Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

metaphysical poets

(Encyclopedia)metaphysical poets, name given to a group of English lyric poets of the 17th cent. The term was first used by Samuel Johnson (1744). The hallmark of their poetry is the metaphysical conceit (a figure ...

Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman

(Encyclopedia)Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman, American civil-rights workers in the South during the 1960s. Michael Schwerner (b. 1939) and Andrew Goodman (b. 1943), both white New Yorkers, went to Neshoba co., Miss...

Cornell University

(Encyclopedia)Cornell University, mainly at Ithaca, N.Y.; with land-grant, state, and private support; coeducational; chartered 1865, opened 1868. It was named for Ezra Cornell, who donated $500,000 and a tract of ...

Foster, Rube

(Encyclopedia)Foster, Rube (Andrew Bishop Foster), 1879–1930, African-American baseball player and executive, b. Calvert, Tex. Known as “the father of black baseball,” he turned professional with the Chicago ...

sharecropping

(Encyclopedia)sharecropping, an agricultural system in which a landowner allows a tenant to use their land in return for a share of the crop produced. In the United S...

Creek

(Encyclopedia)Creek, Native North American confederacy. The peoples forming it were mostly of the Muskogean branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). The Creek received their name...

flag, symbolic cloth

(Encyclopedia)flag, piece of cloth, usually bunting or similar light material, plain, colored, or bearing a device, varying in size and shape, but often oblong or square, used as an ensign, standard, or signal or f...

Joanna I

(Encyclopedia)Joanna I, 1326–82, queen of Naples (1343–81), countess of Provence. She was the granddaughter of King Robert of Naples, whom she succeeded with her husband, Andrew of Hungary. The murder (1345) of...

Bassett, John Spencer

(Encyclopedia)Bassett, John Spencer, 1867–1928, American historian, b. Tarboro, N.C. He was professor of history at Trinity College (now Duke Univ.) from 1893 to 1906 and then at Smith from 1906 to 1928. Bassett ...

Philip, Saint, one of the Twelve Apostles

(Encyclopedia)Philip, Saint, one of the Twelve Apostles. Like Peter and Andrew, he came from Bethsaida in Galilee. He is mentioned several times in the New Testament (Mat. 10.3; John 1.43–51; 6.5,7; 12.21,22; 14....