Graham, Martha (b. May 11, 1894, Allegheny county, Penn., U.S.—d. April 1, 1991, New York, N.Y.) U.S. dancer, teacher, choreog¬ rapher, and foremost exponent of modern dance. She studied from 1916 with Ted Shawn at the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, then left in 1923 for New York, where she founded her own school in 1927 and a performing company in 1929. She choreographed more than 160 works, creating unique “dance plays” and using a variety of themes to express emotion and conflict. Many are based on American themes, including Appalachian Spring (1944); other works include Primitive Mys¬ teries (1931), El Penitente (1940), Letter to the World (1940), Cave of the Heart (1946), Clytemnestra (1958), Phaedra (1962), and Frescoes (1978). She collaborated for many years with Louis Horst, her musical director,
3 4 5
Some methods of grafting: (1) simple splice graft, showing cut surfaces of stock and scion and the cut surfaces joined and bound, (2) tongued graft, (3) whip graft, (4) cleft graft, (5) side cleft graft.
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and with Isamu Noguchi, who designed many of her sets. She retired from dancing in 1970 but continued to teach and choreograph. Her technique became the first significant alternative to classical ballet, and her influence extended worldwide through her choreography and her students.
Graham, Otto (Everett, Jr.) (b. Dec. 6, 1921, Waukegan, Ill., U.S.—d. Dec. 17, 2003, Sarasota, Fla.) U.S. gridiron football player and coach. He was a star tailback at Northwestern University, but he is best remembered as quarterback of the Cleveland Browns during a 10-year period (1946-55) in which they won 105 games, lost 17, and tied 5 in regular season play and won 7 of 10 championship games. Graham’s career average yardage per pass (8.63) was still an NFL record at the beginning of the 21st century. His coaching career was mainly with the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (1959-66) and the Washington Redskins (1966-68). He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965.
Grahame Ygra-am, ‘gram\, Kenneth (b. March 8, 1859, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. July 6, 1932, Pangboume, Berkshire, Eng.) British writer of children’s books. He worked as a banker in London while contributing articles and stories to journals, these works were in books such as The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898). He is best known for his classic The Wind in the Willows (1908; dramatized by A.A. Milne as Toad of Toad Hall, 1930), whose animal characters—principally Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad—captivatingly combine human traits with authentic animal habits.
Grahn, Lucile orig. Lucina Alexia Grahn (b. June 30, 1819, Copenhagen, Den.—d. April 4, 1907, Munich, Ger.) Danish ballerina, ballet mistress, and choreographer. She was trained in Copenhagen by August Bournonville. In 1839 she was engaged at the Paris Opera; this marked the beginning of her international career as one of the greatest Romantic ballerinas. After 1846 she toured Europe, frequently producing the ballets in which she appeared, including her own original works. In 1856 Grahn retired from the stage. From 1858 to 1875 she worked as a ballet mistress and director in Germany. At the Court Opera in Munich she produced a number of ballets and also worked with the composer Richard Wagner on the production of several of his operas.
grail or Holy Grail In Arthurian legend, a sacred cup that was the object of a mystical quest by knights of the Round Table. The grail leg¬ end may have been inspired by classical and Celtic stories of magic caul¬ drons and horns of plenty. It was first given Christian significance as a mysterious, holy object by Chretien de Troyes in the 12th-century romance Perceval, or the Count of the Holy Grail. The grail was sometimes said to be the same cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and later by Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood flowing from the wounds of Jesus on the cross. The most notable figure connected with the grail was Sir Galahad, who, according to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, found the grail and achieved mystical union with God.
grain See cereal
grain alcohol See ethanol
grain elevator Storage building for grain, usually a tall frame, metal, or concrete structure with a compartmented interior; also, the device for loading grain into a building. One common mechanism consists of a hop¬ per, a long rectangular open trough, and an endless vertical belt or chain with flights (crosspieces) for conveying the grain to the top of the stack. The force of gravity enables elevated grain to be unloaded quickly and easily from chutes.
grain mill Structure for grinding cereal. Waterwheels were first exploited for such tasks. Geared mills turning grindstones (see gear) were used in the Roman Empire, but their fullest development occurred in medieval Europe, in, for example, the great grain mill near Arles, France, which, with its 16 cascaded overshot wheels, each 7 ft (2 m) in diameter, and wooden gearing, may have met the needs of 80,000 people. Windmills were also among the original prime movers that replaced animal muscle as a source of power. They were used for centuries in various parts of the world, and remain of major industrial importance in developing nations.
Grainger, Percy Aldridge orig. George Percy Grainger (b.
July 8, 1882, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia—d. Feb. 20, 1961, White Plains, N.Y., U.S.) Australian-born U.S. composer and pianist. After studying music in Frankfurt, he established himself as a piano virtuoso in England, while also pursuing ethnomusicological interest, collecting folk tunes in England and Denmark. He moved to the U.S. permanently
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in 1914, teaching in Chicago and New York, but invested much energy in establishing an ethnomusicological centre at the University of Mel¬ bourne. Though an inveterate experimenter in the realms of timbre, rhythm, harmony, and texture, he is known for his tuneful short works for orchestra, piano, and concert band, including Country Gardens, Molly on the Shore, Mock Morris, and Lincolnshire Posy.
gram Unit of mass or weight used especially in the centimetre-gram- second (CGS) system of measurement. One gram is equal to 0.001 kg, about 0.035 oz, or 15.43 grains. The gram is very nearly equal to the mass of 1 cc of pure water at its maximum density. The gram of force is equal to the weight of a gram of mass under standard gravity. For greater preci¬ sion, the mass may be weighed at a point at which the acceleration due to gravity is 980.655 cm/sec 2 . See also gravitation; metric system.
gram stain Staining technique for the initial identification of bacteria, devised in 1884 by the Danish physician Hans Christian Gram (1853— 1938). The stain reveals basic differences in the biochemical and struc¬ tural properties of a living cell. A slide containing a smear of bacteria is treated with a purple dye; the slide is then dipped in an iodine solution, followed by an organic solvent (such as alcohol) that can dissolve the dye. Gram-positive bacteria remain purple because they have a thick cell wall that the solvent cannot easily penetrate; gram-negative bacteria lose their colour because they have thin cell walls that allow the solvent to pen¬ etrate and remove the dye.
gramadevata Vgra-ms-'da-vo-.taX Folk deities widely worshiped in rural India. Often female figures, they may have originated as agricultural deities, and they are offered animal sacrifices to ward off disease, crop failures, and other natural disasters. Many are purely local, spirits of a place (e.g., a crossroads) or of a person who has died an untimely death. They are worshiped in the form of stones or earthenware icons fixed in simple shrines or set up under a village tree.