Columbia Encyclopedia

(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) bureaucracy byo͝orŏkˈrəsē [key], the administrative structure of any large organization, public or private. Ideally bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical authority relations, defined spher...

(Encyclopedia) serf, under feudalism, peasant laborer who can be generally characterized as hereditarily attached to the manor in a state of semibondage, performing the servile duties of the lord (see also manorial ...

(Encyclopedia) electoral college, in U.S. government, the body of electors that chooses the president and vice president. The Constitution, in Article 2, Section 1, provides: “Each State shall appoint, in such Man...

(Encyclopedia) patent, in law, governmental grant of some privilege, property, or authority. Today patent refers to the granting to the inventor of a useful product or process the privilege to exclude others from ma...

(Encyclopedia) De Lancey də lănˈsē [key], family of political leaders, soldiers, and merchants prominent in colonial New York. Étienne De Lancey or Stephen De Lancey, 1663–1741, b. Caen, France, was among the...

(Encyclopedia) Sunday school, institution for instruction in religion and morals, usually conducted in churches as part of the church organization but sometimes maintained by other religious or philanthropic bodies....

(Encyclopedia) Douglas, Stephen Arnold, 1813–61, American statesman, b. Brandon, Vt. The Democratic national convention at Charleston, S.C., in 1860 adopted Douglas's recommendations in a platform advocating non...

(Encyclopedia) archaeology ärkēŏlˈəjē [key] [Gr.,=study of beginnings], a branch of anthropology that seeks to document and explain continuity and change and similarities and differences among human cultures. ...

(Encyclopedia) Deep Sea Drilling Project, U.S. program designed to investigate the evolution of ocean basins by core drilling of ocean sediments and underlying oceanic crust. Funded by the National Science Foundatio...