Hall

Hall, Basil, 1788-1844, British naval officer and traveler. In the service from 1802 to 1823, he commanded vessels on scientific assignments and voyages of exploration. He wrote of them in his Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea and the Great Loo-Choo (1818); in Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chile, Peru, and Mexico (2 vol., 1823, repr. 1968); and in Fragments of Voyages and Travels (1831-33), in three series, each series in three volumes. After leaving the navy he traveled in the United States, his Travels in North America (3 vol., 1829) forming a valuable description of America.

Hall, Charles Francis, 1821-71, American arctic explorer, b. Rochester, N.H. He became interested in the many search expeditions for Sir John Franklin's party, and with Eskimo companions he explored (1860-62) the southeast corner of Baffin Island, finding traces of Sir Martin Frobisher's party but none of Franklin's. Hall was the first explorer in three centuries to visit Frobisher Strait, which he found to be a huge bay almost bisecting Baffin Island. His Arctic Researches and Life among the Esquimaux (1864, repr. 1970) is a narrative of this journey. On his second arctic expedition (1864-69) he found traces of the fate of Franklin's party on Boothia Peninsula and King William Island and in his searching added much to the geographical knowledge of the whole area. In 1871 he was placed in command of a government expedition to the North Pole. In the Polaris his party went northward in the passages between Greenland and Ellesmere Island to the Arctic Ocean and achieved a new northern record of 82°11'. Hall died suddenly at the party's wintering quarters. On the homeward journey most of the crew died aboard the Polaris when it was struck by an enormous ice floe.

Hall, Edward, 1499?-1547, English chronicler. He wrote The Union of the Noble and Ilustre Famelies of Lancastre and York (1548), usually called Hall's Chronicle. A glorification of the Tudors, it is important for the light it sheds on social life early in the reign of Henry VIII and for the use Shakespeare made of it in his historical plays.

Hall, Granville Stanley, 1844-1924, American psychologist and educator, b. Ashfield, Mass., grad. Williams, 1867. G. Stanley Hall taught at Antioch and Harvard, studied experimental psychology in Germany, and in 1882 organized at Johns Hopkins a psychological laboratory that rapidly took a leading position in the field. He founded (1887) the American Journal of Psychology and was one of the organizers (1891) of the American Psychological Association. As first president (1889-1920) of Clark Univ., he raised it to prominence for its courses in education. Among his works are The Contents of Children's Minds (1883), which inaugurated the child-study movement in the United States; Adolescence (1904); Educational Problems (1911); Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology (1917); and his autobiography (1923).

Hall, James, 1811-98, American geologist and paleontologist, b. Hingham, Mass., grad. Rensselaer School (later Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), 1832. An authority on stratigraphy and invertebrate paleontology, he joined the New York state geological survey in 1836 and in 1839 became state geologist for New York. He wrote Paleontology of New York (8 vol. in 13, 1847-94), a monumental report on the paleontology of the state; his work formed the basis for the later geological histories of North America. He also served briefly as state geologist for Iowa and Wisconsin and was director (1866-94) of the New York State Museum at Albany.

Hall, John Lewis, 1934-, American physicist, b. Denver, Colo., Ph.D. Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1961. He has been a researcher at the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colo., since 1962. Hall, Roy Glauber, and Theodor Hänsch shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in advancing optics technology. Hall and Hänsch are credited with developing laser-based precision spectroscopy, which enables the color of the light of atoms and molecules to be determined with tremendous precision. The technique, which aids in precise timing in communication systems, provided the foundation for the development of extremely accurate clocks and improved global positioning system technology.

Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656, English prelate and author. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and became bishop of Exeter, 1627-41, and of Norwich, 1641-47. The rise of Puritanism involved him in serious church difficulties, and his vigorous defense of the episcopacy against its attackers resulted in his imprisonment in 1641 on charges of high treason. He was eventually released, but he lived the remainder of his life in poverty. Hall's most notable work, his verse satires, modeled after the Roman satirist Juvenal, appeared in two parts: Virgidemiarum or Toothless Satires (1597) and Biting Satires (1598). He also wrote prose satires, poems, meditations, and autobiographical tracts.

Hall, Lyman, 1724-90, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Wallingford, Conn. He was a Congregational minister for some time before practicing medicine. Hall moved to Georgia, became involved in politics, and was sent (1775) to the Continental Congress as a delegate from St. John's Parish before the colony sent any official delegation. Hall served until 1780, when he returned to Georgia. He became governor in 1783. It was at his suggestion that Georgia chartered a state university in 1785.

Hall, Marshall, 1790-1857, English physician and physiologist, M.D. Univ. of Edinburgh, 1812. He practiced medicine in Nottingham and in London. He opposed bloodletting and devised a method of artificial respiration named for him. As a result of his experiments with animals he advanced (1833) the theory of reflex action in a paper before the Royal Society; despite some opposition the theory was later universally accepted. His works also include The Diagnosis of Diseases (1817) and Memoirs on the Nervous System (1837).

Hall, Samuel Read, 1795-1877, American educator and clergyman, b. Croydon, N.H. After teaching in Rumford, Maine, and Fitchburg, Mass., he founded (1823) at Concord, Vt., a training school for teachers, one of the first in the United States. He also helped to organize (1830) the American Institute of Instruction, the oldest educational association in the United States. Hall became principal of the teachers seminary at Phillips Academy (1830-37), of Holmes Plymouth Academy (1837-40), and of Craftsbury Academy, to which he added a teachers training department (1840-46). From 1846 to 1875 he served as pastor in Brownington and in Granby, Vt. He wrote numerous textbooks, and his famous Lectures on School-Keeping (1829) were republished in 1929, with a biography of Hall and a bibliography of his works by A. D. Wright and G. E. Gardner.

hall, a communicating passageway or, in medieval buildings, the large main room. In the feudal castle of N Europe it was a single apartment, and in it lord and retainers lounged, ate, and slept. From the hearth in its center the smoke rose to an outlet in the roof. At one end was the raised dais reserved for the master and those of his own rank. With developing amenities extra spaces were added for cooking and sleeping, and the hall advanced beyond its early rude and unfinished appearance. In English manor houses of the 14th and 15th cent. the characteristic great hall was covered by a fine open-timber roof, heated by one or more huge fireplaces, and lighted with lofty windows often arranged in deep, projecting bays. Westminster Hall, part of the ancient royal palace commenced in the 11th cent. and rebuilt in the 14th cent., was the most splendid. By the 17th cent., with the addition of drawing room, library, and bedrooms, the hall of the English house was no longer of great size and dominance. The English colleges of the Middle Ages and Renaissance also had halls or commons, chiefly for dining, that were architecturally similar to the baronial examples. Some were covered with fine fan vaults, others with timber roofs as at Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps the most splendid hall next to Westminster. The various guilds of N Europe had their halls, especially impressive in Flanders, e.g., the cloth halls at Bruges, Brussels, and Ypres. In Italy communal independence produced the remarkable series of local civic halls, often with imposing towers, as at Siena and Florence. The word hall came to be used in the title of many great English houses (Haddon Hall) and similarly in that of some Southern estates in the American colonies.

Hall, Fort: see Fort Hall.

Caine, Hall (Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine), 1853-1931, English novelist. Secretary to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he lived with him from 1881 until the poet's death and wrote Recollections of Rossetti (1882). His enormously popular novels, some of Manx life, others on biblical themes, include The Shadow of a Crime (1885), The Deemster (1887), The Manxman (1894), The Christian (1897), The Prodigal Son (1904), and The Master of Man (1921).

Popular entertainment that featured successive acts by singers, comedians, dancers, and actors. The form derived from the taproom concerts given in city taverns in England in the 18th–19th centuries. To meet the demand for entertainment for the working class, tavern owners often annexed nearby buildings as music halls, where drinking and smoking were permitted. The originator of the English music hall as such was Charles Morton, who built Morton's Canterbury Hall (1852) and Oxford Hall (1861) in London. Leading performers included Lillie Langtry, Harry Lauder (1870–1950), and Gracie Fields. Music halls evolved into larger, more respectable variety theatres, such as London's Hippodrome and the Coliseum. Variety acts combined music, comedy acts, and one-act plays and featured celebrities such as Sarah Bernhardt and Herbert Tree. Seealso vaudeville.

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Imposing interior space with a flat roof that rests on many rows of columns. The design allows for the construction of large spaces without arches. It was used extensively in ancient Egypt (e.g., Temple of Amon at Karnak) and Persia. The elaborately carved pillars consumed much of the floor space and therefore assumed great importance. Hypostyles are rarely seen in more recent architecture because of more effective means of roof support.

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Type of church with side aisles approximately equal in height to the nave, unlike the typical basilica. The interior is lit by large aisle windows instead of a clerestory, with chapels sometimes arranged alongside the nave. Hall churches originated in Germany and were characteristic of the Late Gothic period there. Special features of German hall churches include lofty nave arcades and immense roofs. St. Elizabeth in Marburg (circa 1257–83) is an archetypal example.

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Main space in a medieval manor house, monastery, or college, in which meals were eaten. In large manor houses it also served other purposes: Justice was administered there, entertainment enjoyed, and often at night its stone floor was strewn with rushes so that servants could sleep there.

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Executive committee of the Democratic Party in New York City. The group was organized in 1789 in opposition to the Federalist Party's ruling “aristocrats.” The Society of Tammany was incorporated in 1805 as a benevolent body; its name derived from a pre-Revolutionary association named after the benevolent Indian chief Tammanend. The group became identified with the city's Democratic Party. The makeup of the society was substantially altered in 1817 when Irish immigrants, protesting Tammany bigotry, forced their right to membership and benefits. Tammany later championed the extension of the franchise to white propertyless males. Nevertheless, the society's appeal to particular ethnic and religious minorities, the doling out of gifts to the poor, and the bribing of leaders of rival political factions, among them the notorious boss William Magear Tweed, made the name Tammany Hall synonymous with political corruption. Its power was greatest in the late 19th and early 20th century; it declined in the 1930s under the reforms of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

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(born Feb. 15, 1809, Rockbridge county, Va., U.S.—died May 13, 1884, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. industrialist and inventor. He is generally credited with the development (from 1831) of the mechanical reaper, which revolutionized the harvesting of grain. By 1850 the McCormick reaper was known throughout the U.S.; its prizes and honours, including the Grand Medal of Honour at the 1855 Paris exposition, made it famous around the world. In 1902 the McCormick Harvesting Co. joined with other companies to form International Harvester Co., with McCormick's son Cyrus, Jr., as its first president.

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(born Sept. 12, 1811, Hingham, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 7, 1898, Bethlehem, N.H.) U.S. geologist and paleontologist. He made extensive explorations in the St. Lawrence valley while teaching at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1832–36). In 1836 he was appointed state geologist for the Geological Survey of New York; his studies culminated in the massive Geology of New York (part 4, 1843), a classic in U.S. geology that introduced the geosynclinal theory of mountain building. He was state geologist of Iowa (1855–58) and of Wisconsin (1857–60). He served as director of New York State's Museum of Natural History (1871–98). His major later work was the huge Paleontology of New York (13 vol., 1847–94).

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(born Sept. 12, 1811, Hingham, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 7, 1898, Bethlehem, N.H.) U.S. geologist and paleontologist. He made extensive explorations in the St. Lawrence valley while teaching at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1832–36). In 1836 he was appointed state geologist for the Geological Survey of New York; his studies culminated in the massive Geology of New York (part 4, 1843), a classic in U.S. geology that introduced the geosynclinal theory of mountain building. He was state geologist of Iowa (1855–58) and of Wisconsin (1857–60). He served as director of New York State's Museum of Natural History (1871–98). His major later work was the huge Paleontology of New York (13 vol., 1847–94).

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(born Feb. 1, 1844, Ashfield, Mass., U.S.—died April 24, 1924, Worcester, Mass.) U.S. psychologist. He studied in Germany under Wilhelm Wundt and Hermann von Helmholtz and returned to the U.S. to earn the first psychology Ph.D. granted in America (Harvard, 1878). After teaching at Johns Hopkins University, he helped establish Clark University (1888) in Worcester, Mass., and worked there to shape experimental psychology into a science. He is frequently regarded as the founder of child psychology and educational psychology; he also did much to direct the ideas of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud into the psychological currents of his time. He founded several journals, including the American Journal of Psychology, and he helped found the American Psychological Association, of which he was the first president. Hall's work gave early impetus and direction to the development of psychology in the U.S.

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Development of a transverse electric field in a solid material carrying an electric current and placed in a magnetic field perpendicular to the current. Discovered in 1879 by Edwin H. Hall (1855–1938), the Hall field results from the force exerted by the magnetic field on the moving particles of the current. The Hall effect can be used to measure certain properties of current carriers as well as to detect the presence of a current on a magnetic field.

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(born Feb. 1, 1844, Ashfield, Mass., U.S.—died April 24, 1924, Worcester, Mass.) U.S. psychologist. He studied in Germany under Wilhelm Wundt and Hermann von Helmholtz and returned to the U.S. to earn the first psychology Ph.D. granted in America (Harvard, 1878). After teaching at Johns Hopkins University, he helped establish Clark University (1888) in Worcester, Mass., and worked there to shape experimental psychology into a science. He is frequently regarded as the founder of child psychology and educational psychology; he also did much to direct the ideas of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud into the psychological currents of his time. He founded several journals, including the American Journal of Psychology, and he helped found the American Psychological Association, of which he was the first president. Hall's work gave early impetus and direction to the development of psychology in the U.S.

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(born Feb. 15, 1809, Rockbridge county, Va., U.S.—died May 13, 1884, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. industrialist and inventor. He is generally credited with the development (from 1831) of the mechanical reaper, which revolutionized the harvesting of grain. By 1850 the McCormick reaper was known throughout the U.S.; its prizes and honours, including the Grand Medal of Honour at the 1855 Paris exposition, made it famous around the world. In 1902 the McCormick Harvesting Co. joined with other companies to form International Harvester Co., with McCormick's son Cyrus, Jr., as its first president.

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Several things are commonly known as Halls or halls. For the development of meaning of the word 'hall', see Hall (concept).

A hall is fundamentally a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a mead hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers. Later, rooms were partitioned from it, so that today the hall of a house is the space inside the front door from which the rooms are reached.

Thus:

• Deriving from the above, a hall is often the term used to designate a British or Irish country house.
• In later medieval Europe, the main room of a castle or manor house was the great hall.
• Where the hall inside the front door of a house is elongated, it may be called a passage, or hallway. The corresponding space upstairs is a landing.
• In a medieval building, the hall was where the fire was kept. With time, its functions as dormitory, kitchen, parlour and so on were divided off to separate rooms or, in the case of the kitchen, a separate building.

On the same principle:

• Many buildings at colleges and universities are formally titled "_______ Hall", typically being named after the person who endowed it, for example, King's Hall, Cambridge. Others, such as Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, commemorate respected people. Between these in age, Nassau Hall at Princeton University began as the single building of the then college. In medieval origin, these were the halls in which the members of the university lived together during term time. In many cases, some aspect of this community remains.
• At colleges in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Hall is the dining hall for students, with High Table at one end for fellows. Typically, at "Formal Hall", gowns are worn for dinner during the evening, whereas for "informal Hall" they are not.
• Many Livery Companies (e.g., in the City of London) have a Hall that is their headquarters and meeting place.

Similarly:

• A hall is also a building consisting largely of a principal room, that is rented out for meetings and social affairs. It may be privately or government-owned, such as a function hall owned by one company used for weddings and cotillions (organized and run by the same company on a contractual basis) or a community hall available for rent to anyone.

Following a line of similar development:

• In office buildings and larger buildings (theatres, cinemas etc), the entrance hall is generally known as the foyer (the French for fire-place). The atrium, a name sometimes used in public buildings for the entrance hall, was the central courtyard of a Roman house.

Derived from the residential meanings of the word:

• Hall is also a surname of people, one of whose ancestors lived in a hall as distinct from one such as David M. Cote, whose ancestor will have lived in a cote, a much humbler place shared with the livestock.

Association with salt

From a completely separate derivation:

A Hall is a brand of bitter (beer) made in Germany and sold worldwide, mainly across America.

• In German speaking areas, Hall (with a short a) can also form part of a town name, like Halle, where the name refers to hall, the Celtic word for salt (compare Welsh halen or Breton holen or Cornish holan). In this connection, Hall is the short form of the name of:
• the medieval German town Schwäbisch Hall, where Hall was its whole name prior to 1933
• the Austrian town Hall in Tirol near Innsbruck, which used to be called Solbad Hall from 1938 to 1974,
• Hallstatt in Austria which gave its name to the Celtic Hallstatt culture.

Sir Charles Hallé (originally Karl Halle) lent his name to the Hallé Orchestra. His forbears were probably associated with the German town of Halle. The accent was added to his name in order to assist English-speakers in pronouncing the word.

In the ancient world, the Celts were neighbours of the Greeks whose word for salt was halos (`αλοσ). While European science was developing, some branches of it adopted the Greek language as the source of its terminology. We therefore have words like halogen, halide, halotrichite and halocarbon.