Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

absentee ownership

(Encyclopedia)absentee ownership, system under which a person (or a corporation) controls and derives income from land in a region where he does not reside. Abuses existed in absenteeism in pre-Revolutionary France...

savings and loan association

(Encyclopedia)savings and loan association (S&L), type of financial institution that was originally created to accept savings from private investors and to provide home mortgage services for the public. The fir...

Tourgée, Albion Winegar

(Encyclopedia)Tourgée, Albion Winegar to͝orzhāˈ [key], 1838–1905, American author and lawyer, b. Williamsfield, Ohio, studied at the Univ. of Rochester. After serving in the Union army he was for a few years ...

scalawags

(Encyclopedia)scalawags skălˈəwăgz [key], derogatory term used in the South after the Civil War to describe native white Southerners who joined the Republican party and aided in carrying out the congressional R...

grandfather clause

(Encyclopedia)grandfather clause, provision in constitutions (adopted 1895–1910) of seven post–Reconstruction Southern states that exempted those persons who had been eligible to vote on Jan. 1, 1867, and their...

Hill, Benjamin Harvey

(Encyclopedia)Hill, Benjamin Harvey, 1823–82, American statesman, b. Jasper co., Ga. A highly successful lawyer and Whig politician, he supported the Whig-Democratic alliance that carried Georgia in favor of the ...

Douglas, Clifford Hugh

(Encyclopedia)Douglas, Clifford Hugh, 1879–1952, English engineer and social economist, educated at Cambridge. Author of the economic theory of Social Credit, he became (1935) chief reconstruction adviser to the ...

Ohira, Masayoshi

(Encyclopedia)Ohira, Masayoshi, 1910–80, Japanese political leader, prime minister (1978–80) of Japan. After serving in the house of representatives, he became foreign minister (1962–64, 1972–74) and minist...

Baker, George Fisher

(Encyclopedia)Baker, George Fisher, 1840–1931, American financier and philanthropist, b. Troy, N.Y. Baker was one of the founders of the First National Bank of New York in 1863 and became (1877) its president and...

Galt, Sir Alexander Tilloch

(Encyclopedia)Galt, Sir Alexander Tilloch tĭlˈək gôlt [key], 1817–93, Canadian statesman, b. England; son of John Galt. In 1835 he went to Canada in the service of the British American Land Company. He direct...