Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Zhang Xianliang

(Encyclopedia)Zhang Xianliang jäng shyän-lyäng [key], 1936–, Chinese writer. During the 1957 antirightist campaign, the Chinese Communists judged his poetry deviant and sentenced him to prison in Ningxia. He w...

factory

(Encyclopedia)factory, place of production characterized by wage labor, the use of machinery, and the division of labor. The large-scale use of machinery differentiates factory production from simple manufacture, a...

Commons, John Rogers

(Encyclopedia)Commons, John Rogers, 1862–1945, American economist, b. Hollansburg, Ohio, grad. Oberlin, 1888. Influenced by the other social sciences, Commons tried to broaden the scope of economics, especially i...

direct action

(Encyclopedia)direct action, theory and methods used by certain labor groups to fight employers, capitalist institutions, and the state by direct economic action, without using intermediate organizations. Political...

sweating system

(Encyclopedia)sweating system, method of exploiting labor by supplying materials to workers and paying by the piece (see piecework) for work done on those materials in the workers' homes or in small workshops (swea...

Hillquit, Morris

(Encyclopedia)Hillquit, Morris, 1869–1933, American lawyer and Socialist leader, b. Riga, Latvia (then in Russia). He came to the United States in 1886. He was the leader of the right-wing, or constitutional, Soc...

Beard, Charles Austin

(Encyclopedia)Beard, Charles Austin, 1874–1948, American historian, b. near Knightstown, Ind. A year at Oxford as a graduate student gave him an interest in English local government, and after further study at Co...

birth

(Encyclopedia)birth or labor, delivery of the fetus by the viviparous mammal. Birth is also known as parturition. Human birth normally occurs about 280 days after onset of the last menstrual period before conceptio...

Mintoff, Dominic

(Encyclopedia)Mintoff, Dominic, 1916–2012, Maltese political leader, prime minister of Malta (1955–58, 1971–84). An architect and engineer, he was educated at the Univ. of Malta and Oxford. He joined the Labo...

Constitutional Union party

(Encyclopedia)Constitutional Union party, in U.S. history, formed when the conflict between North and South broke down the older parties. The Constitutional Union group, composed of former Whigs and remnants of the...
 

Browse by Subject