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Fair Labor Standards Act

(Encyclopedia)Fair Labor Standards Act or Wages and Hours Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1938 to establish minimum living standards for workers engaged directly or indirectly in interstate commerce, including ...

Freedom of Information Act

(Encyclopedia)Freedom of Information Act (1966), law requiring that U.S. government agencies release their records to the public on request, unless the information sought falls into a category specifically exempted...

National Defense Education Act

(Encyclopedia)National Defense Education Act (NDEA), federal legislation passed in 1958 providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. NDEA was instituted primarily to stimulate ...

Americans with Disabilities Act

(Encyclopedia)Americans with Disabilities Act, U.S. civil-rights law, enacted 1990, that forbids discrimination of various sorts against persons with physical or mental handicaps. Its primary emphasis is on enablin...

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...

Tenure of Office Act

(Encyclopedia)Tenure of Office Act, in U.S. history, measure passed on Mar. 2, 1867, by Congress over the veto of President Andrew Johnson; it forbade the President to remove any federal officeholder appointed by a...

Gorman, Arthur Pue

(Encyclopedia)Gorman, Arthur Pue, 1839–1906, American legislator, b. Woodstock, Md. After serving from 1869 to 1879 in the Maryland legislature, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1880. Gorman had by this time ...

Kansas-Nebraska Act

(Encyclopedia)Kansas-Nebraska Act, bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S. Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. By 1854 the organization of the vast Platte and Kansas river c...

Comprehensive Employment and Training Act

(Encyclopedia)Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), U.S. government program designed to assist economically disadvantaged, unemployed, or underemployed persons. Enacted in 1973, CETA provided block gran...

Taft, William Howard

(Encyclopedia)Taft, William Howard, 1857–1930, 27th President of the United States (1909–13) and 10th chief justice of the United States (1921–30), b. Cincinnati. Taft retired from public life and taught ...