Description:

Noah Webster's Dictionary, Family, and Legacy

This collection of publications discusses Webster's genealogy, his family, his dictionary, and the legacy of his dictionary and other works well into the twentieth century.

[NOAH WEBSTER.] Archive of Materials Related to Noah Webster's Dictionary, Legacy, and Family, 1836-1964. 16 documents, ~200 pp., plus additional notes and clippings.

Contents
- Noah Webster, Genealogy: Family of John Webster. New Haven: n.p., 1836. 8 pp., 5.5" x 9". Loss at bottom corner of all pages, not affecting text; some foxing.

- Galley Proof for Preface to Revised Edition of Webster's Dictionary, 1845. 2 pp., 6" x 9". Loss at left edge, not affecting text; some staining; handwritten emendations by Webster's son-in-law.

- Review of Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language and Joseph E. Worcester, A Dictionary of the English Language in The World (New York, NY), June 15, 1860. 1 p. (clipped four columns of original six), 10.5" x 22". Light staining; very good.

- William H. Goodrich, Lessons Brought from a Mother's Grave: A Sermon of Remembrance. Cleveland, OH: Fairbanks, Benedict & Co., 1869. 26 pp., 5" x 7.625".
Memorial for Julia Webster Goodrich (1793-1869), second daughter of Noah Webster.

- William Chauncey Fowler, Printed, but Not Published. Privately printed, n.d. [ca. 1870s]. 32 pp., 5.75" x 9.25". Each leaf torn across center and repaired with cellophane tape.
Fowler (1793-1881) offers an extended account of his grievances against his brother-in-law Chauncey A. Goodrich over Goodrich's revisions to Webster's dictionary.
"The substance of the above remarks was written out in 1846, and read to Mr. Ellsworth and Mrs. Ellsworth, and to Mr. and Mrs. Jones, with the declared intention of printing it when motives and purposes should become interpreted by facts and events. That time has come. Prophecy has become history. These pages are not intended for the public, but for the family of Dr. Webster, and such others as Mr. Goodrich has conversed with on the subject-matter." (p32)
Noah Webster's oldest daughter Emily S. Webster (1790-1861) married William W. Ellsworth (1791-1868), a Yale-educated attorney who served as governor of Connecticut (1838-1842) and Congressman (1829-1834).
Noah Webster's fifth daughter Eliza S. Webster (1803-1888) married Rev. Henry Jones (1801-1878).

- Francis A. March, "The Present Condition of Spelling Reform," offprint from Bulletin of the Spelling Reform Association (May 1879). 24 pp., 4" x 6". General toning; small loss and small holes in final page, minimally affecting text.
Francis A. March (1825-1911) was a professor of English and comparative linguistics at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania for fifty-six years.

- "Anniversary of the Birth of Noah Webster Will Be Fitly Celebrated," clipping from unidentified newspaper, [1908]. 2 pp., 8.5" x 7.25". General toning;

- F. Sturges Allen, Noah Webster's Place among English Lexicographers. Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1909. 20 pp., 5.75" x 8.5". Light soiling to cover; very good.
F. Sturges Allen (1861-1920) was a lexicographer, graduate of Yale (1884), and editor of several encyclopedias and versions of Webster's dictionaries.

- G. & C. Merriam Co., Dinner to Announce the Publication of Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. Springfield, MA: G & C. Merriam Co., 1934. 42 pp., 6.125" x 8.25". Some soiling to cover; very good.

- Hotel Kimball, Dinner to Announce the Publication of Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. Menu. 4 pp., 9" x 12". Includes color portrait of Noah Webster. Binding staples rusted; green ribbon present.

- Yale University, Noah Webster, October 16, 1758–May 28, 1843. New Haven: Yale University, 1958. 8 pp., 6" x 9". Excellent.

- Harry R. Warfel, Noah Webster and the Dawn of Linguistic Science: An address delivered at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, on October 16, 1958, on the occasion of the commemoration of the 200th birthday of Noah Webster. Reprinted from Festschrift für Walther Fischer (Heidelberg, 1959). 14 pp., 6.5" x 9.5". Two copies. Edge toning; very good.
Harry R. Warfel (1899-1971) was a professor of English at the University of Florida (1948-1971) and the author of Noah Webster, Schoolmaster to America (1936).

- Theodore Powell, "Noah and His Durham Descendant," The Courant Magazine, October 19, 1958, 2, 15. 11.5" x 15". Two copies. Very good.
Article on Webster's great-granddaughter, Mrs. Howard B. Field (Lylean Fowler Field) (1882-1974). She was the granddaughter of William Chauncey Fowler and Harriet Webster Fowler.

- Robert Angus, "Noah Webster and His Dictionary," The American Legion Magazine (December 1964): 14-16, 39-41. 8.5" x 11". General toning; full article, but not the full issue.

Noah Webster (1758-1843) was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1778. He was admitted to the bar in 1781 but could find no work as a lawyer. He received a master's degree from Yale and began teaching at schools in western Connecticut and then Goshen, New York. He wrote and published a speller (1783), a grammar book (1784), and a reader (1785) for elementary schools. In 1789, he married Rebecca Greenleaf (1766-1847) in New Haven, and they had eight children. In 1793, with a loan from Alexander Hamilton, Webster moved to New York City, where he founded the Federalist newspaper American Minerva and edited it for four years. He also published the semi-weekly publication The Herald, A Gazette for the Country. He defended the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, earning the ire of the Jeffersonian Republicans. After returning to New Haven in 1798, he served in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1800 and 1802-1807. In 1812, he moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he lived for a decade and helped to found Amherst College. Webster published his first dictionary in 1806 but began the following year to compile an expanded and comprehensive dictionary. The proceeds from the sale of his popular blue-backed speller allowed him to spend many years working on the dictionary. His famed An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) provided an intellectual foundation for American nationalism, seeing the new nation as superior to the old empires of antiquity and contemporary Europe. He published an expanded second edition in two volumes in 1840.

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