Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Jim Crow laws

(Encyclopedia)Jim Crow laws, in U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The name is believed to be derived...

Thompson, William T.

(Encyclopedia)Thompson, William T., 1812–82, American humorist and editor, b. Ravenna, Ohio. He was founder and editor of the Savannah Morning News, which became one of the most prominent newspapers in Georgia. I...

manifest destiny

(Encyclopedia)manifest destiny, belief held by many Americans in the 1840s that the United States was destined to expand across the continent, by force, as used against Native Americans, if necessary. The controver...

Fletcher, Thomas Clement

(Encyclopedia)Fletcher, Thomas Clement, 1827–99, governor of Missouri (1865–69), b. Herculaneum, Mo. A Democrat opposed to slavery, he became a Republican in 1856 and supported Lincoln for the presidential nomi...

Dothan, in the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Dothan dōthāˈĭm [key], city, central ancient Palestine, in the uplands NE of Samaria. In the Bible, it was in the vicinity of Dothan that Joseph was sold into slavery and that the Syrians were bli...

Phillips, Wendell

(Encyclopedia)Phillips, Wendell, 1811–84, American reformer and orator, b. Boston, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1831; LL.B., 1834). He was admitted to the bar in 1834 but, having sufficient income of his own, he abandone...

Essenes

(Encyclopedia)Essenes ĕsˈēnz [key], members of a small Jewish religious order, originating in the 2d cent. b.c. The chief sources of information about the Essenes are Pliny the Elder, Philo's Quod omnius probus ...

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady

(Encyclopedia)Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1815–1902, American reformer, a leader of the woman-suffrage movement, b. Johnstown, N.Y. She was educated at the Troy Female Seminary (now Emma Willard School) in Troy, N.Y...

capitalism

(Encyclopedia)capitalism, economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, in which personal profit can be acquired through investment of capital and employment of labor. Capitalism is grounde...

Weld, Theodore Dwight

(Encyclopedia)Weld, Theodore Dwight, 1803–95, American abolitionist, b. Hampton, Conn. In 1825 his family moved to upstate New York, and he entered Hamilton College. While in college he became a disciple of the e...