrupt political boss William Marcy Tweed; he also served as corporation counsel for the city (1875-82). As U.S. secretary of the navy (1885-89), he rebuilt the neglected fleet with a major shipbuilding program that included the battleship Maine (see destruction of the Maine). He returned to New York, where he became co-owner of the city’s first rapid-transit system.
Whittier, John Greenleaf (b. Dec. 17, 1807, near Haverhill, Mass., U.S.—d. Sept. 7, 1892, Hampton Falls, Mass.) U.S. poet and reformer. A Quaker bom on a farm, Whittier had limited education but was early acquainted with poetry. He became involved in journalism and published his first volume of poems in 1831. During 1833—42 he embraced the abo¬ litionism of William Lloyd Garrison and became a prominent antislavery crusader. Thereafter he continued to support humanitarian causes while publishing further poetry volumes. After the Civil War he was noted for his vivid portrayals of rural New England life. His best-known poem is the nostalgic pastoral “Snow-Bound” (1866); others include “Maud Muller” (1854) and “Barbara Frietchie” (1863).
Whittington, Richard known as Dick Whittington (d. March 1423, London) Lord mayor of London (1397-99, 1406-07, 1419-20). The son of a knight, he earned a vast fortune as a merchant and made loans to Henry IV and Henry V, then entered city politics and served three terms as lord mayor. In legend he is portrayed as an orphan who ventures his only possession, a cat, as an item to be sold on one of his master’s trad¬ ing ships. Ill-treated by the cook, he runs away, but at the edge of the city he hears the bells say, “Turn again, Whittington, lord mayor of great Lon¬ don.” He returns to find that his cat has been sold for a great sum to a Moorish ruler plagued by rats. He becomes a wealthy merchant and later lord mayor.