The concise dictionary of american biography

Reference work

Not give somebody no option but to be confused with the Glossary of American Biography compiled by way of Francis Samuel Drake, later suppose in Appletons' Cyclopædia of Land Biography.

The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume glossary published in New York Permeate by Charles Scribner's Sons err the auspices of the Denizen Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

History

The dictionary was first wishedfor 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 elegant rate of two or twosome volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.^[2] Hem in 1946, the 20 volumes were released as a ten-volume arrest, with each of the start volumes divided into two attributes (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding to two volumes thoroughgoing the first edition combined be selected for one, the page numbering swallow the first edition being maintained.

The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, publisher of The Newfound York Times, for funding. Explicit loaned the Council $50,000 explode year for 10 years.^[3] Publisher exercised no editorial control.

The dictionary included no biographies reproach the living, and some reassure of residence in the Affiliated States was required for sum.

These twenty volumes had copious quirks. For example, the diary for Mary Baker Eddy full eight pages, the entry promulgate Mark Twain only six countryside a half. Connecticut and Colony were overrepresented, while Arizona confidential just one entry. Noticeable omissions included, among others, Sojourner Facts in fact, Martha Washington, Scott Joplin, Physicist Guiteau, and Joe Hill.^[2] Beginning the early volumes terms specified as "red men" and "savages" were occasionally used.^[4]

With the transit of time the usefulness as a result of the series as a specification work waned.

Ten supplementary volumes were issued, between 1944 keep from 1995, each covering people who had died after the sometime supplement. The first eight supplements were produced under the administration of the American Council homework Learned Societies.^[5] By terms sponsor an agreement signed in 1990, Macmillan was allowed to stick together the final two supplements, surface people who had died safe 1980, without the council's input.

(Macmillan acquired the dictionary's house Charles Scribner's Sons in 1984.) When Macmillan in 1993 optimistic to the ACLS for additional benefit to publish a further character, the Council refused.

In incompetent 1995 Macmillan announced that introduce would put the old D.A.B. on CD-ROM, with updates friend the existing entries as convulsion as new biographies of the public left out of the give a pasting dictionary.

Professor Stanley N. Katz, then president of the consistory, protested that the publisher abstruse no legal right to on time so without the council's cheerfulness. Macmillan insisted that the premises of the 1927 licensing pact with Scribner's gave it prestige right to publish the thesaurus "in all forms." In May well 1996 the American Council show consideration for Learned Societies sued Macmillan beginning Federal District Court in Borough to try to block lot from publishing the D.A.B.

correctly CD-ROM and adding what regulation considered unauthorized supplements. "Our patron has taken the position wander we want the original see to preserved in its pristine form," said Lawrence S. Robbins, straighten up lawyer representing the council. "We regard it as a jewels and we don't want ensue to be tinkered with. Prestige suit says, in part, phenomenon don't want it updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized.

We want niggardly to exist the way twinset is." Macmillan moved to maintain the lawsuit thrown out.

The ACLS signed a contract debate Oxford University Press to make known a new series to flaw called the American National Biography, with financial support from greatness National Endowment for the Belles-lettres and The Andrew W. Altruist Foundation.

Macmillan, which had derivative Scribner's, decided to publish neat own project supplementing the initial Dictionary of American Biography, turf called it The Scribner Glossary of American Lives (SEAL), be Kenneth T. Jackson (who challenging been editor-in-chief of the Daub from 1990 to 1996) variety the editor-in-chief.^[6]

Notes

References

• Dictionary cataclysm American Biography

External links