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hall - 37 reference results
music hall. In England, the Licensing Act of 1737 confined the production of legitimate plays to the two royal theaters—Drury Lane and Covent Garden; the demands for entertainment of the rising lower and middle classes were answered by song, dance, and acrobatics, and later by pantomime and comic skits and sketches provided by keepers of inns and taverns. The atmosphere, amidst eating and drinking, was boisterous and gay. Following the abolition (c.1843) of the royal-theater patents, the rise of the music hall as a separate place of variety entertainment was rapid. Personalities, such as the English Joseph Grimaldi, Dan Leno, Beatrice Lillie, and Gracie Fields and the French Yvette Guilbert, Maurice Chevalier, and Edith Piaf became stars, beloved by their audiences. Like American vaudeville, the music hall went into a decline with the coming of radio and motion pictures.

See D. Howard, London Theatres and Music Halls, 1850-1950 (1971).

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.

See J. A. Gotch, Growth of the English House (1909).

Toynbee Hall: see Barnett, Samuel Augustus.
Schwäbisch Hall or Hall, city (1994 pop. 33,892), Baden-Württemberg, S Germany, on the Kocher River. It is a rail junction and has manufactures in building materials, textiles, and electrical goods. The city is also a popular tourist center and, because of its saline baths, a health resort. Chartered in the 12th cent., Schwäbisch Hall was a free imperial city until 1803 and ruled considerable surrounding territory. Noteworthy buildings include the baroque city hall (1728-35) and St. Michael's Church (15th cent.). Nearby is Comburg, a former fortified Benedictine abbey (founded 1075; now a teachers college).
McCormick, Cyrus Hall, 1809-84, inventor of the reaper, b. Rockbridge co., Va. His father, Robert McCormick (1780-1846), had worked intermittently for over 20 years at his blacksmith shop on a reaping machine, but had given it up before Cyrus, his eldest son, began working on different principles. The first public demonstration of the reaper, as constructed by Cyrus, took place in July, 1831, and was a success, although he did not patent it until after Obed Hussey announced his invention in 1834. McCormick's reaper contained the straight reciprocating knife, guards, reel, divider, platform, main-drive wheel, and other innovations that are essential features of every satisfactory harvesting machine. His early machines were made for local use, and not until more than 10 years later did he begin in earnest to expand his market. In 1847 he built his Chicago factory; in 1851 he introduced the reaper into England and, subsequently, into other European countries. He continued to patent improvements and demonstrated his machine in the field, often in competition with Hussey's reaper. After 1850 many strong competitors appeared and Hussey gave up, while only McCormick's unusual business ability kept him in the running. He was quick to purchase promising inventions and added the self-rake, hand binder, and twine binder.

See biographies by W. T. Hutchinson (2 vol., 2d ed. 1968) and H. N. Casson (1909, repr. 1971).

Kelley, Hall Jackson, 1790-1874, American propagandist for the settlement of Oregon, b. Northwood, N.H. A schoolmaster in Boston (1818-23) and later a railroad surveyor in Maine, he founded (1829) a society to promote American settlement in the disputed Columbia River country and wrote appeals to prospective colonists. He secured the aid of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, but plans for a joint expedition to the West were delayed, and Wyeth went alone. In 1833, Kelley went to New Orleans, sailed to Veracruz, and crossed Mexico to California, where he met the trader Ewing Young. The two arrived in the Oregon country in 1834. A sick and discouraged man, Kelley was sheltered at Fort Vancouver by Dr. John McLoughlin until the spring of 1835, when he returned to Boston. He subsequently wrote a "memoir" on Oregon, which was presented to Congress by Caleb Cushing.

See biography by F. W. Powell (1917); Fred W. Powell, ed., Hall J. Kelley on Oregon (1932).

Independence Hall, historic building on Independence Square, downtown Philadelphia, in Independence National Historical Park. Originally constructed as the Pennsylvania colony's statehouse in 1732, the hall was the scene of the proclamation of the U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776) and was the meeting place of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. The building has a small museum of historical and colonial objects; the Liberty Bell is in a separate pavilion near the hall.
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, 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, 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.

See biography by J. W. Hall (1959).

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.

See his poems, ed. by A. Davenport (1949, repr. 1969).

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.

See studies by R. C. Randall (1964) and J. M. Clarke (1921, repr. 1973).

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).

See biographies by L. Pruette (1926, repr. 1970) and D. Ross (1972); R. J. Wilson, In Quest of Community (1970).

Hall, Fort: see Fort Hall.
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, 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.

See biography by C. Loomis (1971).

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 of Fame for Great Americans, national shrine, on the campus of Bronx Community College of the City Univ. of New York, Bronx, New York City; est. 1900. The Hall of Fame, a 630-ft (192-m) colonnade resting on a corridor above a terrace, was instituted by New York Univ. Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken from a $250,000 donation by philanthropist Helen Gould Shepard. Fifty outstanding Americans, selected by the 100-member College of Electors (with at least one member from each state), were initially honored; five people were to be added each fifth year. This plan, however, has not been followed with any efficient regularity. Of the 102 Americans now honored in the Hall of Fame, 98 are represented by bronze busts and commemorative plaques in the colonnade.
Hall effect, experiment that shows the sign of the charge carriers in a conductor. In 1879 E. H. Hall discovered that when he placed a metal strip carrying a current in a magnetic field, a voltage difference was produced across the strip. The side of the strip that is at the higher voltage depends on the sign of the charge carrier; Hall's work demonstrated that in metals the charge carriers are negative. Today it is known that this negative charge carrier is the electron. The Hall effect has again become an active area of research with the discovery of the quantized Hall effect, for which Klaus von Klitzing was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in physics. Before von Klitzing's work it was thought that the amount of voltage difference across the strip varied in direct proportion to the strength of the magnetic field—the greater the magnetic field, the greater the voltage difference. Von Klitzing showed that under the special conditions of low temperature, high magnetic field, and two-dimensional electronic systems (in which the electrons are confined to move in planes), the voltage difference increases as a series of steps with increasing magnetic field.
Gillett, Ezra Hall, 1823-75, American Presbyterian clergyman and historian, b. Colchester, Conn. After serving (1845-70) as pastor in Harlem, New York City, he became professor of political science in the Univ. of the City of New York (now New York Univ.). He began the McAlpin Collection of British history and theology for the library of Union Theological Seminary. His books include The Life and Times of John Huss (1863).
Fort Hall, trading post on the Snake River, near Pocatello, SE Idaho; est. 1834 by U.S. trader Nathaniel Wyeth. It was sold in 1836 to the Hudson's Bay Company, which occupied the post until 1856. Fort Hall was the main stopping point on the Oregon Trail W of Fort Bridger. It was destroyed by floods in 1862 and 1864.
Federal Hall National Memorial: see National Parks and Monuments (table).
Faneuil Hall, public market and hall in Boston, Mass. Given to the city by the merchant Peter Faneuil in 1742, the building burned in 1761 but was rebuilt. The scene of Revolutionary meetings, it became known as "the cradle of liberty." Charles Bulfinch enlarged the hall in 1806. The building is still in use as market, meeting hall, and museum.
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).

See his autobiography, My Story (1908); study by C. F. Kenyon (1901, repr. 1974).

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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Cyrus McCormick.

(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.

Learn more about Hall, G(ranville) Stanley with a free trial on Britannica.com.

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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Cyrus McCormick.

(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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