Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Brace, Charles Loring

(Encyclopedia)Brace, Charles Loring, 1826–90, American clergyman and social reformer, b. Litchfield, Conn. America's pioneer children's advocate, he founded (1853) the Children's Aid Society of New York, an organ...

Neolithic period

(Encyclopedia)Neolithic period or New Stone Age. The term neolithic is used, especially in archaeology and anthropology, to designate a stage of cultural evolution or technological development characterized by the ...

New School University

(Encyclopedia)New School University, in New York City; coeducational; chartered and opened 1919 as the New School for Social Research, a center for adult education, renamed 1997. Founded by Charles Beard, Thorstein...

Levittown

(Encyclopedia)Levittown lĕvˈət-tounˌ [key]. 1 Uninc. residential city (1990 pop. 53,286), Nassau co., SE N.Y., on Long Island; founded 1947. Originally about 7 sq mi (18 sq km) of potato fields, it was develope...

sertão

(Encyclopedia)sertão sərˈtouN [key] [Port.,=backlands], semiarid hinterland of NE Brazil; c.250,000 sq mi (647,500 sq km). Its characteristic landscape is the caatinga, or thorny scrub forest. The chief occupati...

Sierra Club

(Encyclopedia)Sierra Club, national organization in the United States dedicated to the preservation and expansion of the world's parks, wildlife, and wilderness areas. Founded (1892) in California by a group led by...

Portland vase

(Encyclopedia)Portland vase, a Roman glass vase, known also as the Barberini vase. It is an unusually fine work of the late Augustan era (early 1st cent. b.c.). About 10 in. (25 cm) high and 22 in. (56 cm) in circu...

O'Hara, John

(Encyclopedia)O'Hara, John, 1905–70, American novelist and short-story writer, b. Pottsville, Pa. He worked at a number of jobs and ultimately became a newspaperman before the appearance of his first novel, Appoi...

Paley, Grace

(Encyclopedia)Paley, Grace, 1922–2007, American writer and social activist, b. the Bronx, N.Y., as Grace Goodside. In short stories mainly celebrating the lives of women, Paley paints the daily lives of working-c...

Ireland, John, American Roman Catholic prelate

(Encyclopedia)Ireland, John īrˈlənd [key], 1838–1918, American Roman Catholic prelate, first archbishop of St. Paul, Minn. (1888–1918), b. Co. Kilkenny, Ireland. He emigrated to St. Paul in childhood. He was...