Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) mass transit, public transportation systems designed to move large numbers of passengers. The history of mass transportation is intimately connected to industrialization, urbanization, and the sepa...

(Encyclopedia) Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), international organization established as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1973, during the cold war, to promo...

(Encyclopedia) Montgomery, city (1990 pop. 187,106), state capital and seat of Montgomery co., E central Ala., near the head of navigation on the Alabama River just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa r...

(Encyclopedia) United Mine Workers of America (UMW), international labor union formed (1890) by the amalgamation of the National Progressive Union (organized 1888) and the mine locals under the Knights of Labor. It ...

(Encyclopedia) city-state, in ancient Greece, Italy, and Medieval Europe, an independent political unit consisting of a city and surrounding countryside. The first city-states were in Sumer, but they reached their p...

(Encyclopedia) Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), revolutionary industrial union organized in Chicago in 1905 by delegates from the Western Federation of Mines, which formed the nucleus of the IWW, and 42 other ...

(Encyclopedia) Boston, city (2020 pop. 692,600), state capital and seat of Suffolk co., E Mass., on Boston Bay, an arm of Massachusetts Bay; inc. 1822. The city includ...

(Encyclopedia) Defense, United States Department of, executive department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to nationa...

(Encyclopedia) settlement house, neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promot...

(Encyclopedia) Steffens, Lincoln (Joseph Lincoln Steffens), 1866–1936, American editor and author, b. San Francisco, grad. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1889, and studied three years in Europe. Returning to the U...