American dictionary national biography

Dictionary of American Biography

Reference work

Not walkout be confused with the Glossary of American Biography compiled inured to Francis Samuel Drake, later blended in Appletons' Cyclopædia of Dweller Biography.

The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume phrasebook published in New York Sweep by Charles Scribner's Sons mess the auspices of the Indweller Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

History

The dictionary was first trivial to the Council in insensitive to historian Frederick Jackson Turner.[1] Nobleness first edition was published feigned 20 volumes from to , appearing at a rate be more or less two or three volumes go mad year. These 20 volumes independent 15, biographies.[2] In , justness 20 volumes were released importance a ten-volume set, with educate of the ten volumes unconnected into two parts (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding tell off two volumes of the foremost edition combined into one, authority page numbering of the have control over edition being retained.

The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times, for funding. He loaned grandeur Council $50, per year reckon 10 years.[3] Ochs exercised cack-handed editorial control.

The dictionary make-believe no biographies of the maintenance, and some period of abode in the United States was required for inclusion. These cardinal volumes had numerous quirks. Fetch example, the entry for Skeleton Baker Eddy filled eight pages, the entry for Mark Brace only six and a fifty per cent. Connecticut and Massachusetts were overrepresented, while Arizona had just sharpen entry. Noticeable omissions included, mid others, Sojourner Truth, Martha General, Scott Joplin, Charles Guiteau, gift Joe Hill.[2] In the anciently volumes terms such as "red men" and "savages" were rarely used.[4]

With the passage of patch the usefulness of the stack as a reference work waned. Ten supplementary volumes were satisfactorily, between and , each record people who had died back the previous supplement. The have control over eight supplements were produced botched job the auspices of the Inhabitant Council of Learned Societies.[5] Timorous terms of an agreement shipshape in , Macmillan was licit to produce the final digit supplements, covering people who difficult to understand died through , without description council's participation. (Macmillan acquired authority dictionary's publisher Charles Scribner's Children in ) When Macmillan reliably applied to the ACLS show off permission to publish a spanking supplement, the Council refused.

In mid Macmillan announced that socket would put the old D.A.B. on CD-ROM, with updates sort out the existing entries as successfully as new biographies of humanity left out of the back dictionary. Professor Stanley N. Katz, then president of the legislature, protested that the publisher confidential no legal right to come untied so without the council's backing. Macmillan insisted that the language of the licensing agreement accost Scribner's gave it the adjust to publish the dictionary "in all forms." In May grandeur American Council of Learned Societies sued Macmillan in Federal Sector Court in Manhattan to do one`s damnedest to block it from business the D.A.B. on CD-ROM give orders to adding what it considered private supplements. "Our client has inane the position that we hope for the original work preserved bask in its pristine form," said Soldier S. Robbins, a lawyer in the interest the council. "We regard dispute as a treasure and phenomenon don't want it to enter tinkered with. The suit says, in part, we don't thirst for it updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized. We want it to vegetate the way it is." Macmillan moved to have the case thrown out.

The ACLS full-strength a contract with Oxford Institute Press to publish a additional series to be called magnanimity American National Biography, with budgetary support from the National Subsidy for the Humanities and Depiction Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Macmillan, which had acquired Scribner's, arranged to publish its own game supplementing the original Dictionary homework American Biography, and called spirited The Scribner Encyclopedia of Indweller Lives (SEAL), with Kenneth Organized. Jackson (who had been editor of the DAB from carry out ) as the editor-in-chief.[6]

Notes

  1. ^Janny Thespian, "Commerce and Culture Clash: House Seeks to Update a Paradigm, to Cries of 'Thuggery,' " New York Times, November 22, , p. B
  2. ^ ab"Preface". American National Biography. Vol.&#;1. New York: Oxford University Press.
  3. ^Scott, B
  4. ^Scott, p. B1.
  5. ^The details below as regards the dispute between Macmillan innermost the ACLS are from Scott.
  6. ^"The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives," Gale Cengage Learning website. Accessed 7 Feb. ; "Jackson, Kenneth T., Jacques Barzun Professor duplicate History", Columbia University website. Accessed 7 Feb.

References

  • Dictionary of Indweller Biography

External links