Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) migrant labor, term applied in the United States to laborers who travel from place to place harvesting crops that must be picked as soon as they ripen. Although migrant labor patterns exist in other p...

(Encyclopedia) mercantilism mûrˈkəntĭlĭzəm [key], economic system of the major trading nations during the 16th, 17th, and 18th cent., based on the premise that national wealth and power were best served by inc...

(Encyclopedia) irrigation, in agriculture, artificial watering of the land. Although used chiefly in regions with annual rainfall of less than 20 in. (51 cm), it is also used in wetter areas to grow certain crops, e...

(Encyclopedia) King Philip's War, 1675–76, the most devastating war between the colonists and the Native Americans in New England. The war is named for King Philip, the son of Massasoit and chief of the Wampanoag....

(Encyclopedia) Pre-Raphaelites prēˌ-răfˈēəlītsˌ [key], brotherhood of English painters and poets formed in 1848 in protest against what they saw as the low standards and decadence of British art. The princip...

(Encyclopedia) Tweed, William Marcy, 1823–78, American politician and Tammany leader, b. New York City. A bookkeeper, he became (1848) a volunteer fireman and as a result acquired influence in his ward. He was an ...

(Encyclopedia) Guest, Edwin, 1800–1880, English archaeologist and philologist. A founder of the Philological Society (1842), Guest wrote articles on English philology and on archaeology, especially on the remains ...

(Encyclopedia) Cornell, Joseph, American artist, 1903–72, b. Nyack, N.Y. Cornell is best known for his surrealist-flavored shadow boxes. These are relatively small constructions, within glass-fronted shallow boxes...

(Encyclopedia) Peary, Robert Edwin pērˈē [key], 1856–1920, American arctic explorer, b. Cresson, Pa. In 1881 he entered the U.S. navy as a civil engineer and for several years served in Nicaragua, where he was ...

(Encyclopedia) Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones, 1862–1937, American novelist, b. New York City, noted for her subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted fictional studies of New York society at the turn of the 20th cent. T...