Brook Farm (Institute of Agriculture and Education) Short¬ lived utopian experiment in communal living (1841—47) in West Roxbury, Mass, (near Boston), founded by George Ripley. The best known of the many utopian communities organized in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, Brook Farm was to combine the thinker and the worker, to guarantee the greatest mental freedom, and to prepare a society of liberal, cultivated persons whose lives would be more wholesome and simpler than they could be amid the pressure of competitive institutions. It is remembered for the distinguished literary figures and intellectual leaders associated with it, including Charles A. Dana, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Horace Greeley, James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Ralph Waldo Emerson (though not all of them were actual members). It was also noted for the modem educational theory of its excellent school. See also Oneida Community.
brook trout or speckled trout Popular freshwater game fish (Salvelinus fontinalis), a variety of char, that is valued for its flavour and its fighting qualities when hooked. The brook trout is a native of the northeastern U.S. and Canada and has been transplanted to many parts of the world. It lives in cold, clean waters and carries dark, wormlike mark¬ ings on the back and red and whitish spots on the body. The brook trout may weigh up to 6 lbs (3 kg). Some individuals migrate to large lakes or the sea and grow much larger and more silvery.
Brooke Raj (1841-1946) Dynasty of British rajas that ruled Sarawak (now a state in Malaysia) for a century. Sir James Brooke (1803-68) served with the British East India Company and fought in the first Anglo- Burmese War (1824-26) before using his family fortune to outfit a schoo¬ ner and sail for the Indies (1838). He was awarded the title of raja of Sarawak by the sultan of Brunei for helping suppress a rebellion. Brooke established a secure government on Sarawak and was succeeded by his
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280 I Brooke ► Browder
nephew. Sir Charles Anthony Johnson Brooke (1829-1917), who had spent much of his life on Sarawak, knew the local language, and respected local beliefs and customs. Under him, social and economic changes were limited. His eldest son, Sir Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke (1874-1963), succeeded him and began a modernization program after World War I. He terminated Brooke rule in 1946, ceding Sarawak to Britain.
Brooke, Rupert (b. Aug. 3, 1887, Rugby, Warwickshire, Eng.—d. April 23, 1915, Skyros, Greece)
English poet. His best-known work, the sonnet sequence 1914 (1915), which includes the popular poem “The Soldier,” expresses an idealism in the face of death that is in strong contrast to later poetry of trench war¬ fare. His death at age 27 in World War I contributed to his idealized image in the interwar period.
Brooklyn Borough (pop., 2000:
2,465,326), New York, New York,
U.S. Separated from Manhattan by the East River, it is bordered to the south by the Atlantic Ocean. Brook¬ lyn is connected to Manhattan by bridges (including the Brooklyn Bridge), a vehicular tunnel, and rapid transit services. The first settlement in the area by Dutch farmers in 1636 was soon followed by other villages, including Breuckelen (1645). The Battle of Long Island was fought in Brooklyn in 1776. It became a bor¬ ough of New York City in 1898. Brooklyn is both residential and indus¬ trial and also handles considerable oceangoing traffic. Among its educational institutions is Pratt Institute. Coney Island is located there.
Brooklyn Bridge Suspension bridge built (1869-83) over the East River to link Brooklyn to Manhattan island. It was designed by the cable manufacturer John A. Roebung and his son Washington. A brilliant feat of 19th-century engineering, the bridge was the first to use steel for cable wire and the first in which explosives were used inside a pneumatic cais¬ son during construction. In 1869 John was killed in one of at least 27 fatal construction accidents; his son saw the project to completion. The bridge’s main span of 1,595 ft (486 m) was the longest in the world to date. It opened to such fanfare that within 24 hours an estimated quarter- million people crossed over it, using an elevated walkway designed to give pedestrians a dramatic view of the city.
Brooks Islands See Midway
Brooks Range Mountain range, northern Alaska, U.S. It extends about 600 mi (1,000 km) from Kotzebue Sound to the Canadian border. Its highest peak is Mount Isto, at 9,060 ft (2,760 m). Forming the northwest¬ ern end of the Rocky Mountains, it lies within Gates of the Arctic National Park. Huge reserves of oil were discovered at Prudhoe Bay, and the range is crossed at Atigun Pass by the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
Brooks, Gwendolyn (Elizabeth) (b. June 7, 1917, Topeka, Kan., U.S.—d. Dec. 3, 2000, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. poet. Reared in the Chicago slums, Brooks published her first poem at age 13. With Annie Allen (1949), a loosely connected series of poems about growing up in Chi¬ cago, she became the first black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize. The Bean Eaters (1960) contains some of her best verse. Among her other books are In the Mecca (1968), the autobiographical Report from Part One (1972), Primer for Blacks (1980), Young Poets’ Primer (1981), and Chil¬ dren Coming Home (1991).
Brooks, James L. (b. May 9, 1940, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. screen¬ writer, director, and producer. He worked in television from 1964. He cocreated and produced the hit Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77) and several other TV programs and series, including The Tracey Ullman Show (1986-90) and The Simpsons (from 1989). As writer, producer, and direc¬ tor of the film Terms of Endearment (1983), he won three Academy Awards; he also wrote, directed, and produced Broadcast News (1987) and As Good As It Gets (1997).
Brooks, Louise (b. Nov. 14, 1906, Cherryvale, Kan., U.S.—d. Aug. 8, 1985, Rochester, N.Y.) U.S. film actress. She danced in Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies (1925) and soon gained a Hollywood contract. Noted for her mag¬
netic screen presence and dark bobbed hair, she personified the 1920s flapper in the silent films A Girl in Every Port (1928) and Beggars of Life (1928). In Germany she gave legendary performances in G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1928) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). Back in Holly¬ wood (1930), however, she was offered only minor roles, and she retired in 1938 with little fame and no fortune. Her films were rediscovered in the 1950s, and her book Lulu in Hollywood (1982) won critical praise.
Brooks, Mel orig. Melvin Kaminsky (b. June 28, 1926, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. director, producer, and actor. He wrote comedy routines for Sid Caesar’s television shows (1949-59) and cocreated the TV series Get Smart (1965). He wrote and directed his first feature film, The Pro¬ ducers (1968, Academy Award for writing), which was later transformed into a hit Broadway musical. He directed, produced, and cowrote (and sometimes acted in) film comedies such as Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), and Spaceballs (1987).
Brooks, Rodney Allen (b. Dec. 30, 1954, Adelaide, S.Aus., Austl.) Australian computer scientist. By the time he finished his doctorate (1981) at Stanford University, Calif., Brooks was disillusioned by the traditional “model-based” approach to artificial intelligence (AI). After moving to the Mobile Robotics Laboratory at MIT in 1984, he built simple robots that could perform “insectlike” actions on the premise that practical learning comes from interacting with the real world. In 1997 Brooks became direc¬ tor of the MIT AI Research Laboratory.
Brooks, Romaine Goddard orig. Beatrice Romaine God¬ dard (b. May 1, 1874, Rome, Italy—d. Dec. 7, 1970, Nice, Fr.) U.S. painter. Born to wealthy American parents, she studied painting in Italy. After a brief marriage, in 1905 she moved to Paris where she established herself in literary, artistic, and homosexual circles. Her reputation reached its height in 1925 with several important exhibitions. Her gray-shaded portraits, touched by occasional colour, distilled their subjects’ person¬ alities to a disturbing degree. The Amazon (c. 1920), Brooks’s portrait of her longtime lover Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), is among her finest works.