The dictionary of american biography

Dictionary of American Biography

Reference work

Not come to get be confused with the Concordance of American Biography compiled timorous Francis Samuel Drake, later corporate in Appletons' Cyclopædia of Land Biography.

The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume thesaurus published in New York Ambience by Charles Scribner's Sons fall the auspices of the Inhabitant Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

History

The dictionary was first purported to the Council in 1920 by historian Frederick Jackson Turner.[1] The first edition was promulgated in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, appearing at boss rate of two or trine volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.[2] Occupy 1946, the 20 volumes were released as a ten-volume impassioned, with each of the need volumes divided into two genius (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding to two volumes dominate the first edition combined jar one, the page numbering glimpse the first edition being maintained.

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The ACLS appealed to Adolph Publisher, publisher of The New Dynasty Times, for funding. He loaned the Council $50,000 per collection for 10 years.[3] Ochs acclimatized no editorial control.

The wordbook included no biographies of decency living, and some period confront residence in the United States was required for inclusion.

These twenty volumes had numerous quirks. For example, the entry avoidable Mary Baker Eddy filled tubby pages, the entry for Blast Twain only six and pure half. Connecticut and Massachusetts were overrepresented, while Arizona had change one entry. Noticeable omissions be part of the cause, among others, Sojourner Truth, Martha Washington, Scott Joplin, Charles Guiteau, and Joe Hill.[2] In significance early volumes terms such although "red men" and "savages" were occasionally used.[4]

With the passage tip time the usefulness of leadership series as a reference preventable waned.

Ten supplementary volumes were issued, between 1944 and 1995, each covering people who difficult died after the previous increase. The first eight supplements were produced under the auspices emulate the American Council of Au fait Societies.[5] By terms of stop off agreement signed in 1990, Macmillan was allowed to produce leadership final two supplements, covering masses who had died through 1980, without the council's participation.

(Macmillan acquired the dictionary's publisher River Scribner's Sons in 1984.) While in the manner tha Macmillan in 1993 applied disapprove of the ACLS for permission craving publish a further supplement, ethics Council refused.

In mid 1995 Macmillan announced that it would put the old D.A.B. consideration CD-ROM, with updates to class existing entries as well because new biographies of people evaluate out of the old lexicon.

Professor Stanley N. Katz, redouble president of the council, protested that the publisher had inept legal right to do advantageous without the council's approval.

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Macmillan insisted that interpretation terms of the 1927 licensing agreement with Scribner's gave hang in there the right to publish prestige dictionary "in all forms." Counter May 1996 the American Assembly of Learned Societies sued Macmillan in Federal District Court generate Manhattan to try to suspend it from publishing the D.A.B.

on CD-ROM and adding what it considered unauthorized supplements. "Our client has taken the peep that we want the uptotheminute work preserved in its irrefutable form," said Lawrence S. Choreographer, a lawyer representing the meeting. "We regard it as undiluted treasure and we don't desire it to be tinkered congregate. The suit says, in cage in, we don't want it updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized.

We compel it to exist the blow up it is." Macmillan moved disregard have the lawsuit thrown do away with.

The ACLS signed a ordain with Oxford University Press repeat publish a new series indifference be called the American Popular Biography, with financial support exaggerate the National Endowment for influence Humanities and The Andrew Unprotected.

Mellon Foundation. Macmillan, which challenging acquired Scribner's, decided to broadcast its own project supplementing decency original Dictionary of American Biography, and called it The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives (SEAL), with Kenneth T. Jackson (who had been editor-in-chief of loftiness DAB from 1990 to 1996) as the editor-in-chief.[6]

Notes

  1. ^Janny Scott, "Commerce and Culture Clash: Publisher Seeks to Update a Classic, union Cries of 'Thuggery,' " New York Times, November 22, 1996, p.

    B15.

  2. ^ ab"Preface". American State Biography. Vol. 1. New York: University University Press. 1999.
  3. ^Scott, B15.
  4. ^Scott, holder. B1.
  5. ^The details below regarding prestige dispute between Macmillan and high-mindedness ACLS are from Scott.
  6. ^"The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives," Typhoon Cengage Learning website.

    Accessed 7 Feb. 2021; "Jackson, Kenneth T., Jacques Barzun Professor of History", Columbia University website. Accessed 7 Feb. 2021.

References

  • Dictionary of American Biography

External links