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family leave

(Encyclopedia)family leave, social policy permitting workers to take a specified amount of time off from the job to attend to pressing family needs. The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act (1993) attempts to balance ...

Baron, Michel

(Encyclopedia)Baron or Boyron, Michel mēshĕlˈ bärôNˈ or bwärôNˈ [key], 1653–1729, one of the first great French actors. A protégé of Molière, he acted at the Hôtel de Bourgogne and at the Comédie Fr...

piecework

(Encyclopedia)piecework, work for which the laborer is paid on the basis of the amount of work done. The system is best adapted to standardized operations in which quantity is preferred to quality. Its advocates ma...

Bankhead, John Hollis

(Encyclopedia)Bankhead, John Hollis băngkˈhĕd [key], 1872–1946, American politician, b. Moscow, Ala.; brother of William Brockman Bankhead. He was elected to the Alabama legislature in 1903 and served in the U...

Sullivan, Robert Baldwin

(Encyclopedia)Sullivan, Robert Baldwin, 1802–53, Canadian politician and judge, b. Ireland. He emigrated to Canada in 1819, became a lawyer, and was elected mayor of Toronto (1835). He became a member of the exec...

West Yorkshire

(Encyclopedia)West Yorkshire, former metropolitan county, N central England. Created in the 1974 local government reorganization, the county largely embraced the Leeds conurbation and comprised five metropolitan di...

lend-lease

(Encyclopedia)lend-lease, arrangement for the transfer of war supplies, including food, machinery, and services, to nations whose defense was considered vital to the defense of the United States in World War II. Th...

attorney

(Encyclopedia)attorney, agent put in place of another to manage particular affairs of the principal. An attorney in fact is an agent who conducts business under authority that is controlled and limited by a written...

home economics

(Encyclopedia)home economics, study of homemaking and the relation of the home to the community. Formerly limited to problems of food (nutrition and cookery), clothing, sewing, textiles, household equipment, housec...

Porter, David

(Encyclopedia)Porter, David, 1780–1843, American naval officer, b. Boston. Appointed a midshipman in 1798, he served in the West Indies and in the war with Tripoli. In 1803 his ship, the Philadelphia, was capture...