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Kitchen Cabinet

(Encyclopedia)Kitchen Cabinet, in U.S. history, popular name for the group of intimate, unofficial advisers of President Jackson. Early in his administration Jackson abandoned official cabinet meetings and used hea...

Turkish language

(Encyclopedia)Turkish language, member of the Turkic subdivision of the Altaic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (see Uralic and Altaic languages). Turkish is the official language of Turkey and one ...

Boolean algebra

(Encyclopedia)Boolean algebra bo͞oˈlēən [key], an abstract mathematical system primarily used in computer science and in expressing the relationships between sets (groups of objects or concepts). The notational...

Biddle, Nicholas, American financier

(Encyclopedia)Biddle, Nicholas, 1786–1844, American financier, b. Philadelphia. After holding important posts in the American legations in France and England, he returned to the United States in 1807 and became o...

New York Public Library

(Encyclopedia)New York Public Library, free library supported by private endowments and gifts and by the city and state of New York. It is the one of largest libraries in the world. The library was created by a 189...

Story, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Story, Joseph, 1779–1845, American jurist, associate justice of the Supreme Court (1811–45), b. Marblehead, Mass. Admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1801, he practiced law in Salem and was sever...

Constitutional Convention

(Encyclopedia)Constitutional Convention, in U.S. history, the 1787 meeting in which the Constitution of the United States was drawn up. The convention at Philadelphia drew up one of the most influential document...

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...

gold rush

(Encyclopedia)gold rush, influx of prospectors, merchants, adventurers, and others to newly discovered gold fields. One of the most famous of these stampedes in pursuit of riches was the California gold rush. The d...

parody

(Encyclopedia)parody, mocking imitation in verse or prose of a literary work. The following poem by Robert Southey was parodied by Lewis Carroll: “You are old, Father William,” the young man cried; “The few l...