Auburn
Auburn names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Auburn city and county-seat of Cayuga co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
city and county-seat of Cayuga co., N. Y.; on the outlet of Owasco Lake and the New York Central and Hudson River and the Lehigh Valley railroads; 174 miles W. of Albany. The city is an important industrial center, its principal manufactures being reapers, mowers, binders, threshing machines and other agricultural implements, carpets, cotton, woolen and iron provide goods, and shoes, for which the lakes ovide excellent power. It is the seat of the Auburn Theological Seminary (Presb. ), founded in 1821; a large State prison, a prison for women, and a State armory. There are also about 25 churches, an Academic High School, Academy of Music, 2 National banks, hospital, orphan' asylum, several public libraries
Auburn New York , the county seat of Cayuga County
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
New York , the county seat of Cayuga County. It is a well built, prosperous city of 30,000 people, engaged largely in manufacturing. A fine waterfall furnishes power and a state prison part of the labor. It is the seat of Auburn Theological Seminary, an institution of high rank, founded by the Presbyterian denomination. A statue honors the name of William H. Seward, a native of this place. In the nineteenth century discussion of prison management, the system in vogue in the Auburn penitentiary was frequently quoted as a type of the congregate as opposed to the solitary method of confinement.
Auburn city and county-seat of Androscoggin co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
city and county-seat of Androscoggin co., Me.; on the Androscoggin river and the Maine Central and Grand Trunk railroads, 30 miles S. W. of Augusta. The river, which separates Auburn from the city of Lewiston, has a fall of 60 feet near the cities, giving them excellent power for manufacturing. Auburn is principally engaged in the manufacture of shoes, though it is doing considerable in the lines of cotton goods, furnitu furniture, and tanned leather. It is lighted by electricity, and has 1 National bank, a high school, and public library. Pop. (1910) 15,064 ; (1920) 16,985.
Auburn the scene of Goldsmith's Deserted Village
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the scene of Goldsmith's Deserted Village. "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," is understood to be the village of Lissoy in the central part of Ireland. Nearly every state in the Union has an Auburn. The largest of these is Auburn, New York .
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The Auburn Theological Seminary that both accounts treat as the city's ornament left in 1939, moving to Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, where the name survives as a small institute; Aiton's "institution of high rank" is no longer in Cayuga County at all. The prison, however, is very much still there: Auburn Correctional Facility remains a maximum-security state prison, though the "congregate" Auburn system Aiton's saw debated in the nineteenth century is now studied as history rather than model, and New York's death penalty — begun at Auburn with William Kemmler's electrocution in 1890 — ended in practice with a 1963 execution and in law after a 2004 court ruling. The reapers, mowers, carpets and woolen mills that made Collier's call it "an important industrial center" are gone, and the city has shrunk to roughly 26,000 from a mid-century peak; its best-known site today is the Harriet Tubman Home, made part of a national historical park in 2017. Auburn, Maine, likewise lost its shoe trade, while Aiton's identification of Goldsmith's "Sweet Auburn" with Lissoy, County Westmeath, is still the standard view.
Written for this edition, 2026.