Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

folk high school

(Encyclopedia)folk high school, type of adult education that in its most widely known form originated in Denmark in the middle of the 19th cent. The idea as originally conceived by Bishop Nikolai Grundtvig was to s...

Museum of Fine Arts

(Encyclopedia)Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, chartered and incorporated (1870) after a decision by the Boston Athenæum, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pool their collections of art objects...

Keynes, John Maynard, Baron Keynes of Tilton

(Encyclopedia)Keynes, John Maynard, Baron Keynes of Tilton kānz [key], 1883–1946, English economist and monetary expert, studied at Eton and Cambridge. Keynesian economics stands as the most influential eco...

Brace, Charles Loring

(Encyclopedia)Brace, Charles Loring, 1826–90, American clergyman and social reformer, b. Litchfield, Conn. America's pioneer children's advocate, he founded (1853) the Children's Aid Society of New York, an organ...

Vargas, Getúlio Dornelles

(Encyclopedia)Vargas, Getúlio Dornelles zhəto͞oˈlyō dôrnĕˈlĭs värˈgəs [key], 1883–1954, Brazilian statesman, twice president (1930–45, 1951–54). The popular governor of Rio Grande do Sul (1928–3...

anthem

(Encyclopedia)anthem [ultimately from antiphon], short nonliturgical choral composition used in Protestant services, usually accompanied and having an English text. The term is used in a broader sense for “nation...

foundling hospital

(Encyclopedia)foundling hospital, institution for receiving and caring for abandoned children. In Athens and in Rome until the 4th cent., unwanted children were exposed, or left to die, in appointed places. The fir...

Alien and Sedition Acts

(Encyclopedia)Alien 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 ...

Reform party, in the United States

(Encyclopedia)Reform party, in the United States, political party founded in 1995 by H. Ross Perot as an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties. The Reform party's aims originally included mandating h...

Pittsburgh

(Encyclopedia)Pittsburgh pĭtsˈbərg [key], city (1990 pop. 369,879), seat of Allegheny co., SW Pa., at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers, which there form the Ohio River; inc. 1816. A maj...