Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Texas A&M University

(Encyclopedia)Texas A&M University, main campus at College Station; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1871 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, opened 1876. The school gai...

Munn v. Illinois

(Encyclopedia)Munn v. Illinois, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1876. Munn, a partner in a Chicago warehouse firm, had been found guilty by an Illinois court of violating the state laws providing for the ...

Dunning, John, 1st Baron Ashburton

(Encyclopedia)Dunning, John, 1st Baron Ashburton, 1731–83, English jurist and politician. He attracted notice in 1762 by his written defense of the British East India Company merchants against their Dutch rivals....

Sharp, Granville

(Encyclopedia)Sharp, Granville, 1735–1813, English reformer, scholar, and abolitionist. In 1772 he won a case establishing the principle that any slave would become free upon reaching British land. Sharp continue...

Wisconsin v. Yoder

(Encyclopedia)Wisconsin v. Yoder, case decided in 1972 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that Amish children could be exempted from compulsory school-attendance beyond the 8th grade; the Amish (see under Mennon...

Burton, Harold Hitz

(Encyclopedia)Burton, Harold Hitz, 1888–1964, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1945–58), b. Jamaica Plain (now part of Boston), Mass. Admitted to the bar in 1912, he built a prosperous law practice ...

Fortas, Abe

(Encyclopedia)Fortas, Abe fôrˈtəs [key], 1910–82, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1965–69), b. Memphis, Tenn. After receiving his law degree from Yale in 1933, he taught there (1933–37) and al...

Chautauqua movement

(Encyclopedia)Chautauqua movement, development in adult education somewhat similar to the lyceum movement. It derived from an institution at Chautauqua, N.Y. There, in 1873, John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller propo...

Shiller, Robert James

(Encyclopedia)Shiller, Robert James, 1946–, American economist, b. Detroit, grad. Univ. of Michigan (B.A., 1967), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (S.M., 1968; Ph.D., 1972). A professor at Yale since 1982, S...

writ

(Encyclopedia)writ, in law, written order issued in the name of the sovereign or the state in connection with a judicial or an administrative proceeding. Usually the writ requires the person to whom the command is ...