Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Lille

(Encyclopedia)Lille lēl [key], city (1990 pop. 178,301), capital of Nord dept., N France, near the Belgian border. With its central position in NW Europe, Lille became a great commercial, cultural, and manufacturi...

Alsop, Marin

(Encyclopedia)Alsop, Marin ôlˈsəp [key], 1956–, American conductor, b. New York City. The daughter of professional musicians, she began playing the piano at two and the violin at five. Alsop started conducting...

Olney, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Olney, Richard, 1835–1917, American cabinet member, b. Oxford, Mass. He was a successful Boston lawyer and had served briefly in the state legislature before President Cleveland appointed him to his...

L'Engle, Madeleine

(Encyclopedia)L'Engle, Madeleine, 1918–2007, American writer, b. New York City, grad. Smith College, 1941. A devout Episcopalian, L'Engle served as librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St....

disk plow

(Encyclopedia)disk plow or disk, farm implement employing a row or rows of concave circular steel disks that cut and pitch the soil in a way somewhat similar to a moldboard plow. It can be used in many situations w...

Donald, David Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Donald, David Herbert, 1920–2009, American historian, b. Goodman, Miss. After receiving his Ph.D. from the Univ. of Illinois in 1946, he taught at Columbia (1947–49; 1951–59), Smith (1949–51),...

Cooperative Extension Service

(Encyclopedia)Cooperative Extension Service, in the United States, former agency of the Dept. of Agriculture, est. 1914 by the Smith-Lever Act. Designed to provide Americans with the understanding and skills essent...

Say, Jean Baptiste

(Encyclopedia)Say, Jean Baptiste zhäN bätēstˈ sā [key], 1767–1832, French economist. In A Treatise on Political Economy (1803, tr. from the 4th ed. 1821) he effectively reorganized and popularized the theori...

Sessions, William Steele

(Encyclopedia)Sessions, William Steele, 1930–2020, U.S. government official, b. Fort Smith, Ark. After serving in the U.S. air force (1951–55), he attended Baylor Univ. (B.A. 1956, LL.B. 1958). A Republican, he...

planter

(Encyclopedia)planter, farm or garden implement that places propagating material such as seeds or seedlings into the ground, usually in rows. Broadcasting, i.e., scattering seed in all directions, by hand followed ...

Browse by Subject