Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Mather, Frank Jewett, Jr., 1868–1953, American art critic and teacher, b. Deep River, Conn., grad. Williams, 1889, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1892. He taught (1893–1900) at Williams and was professor (1...

(Encyclopedia) Cotton Belt, former agricultural region of the SE United States where cotton was the main cash crop throughout the 19th and much of the 20th cent. Located on the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains and o...

(Encyclopedia) Boylston, Zabdiel, 1679–1766, American physician, b. Brookline, Mass. He was privately educated in medicine and settled in Boston. In an epidemic of smallpox in 1721 he was persuaded by Cotton Mathe...

(Encyclopedia) Cotton, Henry (Thomas Henry Cotton), 1907–87, British golfer, b. Cheshire, England. Although he played as a professional at the age of 17, Cotton did not achieve international recognition until he w...

(Encyclopedia) cotton gin, machine for separating cotton fibers from the seeds. The charkha, used in India from antiquity, consists of two revolving wooden rollers through which the fibers are drawn, leaving the see...

(Encyclopedia) Calef, Robert kāˈləf [key], 1648–1719, known primarily as author of More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700). A Boston cloth merchant, probably born in England, he bitterly attacked Cotton Math...

(Encyclopedia) Phips, Sir William, 1651–95, American colonial governor. Born in what is today Maine, he was a carpenter and shipbuilder in Boston and became interested in sunken treasure. On his second hunt for tr...

(Encyclopedia) Wise, John, 1652–1725, American clergyman, exponent of the democratic principles of modern Congregationalism, b. Roxbury, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1673. He was pastor at Ipswich, Mass., from 1680 until...

(Encyclopedia) cotton grass, common name for sedges of the genus Eriophorum. ...

(Encyclopedia) Cotton, Charles, 1630–87, English author. He is chiefly remembered for his contribution to his friend Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler (5th ed. 1676). His pleasant, unaffected verse includes “An Ode...