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settlement house

(Encyclopedia)settlement house, neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promot...

Corpus Juris Civilis

(Encyclopedia)Corpus Juris Civilis kôrˈpəs jo͝oˈrĭs sĭvīˈlĭs [key], most comprehensive code of Roman law and the basic document of all modern civil law. Compiled by order of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I,...

Greene, Nathanael

(Encyclopedia)Greene, Nathanael, 1742–86, American Revolutionary general, b. Potowomut (now Warwick), R.I. An iron founder, he became active in colonial politics and served (1770–72, 1775) in the Rhode Island a...

Embargo Act of 1807

(Encyclopedia)Embargo Act of 1807, passed Dec. 22, 1807, by the U.S. Congress in answer to the British orders in council restricting neutral shipping and to Napoleon's restrictive Continental System. The U.S. merch...

Young, Iris Marion

(Encyclopedia)Young, Iris Marion, 1949–2006, American philosopher and political theorist, b. New York, Ph.D. Penn State University, 1974. An activist-intellectual, ...

equity

(Encyclopedia)equity, principles of justice originally developed by the English chancellor. In Anglo-American jurisprudence equitable principles and remedies are distinguished from the older system that the common ...

Pyrenees

(Encyclopedia)Pyrenees pĭrˈənēz [key], Span. Pirineos, Fr. Pyrénées, mountain chain of SW Europe, 21,380 sq mi (55,374 sq km), between France and Spain, a formidable barrier between the Iberian Peninsula and ...

arts and crafts

(Encyclopedia)arts and crafts, term for that general field of applied design in which hand fabrication is dominant. The term was coined in England in the late 19th cent. as a label for the then-current movement dir...

Morris, Gouverneur

(Encyclopedia)Morris, Gouverneur gəvərnērˈ, –no͝orˈ [key], 1752–1816, American political leader and diplomat, b. Morrisania, N.Y. (now part of the Bronx); a grandson of Lewis Morris (1671–1746), he was ...

Lancaster, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Lancaster. 1 Uninc. city (1990 pop. 97,291), Los Angeles co., S Calif., in Antelope Valley and in the Mojave Desert; laid out 1894. It developed as a trade center for an irrigated farming area and has...