Waltham
a city in Middlesex co., Mass.; on both sides of the Charles river, and on the Boston and Maine railroad; 10 miles W. of Boston. It contains a public library, the Leland Home for Aged Women, a hospital, Home for the Feeble-minded, waterworks, street railroad and electric light plants, National and savings banks, and several daily and weekly newspapers. The city is widely known for its manufacture of watches, for which there are several establishments, one of which is the largest watch factory in the world, in which watch making by machinery on an extensive scale was first attempted. Here also was built the first cotton mill in the United States where all the operations of cotton manufacture were conducted under one roof. The other industries include the manufacture of crayons, hosiery, brass goods, aeroplanes, bicycles, electric clocks, etc.
Pop. (1910) 27,834; (1920) 30,915.
WALTHER VON DER VOGEL- WEIDE (fō'gl-vi-de), the most eminent of the old German lyric poets of the class of Minnesingers; born about 1170.
His earliest patrons were Duke Leopold VI. of Austria and his son, Frederick.
Subsequently he visited, for shorter and longer periods, the courts of most German princes, who were in favor of an imperial as against a papal policy. The Emperor Frederick II. provided him with a small estate near Würzburg, where he seems to have always retired when disgusted with traveling, the courts, and intrigues. He was a politician and reformer as well as a poet, and his verses breathe a liberalism far in advance of his times; while the subjects of his favorite love songs are noble women. He died in Würzburg, about 1230. retired