Duane, William

Duane, William,

1760–1835, American journalist, b. near Lake Champlain, N.Y., of Irish parentage. He learned the printer's trade in Ireland and in 1787 went to Calcutta (now Kolkata), where he edited the Indian World. His attacks on the local government there brought about his deportation and the confiscation of his property. Unable to secure redress in England, Duane moved to Philadelphia and joined Benjamin Franklin Bache in editing the Aurora. Upon Bache's death (1798), Duane became sole editor. An able and courageous writer, he made the Aurora the leading Jeffersonian organ. His acid criticism, however, led to his arrest (1799) under the Alien Act. Acquitted, he was arrested again under the Sedition Act (see Alien and Sedition ActsAlien and Sedition Acts,
1798, four laws enacted by the Federalist-controlled U.S. Congress, allegedly in response to the hostile actions of the French Revolutionary government on the seas and in the councils of diplomacy (see XYZ Affair), but actually designed to destroy Thomas
..... Click the link for more information. ). Charges against him were dismissed when Jefferson came into office. Duane's prosperous journal declined after the removal of the government to Washington, D.C., but it remained influential in local politics. In the War of 1812, Duane served as adjutant general. He retired from the Aurora in 1822 and traveled in South America, writing upon his return A Visit to Colombia in the Years 1822 & 1823 (1826).

Duane, William,

1872–1935, American physicist, b. Philadelphia, grad. Harvard, 1893, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1897. He taught at the Univ. of Colorado (1898–1907), worked at the Curie radium laboratory in Paris (1907–12), and returned in 1913 to teach at Harvard (as professor of biophysics, 1917–34). He is known for his researches in radioactivity and X rays and their application in radiotherapy.

Duane, William

(1760–1835) journalist; born near Lake Champlain, N.Y. After living in Ireland, where he learned printing, and in India, where he founded an outspoken paper that led to his being deported, he joined Benjamin Franklin Bache's vituperatively anti-Federalist Aurora, which he edited from 1798 to 1822. Tried and acquitted of sedition in 1799, he was charged a second time, but the charges were dropped after Thomas Jefferson's election in 1800.

Duane, William

(1872–1935) physicist; born in Philadelphia. He taught at Harvard (1893–97) and the University of Colorado (1898–1907), then became a researcher at the Curie Radium Laboratory, Paris, before returning to Harvard (1913–34). A pioneer in biophysics, he made major contributions to the use of X-rays in treating cancer.