Merriam Webster Time Traveler Year You Were Born

American lexicographer, reformer, and author

Noah Webster
Portrait by James Herring, 1833
Member of the Connecticut House of Representatives
In part 1800; 1802 – 1807
Personal details
Born	Noah Webster Jr. (1758-10-xvi)October 16, 1758 Western Reserve of Hartford,[1] [2] Connecticut Colony, British America
Died	May 28, 1843(1843-05-28) (aged 84) New Haven, Connecticut, U.South.
Resting place	Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut
Party	Federalist
Spouse(s)	Rebecca Greenleaf Webster ​ ​ (m. )​
Children	8
Residence(s)	Hartford, Connecticut New York Urban center New Haven, Connecticut
Alma mater	Yale University
Occupation	Lexicographer Author Connecticut state representative
Military machine service
Allegiance	United states
Branch/service	Connecticut Militia
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War

Webster's New Oasis home, where he wrote An American Lexicon of the English Linguistic communication. Now relocated to Greenfield Hamlet in Dearborn, Michigan.

Noah Webster Jr. (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-linguistic communication spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His "Bluish-backed Speller" books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read. Webster's proper noun has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, peculiarly the mod Merriam-Webster dictionary that was beginning published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.

Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Webster graduated from Yale College in 1778. He passed the bar exam later on studying law under Oliver Ellsworth and others, but was unable to find piece of work as a lawyer. He found some financial success by opening a individual schoolhouse and writing a series of educational books, including the "Blueish-Backed Speller". A stiff supporter of the American Revolution and the ratification of the U.s. Constitution, Webster later criticized American society for existence in need of an intellectual foundation. He believed that American nationalism was superior to Europe because American values were superior.^[3]

In 1793, Alexander Hamilton recruited Webster to move to New York City and become an editor for a Federalist Political party newspaper. He became a prolific writer, publishing paper manufactures, political essays, and textbooks. He returned to Connecticut in 1798 and served in the Connecticut House of Representatives. Webster founded the Connecticut Social club for the Abolition of Slavery in 1791 only later became somewhat disillusioned with the abolitionist movement.^{[ citation needed ]}

In 1806, Webster published his offset lexicon, A Compendious Dictionary of the English language Linguistic communication. The post-obit twelvemonth, he started working on an expanded and comprehensive dictionary, finally publishing it in 1828. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in the Usa. He was too influential in establishing the Copyright Act of 1831, the first major statutory revision of U.South. copyright law. Whilst working on a second volume of his dictionary, Webster died in 1843, and the rights to the dictionary were acquired by George and Charles Merriam.

Biography [edit]

Webster was born in the Western Partitioning of Hartford (which became West Hartford, Connecticut) to an established family. His birthplace is the Noah Webster House which highlights Webster'due south life and is the headquarters of the West Hartford Historical Society. His father Noah Webster Sr. (1722–1813) was a descendant of Connecticut Governor John Webster; his mother Mercy (Steele) Webster (1727–1794) was a descendant of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony.^[4] His father was primarily a farmer, though he was also deacon of the local Congregational church, helm of the boondocks's militia, and a founder of a local volume society (a precursor to the public library).^[5] After American independence, he was appointed a justice of the peace.^[6]

Webster'south begetter never attended higher, but he was intellectually curious and prized instruction. Webster's mother spent long hours teaching her children spelling, mathematics, and music.^[7] At age 6, Webster began attention a battered one-room primary school built by West Hartford's Ecclesiastical Society. Years afterwards, he described the teachers equally the "dregs of humanity" and complained that the teaching was mainly in religion.^[8] Webster's experiences there motivated him to ameliorate the educational experience of time to come generations.^[9]

At age fourteen, his church pastor began tutoring him in Latin and Greek to fix him for entering Yale College.^[ten] Webster enrolled at Yale just before his 16th birthday, studying during his senior year with Ezra Stiles, Yale'south president. His 4 years at Yale overlapped the American Revolutionary State of war and, considering of food shortages and the possibility of British invasion, many of his classes had to be held in other towns. Webster served in the Connecticut Militia. His father had mortgaged the farm to send Webster to Yale, but he was now on his ain and had nix more to practise with his family.^[11]

Webster lacked career plans afterward graduating from Yale in 1779, after writing that a liberal arts education "disqualifies a man for business".^[12] He taught school briefly in Glastonbury, but the working weather were harsh and the pay depression. He quit to study law.^[13] While studying law under time to come U.Due south. Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, Webster also taught full-time in Hartford—which was grueling, and ultimately impossible to go on.^[14] He quit his legal studies for a year and lapsed into a low; he and then constitute another practicing chaser to tutor him, and completed his studies and passed the bar test in 1781.^[fifteen] As the Revolutionary State of war was still going on, he could not find work as a lawyer. He received a main's degree from Yale by giving an oral dissertation to the Yale graduating class. Later that twelvemonth, he opened a small private school in western Connecticut that was a success. Yet, he soon closed information technology and left town, probably because of a failed romance.^[16] Turning to literary work as a way to overcome his losses and channel his ambitions,^[17] he began writing a series of well-received articles for a prominent New England newspaper justifying and praising the American Revolution and arguing that the separation from Britain would be a permanent state of affairs.^[18] He then founded a individual schoolhouse catering to wealthy parents in Goshen, New York and, by 1785, he had written his speller, a grammer book and a reader for uncomplicated schools.^[19] Proceeds from standing sales of the popular bluish-backed speller enabled Webster to spend many years working on his famous dictionary.^[twenty]

Webster was past nature a revolutionary, seeking American independence from the cultural thralldom to Europe. To replace information technology, he sought to create a utopian America, cleansed of luxury and ostentation and the champion of freedom.^[21] By 1781, Webster had an expansive view of the new nation. American nationalism was superior to Europe considering American values were superior, he claimed.^[22]

America sees the absurdities—she sees the kingdoms of Europe, disturbed by wrangling sectaries, or their commerce, population and improvements of every kind cramped and retarded, because the human mind like the body is fettered 'and leap fast past the chords of policy and superstition': She laughs at their folly and shuns their errors: She founds her empire upon the idea of universal toleration: She admits all religions into her bosom; She secures the sacred rights of every individual; and (amazing absurdity to Europeans!) she sees a thousand discordant opinions live in the strictest harmony ... it will finally raise her to a pitch of greatness and lustre, earlier which the celebrity of ancient Greece and Rome shall dwindle to a signal, and the splendor of modern Empires fade into obscurity.

Webster dedicated his Speller and Dictionary to providing an intellectual foundation for American nationalism.^[23] From 1787 to 1789, Webster was an outspoken supporter of the new Constitution. In October 1787, he wrote a pamphlet entitled "An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed past the Tardily Convention Held at Philadelphia", published under the pen proper noun "A Citizen of America".^[24] The pamphlet was influential, peculiarly outside New York State.

In terms of political theory, he de-emphasized virtue (a core value of republicanism) and emphasized widespread buying of holding (a key element of Federalism). He was one of the few Americans who paid much attention to French theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was not Rousseau's politics simply his ideas on pedagogy in Emile (1762) that influenced Webster in adjusting his Speller to the stages of a child'south development.^[25]

Federalist editor [edit]

Rebecca Greenleaf Webster, married woman of Noah Webster

Noah Webster married Rebecca Greenleaf (1766–1847) on October 26, 1789, New Haven, Connecticut. They had eight children:

• Emily Schotten (1790–1861), who married William W. Ellsworth, named by Webster equally an executor of his will.^[26] Emily, their girl, married Rev. Abner Jackson, who became president of both Hartford's Trinity College and Hobart College in New York State.^[27]
• Frances Julianna (1793–1869), married Chauncey Allen Goodrich
• Harriet (1797–1844), who married William Chauncey Fowler
• Mary (1799–1819)
• William Greenleaf (1801–1869)
• Eliza Steele (1803–1888) m. Rev. Henry Jones (1801-1878)
• Henry Bradford (1806–1807)
• Louisa Greenleaf (1808-1874)

Webster married well and had joined the aristocracy in Hartford but did not have much money. In 1793, Alexander Hamilton lent him $1,500 to move to New York Urban center to edit the leading Federalist Party newspaper. In December, he founded New York's first daily paper American Minerva (later known equally the Commercial Advertiser), which he edited for iv years, writing the equivalent of 20 volumes of articles and editorials. He too published the semi-weekly publication The Herald, A Gazette for the country (later on known as The New York Spectator).

As a Federalist spokesman, he defended the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, especially their policy of neutrality betwixt Britain and France, and he especially criticized the excesses of the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror. When French ambassador Denizen Genêt set up a network of pro-Jacobin "Democratic-Republican Societies" that entered American politics and attacked President Washington, he condemned them. He later defended Jay'due south Treaty between the United States and Britain. Every bit a result, he was repeatedly denounced by the Jeffersonian Republicans equally "a pusillanimous, half-begotten, self-dubbed patriot", "an incurable lunatic", and "a mendacious newsmonger ... Pedagogue and Quack."^[28]

For decades, he was one of the about prolific authors in the new nation, publishing textbooks, political essays, a report on infectious diseases, and newspaper articles for his Federalist party. He wrote so much that a modern bibliography of his published works required 655 pages. He moved back to New Oasis in 1798; he was elected as a Federalist to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1800 and 1802–1807.

Webster was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1799.^[29] He moved to Amherst, Massachusetts in 1812, where he helped to found Amherst Higher. In 1822 the family moved dorsum to New Haven, where Webster was awarded an honorary caste from Yale the following year. In 1827, Webster was elected to the American Philosophical Guild.^[thirty]

Blue-backed speller [edit]

To the Friends of Literature in the United States, Webster's prospectus for his first dictionary of the English linguistic communication, 1807–1808

As a teacher, he had come to dislike American simple schools. They could be overcrowded, with up to 70 children of all ages crammed into one-room schoolhouses. They had poor, underpaid staff, no desks, and unsatisfactory textbooks that came from England. Webster thought that Americans should learn from American books, and so he began writing the three volume compendium A Grammatical Institute of the English language Language. The work consisted of a speller (published in 1783), a grammer (published in 1784), and a reader (published in 1785). His goal was to provide a uniquely American approach to training children. His most important improvement, he claimed, was to rescue "our native tongue" from "the clamour^[31] of pedantry" that surrounded English grammar and pronunciation. He complained that the English language language had been corrupted past the British aristocracy, which set its own standard for proper spelling and pronunciation.^[32] Webster rejected the notion that the study of Greek and Latin must precede the study of English language grammar. The advisable standard for the American language, argued Webster, was "the same republican principles as American civil and ecclesiastical constitutions." This meant that the people-at-large must control the language; popular sovereignty in government must be accompanied past popular usage in language.

The Speller was arranged and so that information technology could be hands taught to students, and information technology progressed past age. From his ain experiences as a teacher, Webster idea that the Speller should be simple and gave an orderly presentation of words and the rules of spelling and pronunciation. He believed that students learned most readily when he broke a complex problem into its component parts and had each pupil chief one office earlier moving to the next. Ellis argues that Webster anticipated some of the insights currently associated with Jean Piaget'due south theory of cognitive evolution. Webster said that children pass through distinctive learning phases in which they master increasingly complex or abstract tasks. Therefore, teachers must not try to teach a three-year-old how to read; they could not exercise it until historic period 5. He organized his speller accordingly, beginning with the alphabet and moving systematically through the different sounds of vowels and consonants, and so syllables, and then simple words, and so more than complex words, so sentences.^[33]

The speller was originally titled The Starting time Part of the Grammatical Found of the English Language. Over the form of 385 editions in his lifetime, the title was changed in 1786 to The American Spelling Book, and once more in 1829 to The Elementary Spelling Book. Nearly people called it the "Blue-Backed Speller" because of its blue embrace and, for the side by side 1 hundred years, Webster's book taught children how to read, spell, and pronounce words. It was the virtually pop American volume of its time; by 1837, it had sold 15 million copies, and some 60 million past 1890—reaching the majority of young students in the nation's first century. Its royalty of a half-cent per copy was enough to sustain Webster in his other endeavors. Information technology also helped create the popular contests known as spelling bees.

As time went on, Webster changed the spellings in the book to more phonetic ones. Most of them already existed as alternative spellings.^[34] He chose spellings such equally defense, color, and traveler, and changed the re to er in words such as middle. He also inverse natural language to the older spelling tung, but this did non catch on.^[35]

Part three of his Grammatical Institute (1785) was a reader designed to uplift the heed and "diffuse the principles of virtue and patriotism."^[36]

"In the choice of pieces", he explained, "I have non been inattentive to the political interests of America. Several of those masterly addresses of Congress, written at the starting time of the late Revolution, comprise such noble, just, and contained sentiments of liberty and patriotism, that I cannot help wishing to transfuse them into the breasts of the ascent generation."

Students received the usual quota of Plutarch, Shakespeare, Swift, and Addison, as well every bit such Americans as Joel Barlow'south Vision of Columbus, Timothy Dwight's Conquest of Canaan, and John Trumbull'south verse form M'Fingal. He included excerpts from Tom Paine's The Crisis and an essay by Thomas Day calling for the abolition of slavery in accord with the Proclamation of Independence.

Webster'south Speller was entirely secular by design.^[37] Information technology concluded with two pages of important dates in American history, offset with Columbus's discovery of America in 1492 and ending with the boxing of Yorktown in 1781. There was no mention of God, the Bible, or sacred events. "Let sacred things be appropriated for sacred purposes", Webster wrote. As Ellis explains, "Webster began to construct a secular catechism to the nation-country. Hither was the beginning advent of 'civics' in American schoolbooks. In this sense, Webster's speller becoming what was to be the secular successor to The New England Primer with its explicitly biblical injunctions."^[38] Later in life, Webster became intensely religious and added religious themes. Notwithstanding, after 1840, Webster's books lost market share to the McGuffey Eclectic Readers of William Holmes McGuffey, which sold over 120 million copies.^[39]

Noah Webster, The Schoolmaster of the Republic. (1886)

Vincent P. Bynack (1984) examines Webster in relation to his commitment to the idea of a unified American national culture that would stave off the reject of republican virtues and solidarity. Webster acquired his perspective on linguistic communication from such theorists as Maupertuis, Michaelis, and Herder. In that location he constitute the belief that a nation'due south linguistic forms and the thoughts correlated with them shaped individuals' behavior. Thus, the etymological clarification and reform of American English promised to better citizens' manners and thereby preserve republican purity and social stability. This presupposition blithe Webster's Speller and Grammar.^[xl]

Lexicon [edit]

Publication [edit]

Noah Webster honored on US Postage stamp, event of 1958

In 1806, Webster published his first lexicon, A Compendious Lexicon of the English Linguistic communication. In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language; information technology took twenty-six years to complete. To evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned 20-viii languages, including Old English, Gothic, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, Welsh, Russian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. Webster hoped to standardize American oral communication, since Americans in different parts of the land used different languages. They also spelled, pronounced, and used English words differently.^[41]

Webster completed his lexicon during his twelvemonth abroad in January 1825 in a boarding house in Cambridge, England.^[42] His book contained lxx thousand words, of which twelve thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before. As a spelling reformer, Webster preferred spellings that matched pronunciation better. In A Companion to the American Revolution (2008), John Algeo notes: "Information technology is ofttimes assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in America, but he did not originate them. Rather ... he chose already existing options such as center, color and cheque on such grounds as simplicity, illustration or etymology."^[34] He also added American words, like "skunk", that did not appear in British dictionaries. At the age of seventy, Webster published his lexicon in 1828, registering the copyright on April fourteen.^[43]

Though it at present has an honored place in the history of American English, Webster'due south commencement dictionary just sold ii,500 copies. He was forced to mortgage his home to develop a 2nd edition, and for the rest of his life he had debt issues.^[44]

In 1840, the second edition was published in ii volumes. On May 28, 1843, a few days later on he had completed making more specific definitions, to the second edition, and with much of his efforts with the dictionary however unrecognized, Noah Webster died. His last words were, "I am entirely submissive to the will of God." He died afterward that evening.^{[ citation needed ]} The rights to his dictionary were acquired by George and Charles Merriam in 1843 from Webster'due south estate and all gimmicky Merriam-Webster dictionaries trace their lineage to that of Webster, although many others have adopted his proper noun, attempting to share in the popularity. He is buried in New Haven's Grove Street Cemetery.^[45]

Title folio of Webster'southward Lexicon of the English language Linguistic communication, c.  1830–1840

Influence [edit]

Lepore (2008) demonstrates Webster'southward paradoxical ideas about language and politics and shows why Webster's endeavors were at offset and then poorly received. Culturally conservative Federalists denounced the piece of work every bit radical—likewise inclusive in its lexicon and even bordering on vulgar. Meanwhile, Webster'south erstwhile foes the Republicans attacked the man, labeling him mad for such an undertaking.^[46]

Scholars have long seen Webster's 1844 dictionary to be an important resource for reading poet Emily Dickinson's life and piece of work; she in one case commented that the "Lexicon" was her "merely companion" for years. One biographer said, "The lexicon was no mere reference volume to her; she read it as a priest his breviary—over and over, page by page, with utter absorption."^[47]

Nathan Austin has explored the intersection of lexicographical and poetic practices in American literature, and attempts to map out a "lexical poetics" using Webster's definitions as his base. Poets mined^{[ colloquialism? ]} his dictionaries, often drawing upon the lexicography in club to limited give-and-take play. Austin explicates key definitions from both the Compendious (1806) and American (1828) dictionaries, and finds a range of themes such as the politics of "American" versus "British" English and issues of national identity and contained culture. Austin argues that Webster's dictionaries helped redefine Americanism in an era of highly flexible cultural identity. Webster himself saw the dictionaries every bit a nationalizing device to separate America from Britain, calling his projection a "federal linguistic communication", with competing forces towards regularity on the ane mitt and innovation on the other. Austin suggests that the contradictions of Webster's lexicography were role of a larger play between liberty and guild within American intellectual discourse, with some pulled toward Europe and the past, and others pulled toward America and the new hereafter.^[48]

In 1850 Blackie and Son in Glasgow published the first general dictionary of English that relied heavily upon pictorial illustrations integrated with the text. Its The Imperial Dictionary, English, Technological, and Scientific, Adapted to the Present Land of Literature, Science, and Art; On the Footing of Webster's English Dictionary used Webster'south for most of their text, adding some additional technical words that went with illustrations of machinery.^[49]

Views [edit]

Religion [edit]

Letter from Webster to daughter Eliza, 1837, warning of perils of the abolitionist movement

Webster in early life was something of a freethinker, only in 1808 he became a convert to Calvinistic orthodoxy, and thereafter became a devout Congregationalist who preached the demand to Christianize the nation.^[50] Webster grew increasingly authoritarian and elitist, fighting against the prevailing grain of Jacksonian Democracy. Webster viewed linguistic communication as a tool to control unruly thoughts. His American Lexicon emphasized the virtues of social control over man passions and individualism, submission to authority, and fright of God; they were necessary for the maintenance of the American social order. As he grew older, Webster's attitudes inverse from those of an optimistic revolutionary in the 1780s to those of a pessimistic critic of human being and guild past the 1820s.^[51]

His 1828 American Lexicon contained the greatest number of Biblical definitions given in any reference volume. Webster said of education,

Didactics is useless without the Bible. The Bible was America's bones text volume in all fields. God's Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct.^{[52] [53]}

Webster released his ain edition of the Bible in 1833, called the Common Version. He used the King James Version (KJV) as a base of operations and consulted the Hebrew and Greek along with various other versions and commentaries. Webster molded the KJV to right grammar, replaced words that were no longer used, and removed words and phrases that could be seen every bit offensive.

In 1834, he published Value of the Bible and Excellence of the Christian Religion, an apologetic book in defence force of the Bible and Christianity itself.

Slavery [edit]

Webster helped constitute the Connecticut Guild for the Abolition of Slavery in 1791,^[54] just by the 1830s rejected the new tone among abolitionists that emphasized that Americans who tolerated slavery were themselves sinners. In 1837, Webster warned his daughter Eliza about her fervent support of the abolitionist crusade. Webster wrote, "slavery is a swell sin and a general calamity—but it is not our sin, though information technology may bear witness to be a terrible cataclysm to us in the northward. But nosotros cannot legally interfere with the South on this subject field."^[55] He added, "To come due north to preach and thus disturb our peace, when we can legally do nix to effect this object, is, in my view, highly criminal and the preachers of abolitionism deserve the penitentiary."^[55]

Copyright [edit]

The Copyright Human action of 1831 was the first major statutory revision of U.Southward. copyright police, a result of intensive lobbying by Noah Webster and his agents in Congress.^[56] Webster too played a critical part lobbying individual states throughout the country during the 1780s to pass the first American copyright laws, which were expected to have distinct nationalistic implications for the young nation.^[57]

Selected works [edit]

• Dissertation on the English Language (1789)
• Drove of Essays and Fugitive Writings on Moral, Historical, Political, and Literary Subjects (1790)
• The American Spelling Volume (1783)
• The Unproblematic Spelling Book (1829)
• Value of The Bible and Excellence of the Christian Religion (1834)

Posthumous [edit]

• Rudiments of English Grammar (1899)

Meet also [edit]

• Offset Party System
• Webster, Wisconsin, a boondocks named for Noah Webster^[58]

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Dobbs, Christopher. "Noah Webster and the Dream of a Common Language". Noah Webster and the Dream of a Common Language. Connecticut Humanities. Retrieved July 24, 2015.
2. ^ "Connecticut Births and Christenings, 1649-1906". FamilySearch . Retrieved July 24, 2015.
3. ^ American Reformers: Early/Mid 1800s: Noah Webster. "[i]" accessed July 31, 2019.
4. ^ Noah had ii brothers, Abraham (1751–1831) and Charles (b. 1762), and 2 sisters, Mercy (1749–1820) and Jerusha (1756–1831).
5. ^ Kendall, Joshua, The Forgotten Founding Begetter, p. 22.
6. ^ Kendall, p. 22.
7. ^ Kendall, pp. 21–23.
8. ^ Kendall, pp. 22–24.
9. ^ Kendall, p. 24.
10. ^ Kendall, pp. 29–30.
11. ^ Richard Rollins, The Long Journey of Noah Webster (1980) p. 19.
12. ^ Kendall, p. 54.
13. ^ Kendall, p. 56.
14. ^ Kendall, p. 57.
15. ^ Kendall, pp. 58–59.
16. ^ Kendall, p. 59-64
17. ^ Kendall, p. 65.
18. ^ Kendall, pp. 65–66.
19. ^ Kendall, pp. 69–71.
20. ^ Kendall, pp. 71–74.
21. ^ Rollins (1980) p. 24
22. ^ Ellis 170
23. ^ "Noah Webster Biography | Noah Webster Firm and W Hartford Historical Society | Westward Hartford, Connecticut (CT)". www.noahwebsterhouse.org. Archived from the original on November 5, 2016. Retrieved Jan 27, 2017.
24. ^ Kendall, Joshua, The Forgotten Founding Father, pp. 147–49
25. ^ Rollins, (1980) ch ii
26. ^ Micklethwait, David (January 21, 2005). Noah Webster and the American Dictionary, David Micklethwait, McFarland, 2005. ISBN9780786421572 . Retrieved December 9, 2011.
27. ^ Genealogy of the Greenleaf family. F. Forest. 1896. p. 221. Retrieved Dec 9, 2011. william greenleaf webster ellsworth.
28. ^ Ellis 199.
29. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter W" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August seven, 2014.
30. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org . Retrieved April 7, 2021.
31. ^ Citing this article, "at commencement he kept the u in words like colour or favour" so this quotation should have a 'U' in clamour
32. ^ See Brian Pelanda, Declarations of Cultural Independence: The Nationalistic Imperative Backside the Passage of Early on American Copyright Laws, 1783–1787 58 Periodical of the Copyright Gild of the U.s.a.A. 431, 431–454 (2011).
33. ^ Ellis 174.
34. ^ ^{a b} Algeo, John. "The Effects of the Revolution on Language," in A Companion to the American Revolution. John Wiley & Sons, 2008. p. 599
35. ^ Scudder 1881, pp. 245–52.
36. ^ Warfel, Harry Redcay (1966). Noah Webster, schoolmaster to America. New York: Octagon. p. 86.
37. ^ Ellis, After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture (1979) p. 175
38. ^ Ellis 175.
39. ^ Westerhoff, John H. III (1978). McGuffey and His Readers: Piety, Morality, and Teaching in Nineteenth-Century America . Nashville: Abingdon. ISBN0-687-23850-i.
40. ^ Bynack, Vincent P. (1984). "Noah Webster and the Thought of a National Culture: the Pathologies of Epistemology". Journal of the History of Ideas. 45 (1): 99–114. doi:10.2307/2709333. JSTOR 2709333.
41. ^ Pearson, Ellen Holmes. "The Standardization of American English," Teachinghistory.org, accessed March 21, 2012
42. ^ Lepore, Jill (2012). The Story of America: Essays on Origins. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Academy Press. p. 125. ISBN978-0-691-15399-5.
43. ^ Wright, Russell O. (2006). Chronology of education in the Us . McFarland. p. 44. ISBN978-0-7864-2502-0 . Retrieved April thirteen, 2012.
44. ^ "Noah Webster | American lexicographer | Britannica". www.britannica.com . Retrieved March i, 2022.
45. ^ "New Haven Register". April 10, 2011.
46. ^ Lepore, Jill (2008). "Introduction". In Schulman, Arthur (ed.). Websterisms: A Drove of Words and Definitions Set Forth by the Founding Begetter of American English. Free Printing.
47. ^ Deppman, Jed (2002). "'I Could Not Have Defined the Modify': Rereading Dickinson's Definition Poetry". Emily Dickinson Periodical. xi (1): 49–eighty. doi:10.1353/edj.2002.0005. S2CID 170669035. Martha Dickinson Bianchi, The life and messages of Emily Dickinson (1924) p. 80 for quote
48. ^ Nathan W. Austin, "Lost in the Maze of Words: Reading and Re-reading Noah Webster's Dictionaries", Dissertation Abstracts International, 2005, Vol. 65 Issue 12, p. 4561
49. ^ Hancher, Michael (1998). "Gazing at the Imperial Dictionary". Book History. i: 156–181. doi:10.1353/bh.1998.0006. S2CID 161573226.
50. ^ Snyder (1990).
51. ^ Rollins (1980).
52. ^ Mary Babson Fuhrer (2014). A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Transformation of a New England Town, 1815–1848. University of Northward Carolina Printing. p. 294. ISBN9781469612874.
53. ^ Webster, Noah. "Notable Quotes". Webster'south 1828 Lexicon - Online Edition . Retrieved April 10, 2019.
54. ^ Melis, Luisanna Fodde (2005). Noah Webster and the Kickoff American Dictionary, Luisanna Fodde Melis, Rosen Publishing Group, New York, 2005. ISBN9781404226517 . Retrieved Dec 9, 2011.
55. ^ ^{a b} Florea, Silvia. Americana Vol. Six, No 2, Autumn 2010 "Lessons from the Eye and Hearth of Colonial Philadelphia: Reflections on Education, As Reflected in Colonial Era Correspondence to Wives." [2]
56. ^ "Copyright Deed (1831), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450–1900), eds L. Bently & G. Kretschmer". Copyrighthistory.org. Archived from the original on October 1, 2008. Retrieved December nine, 2011.
57. ^ Run into Brian Pelanda, "Declarations of Cultural Independence: The Nationalistic Imperative Behind the Passage of Early American Copyright Laws, 1783–1787" 58 Periodical of the Copyright Social club of the U.S.A. 431, 437–42 (2011) online.
58. ^ Robert E. Gard (September 9, 2015). The Romance of Wisconsin Place Names. Wisconsin Historical Society Press. ISBN978-0-87020-708-two.

References [edit]

• "Noah Webster" in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in eighteen Volumes (1907–21). vol 18 department 25:33 online edition
• Bynack, Vincent P. "Noah Webster and the Idea of a National Culture: the Pathologies of Epistemology." Periodical of the History of Ideas 1984 45(1): 99–114. ISSN 0022-5037 in Jstor
• Ellis, Joseph J. Afterward the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture 1979. chapter half-dozen, interpretive essay online edition
• Gallardo, Andres. "The Standardization of American English." PhD dissertation Land U. of New York, Buffalo 1980. 367 pp. DAI 1981 41(viii): 3557-A. 8104193, focused on Webster'southward dictionary
• Kendall, Joshua. The Forgotten Founding Male parent: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture (2011)
• Leavitt, Robert Keith. Noah's Ark New England Yankees and the Endless Quest: a Brusk History of the Original Webster Dictionaries, With Detail Reference to Their First Hundred Years (1947). 106 pp
• Lepore, Jill. "Noah's Mark: Webster and the original dictionary wars." The New Yorker, (November 6, 2006). 78–87. online edition
• Malone, Kemp. "Webster, Noah," Dictionary of American Biography, Book ten (1936)
• Micklethwait, David. Noah Webster and the American Lexicon (2005)
• Morgan, John S. Noah Webster (1975), popular biography
• Moss, Richard J. Noah Webster. (1984). 131 pp. Wester equally author
• Nelson, C. Louise. "Neglect of Economic Education in Webster'south 'Blue-Backed Speller'" American Economist, Vol. 39, 1995 online edition
• Pelanda, Brian. Declarations of Cultural Independence: The Nationalistic Imperative Behind the Passage of Early on American Copyright Laws, 1783–1787 Journal of the Copyright Society of the Us, Vol. 58, p. 431, 2011.
• Proudfit, Isabel. Noah Webster Father of the Lexicon (1966).
• Rollins, Richard. The Long Journeying of Noah Webster (1980) (ISBN 0-8122-7778-3)
• Rollins, Richard M. "Words every bit Social Control: Noah Webster and the Creation of the American Lexicon". American Quarterly 1976 28(iv): 415–430. ISSN 0003-0678 JSTOR 2712538.
• Scudder, Horace E. (1881). Noah Webster. Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press. (from the serial American Men of Letters. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Visitor)
• Snyder, K. Alan. Defining Noah Webster: Heed and Morals in the Early on Republic. (1990). 421 pp.
• Southard, Bruce. "Noah Webster: America's Forgotten Linguist." American Voice communication 1979 54(1): 12–22. ISSN 0003-1283 in Jstor
• Unger, Harlow Giles. Noah Webster: The Life and Times of an American Patriot (1998), scholarly biography
• Warfel, Harry R. Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America (1936), a standard biography

Primary sources [edit]

• Harry R. Warfel, ed., Letters of Noah Webster (1953),
• Homer D. Babbidge Jr., ed., Noah Webster: On Being American (1967), selections from his writings
• Webster, Noah. The American Spelling Book: Containing the Rudiments of the English Language for the Utilise of Schools in the United States by Noah Webster 1836 edition online, the famous Blue- Backed Speller
• Webster, Noah. An American lexicon of the English language linguistic communication 1848 edition online
• Webster, Noah. A grammatical plant of the English language 1800 edition online
• Webster, Noah. Miscellaneous papers on political and commercial subjects 1802 edition online by and large virtually banks
• Webster, Noah. A collection of essays and fugitiv writings: on moral, historical, political and literary subjects 1790 edition online 414 pages

External links [edit]

• Noah Webster at Curlie
• The Noah Webster House & West Hartford Historical Order
• Noah Webster Collection, Special Collections, Jones Library, Amherst MA
• Noah Webster on the Merriam-Webster website
• Connecticut Heritage website
• "Webster, Noah". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 463.
• Works by Noah Webster at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Noah Webster at Internet Archive
• Searchable Webster's 1828 dictionary and Searchable Webster's 1913 dictionary—both in the public domain.
• Searchable Webster's 1828 wildcard lexicon
• Webster Bible text
• Preface to the Webster Bible
• Downloadable PDF of the Webster Bible
• A proposal for spelling reform from his younger and more than radical days
• Online Webster Bible Searchable by poetry and keywords
• The American Spelling Volume
• Commentary of a Speech communication by Noah Webster on July four, 1802

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