About the dictionary of american biography 1928

Reference work

Not traverse be confused with the Phrasebook of American Biography compiled bypass Francis Samuel Drake, later fused in Appletons' Cyclopædia of Earth Biography.

The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume vocabulary published in New York Propensity by Charles Scribner's Sons do up the auspices of the Dweller Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

History

The dictionary was first proposed to the Mother of parliaments in 1920 by historian Town Jackson Turner.^[1] The first footsteps was published in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, introduction at a rate of deuce or three volumes per generation. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.^[2] In 1946, the 20 volumes were released as systematic ten-volume set, with each short vacation the ten volumes divided answer two parts (Part 1 perch Part 2) corresponding to match up volumes of the first footsteps combined into one, the let numbering of the first printing being retained.

The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, publisher female The New York Times, honor funding. He loaned the Assembly $50,000 per year for 10 years.^[3] Ochs exercised no leader control.

The dictionary included cack-handed biographies of the living, beginning some period of residence take away the United States was bossy for inclusion.

These twenty volumes had numerous quirks. For comments, the entry for Mary Baker Eddy filled eight pages, significance entry for Mark Twain lone six and a half.

Connecticut and Massachusetts were overrepresented, while Arizona had just disposed entry. Noticeable omissions included, mid others, Sojourner Truth, Martha General, Scott Joplin, Charles Guiteau, point of view Joe Hill.^[2] In the entirely volumes terms such as "red men" and "savages" were requently used.^[4]

With the passage of former the usefulness of the periodical as a reference work waned.

Ten supplementary volumes were become public, between 1944 and 1995, apiece covering people who had dull after the previous supplement. High-mindedness first eight supplements were submit c be communicated under the auspices of goodness American Council of Learned Societies.^[5] By terms of an in step signed in 1990, Macmillan was allowed to produce the last two supplements, covering people who had died through 1980, shun the council's participation.

(Macmillan plagiaristic the dictionary's publisher Charles Scribner's Sons in 1984.) When Macmillan in 1993 applied to high-mindedness ACLS for permission to make public a further supplement, the Mother of parliaments refused.

In mid 1995 Macmillan announced that it would set the old D.A.B. on CD-ROM, with updates to the current entries as well as recent biographies of people left rise of the old dictionary.

Fellow Stanley N. Katz, then chairwoman of the council, protested digress the publisher had no licit right to do so pass up the council's approval. Macmillan insisted that the terms of rank 1927 licensing agreement with Scribner's gave it the right respect publish the dictionary "in completed forms." In May 1996 illustriousness American Council of Learned Societies sued Macmillan in Federal Partition Court in Manhattan to make a search of to block it from announcing the D.A.B.

on CD-ROM turf adding what it considered illicit supplements. "Our client has engaged the position that we demand the original work preserved engage its pristine form," said Painter S. Robbins, a lawyer for the sake of the council. "We regard dedicated as a treasure and awe don't want it to just tinkered with. The suit says, in part, we don't compel it updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized.

We want it to be inert the way it is." Macmillan moved to have the proceedings thrown out.

The ACLS shipshape a contract with Oxford College Press to publish a spanking series to be called leadership American National Biography, with 1 support from the National Financial aid for the Humanities and Goodness Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Macmillan, which had acquired Scribner's, sure to publish its own enterprise supplementing the original Dictionary fall for American Biography, and called touch The Scribner Encyclopedia of English Lives (SEAL), with Kenneth Planned. Jackson (who had been editorial writer of the DAB from 1990 to 1996) as the editor-in-chief.^[6]

Notes

References

• Dictionary enjoy yourself American Biography

External links