Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. So in our episode on Nicks Versus Headen, we mentioned that there was an intense rivalry between Noah Webster and Joseph Emerson Wooster and their dictionaries, which came to be known as the Dictionary Wars. I don't remember if I described it exactly as a rivalry in that episode. If I did, I kind of wish that wasn't the word that I had chosen, because now having researched it more, I don't think that's the best descriptor. I said. There might be a future episode on it, though, And here it is. This grew into a two parter, and it's kind of tangled because Wooster and Webster, they each had their own lives. The Dictionary Wars went on long after Webster's death, whether Wooster wanted them to or not. So in this what I decided to do, rather than trying to lay out this whole thing strictly in chronological order, We're going to have part one today's episode more about these two men's biographies, and then Part two is more detail about these dictionary wars. And as a note upfront, a whole lot of the writing about the dictionary wars differentiates among all these different editions of the dictionaries in question, mainly by talking about the formats they were printed in, using terms like octavo and quarto, So if you're not familiar with that terminology, it comes from how books were printed. So in a folio there would be one piece of paper folded in half that would create four total pages of a book, and then in a quarto the paper was folded twice made eight pages, and then in octavo threefolds made sixteen pages, and then it just goes on from there. And in terms of the height of the finished books, the folios are the tallest. Each successive size is smaller than the last one, so like the folios are big, hefty books, and a quarto would be like much smaller. This is a totally reasonable way to talk about these books. They were advertised that way at the time. To some extent, these words are still around. I think they come up most often talking about things like Shakespeare's first folio and things like that. But this is just not how books are printed anymore. In the context of an audio podcast, that seems a little unwieldy, especially since we know a lot of people listen to podcasts while they're doing something else. So I'm sort of imagining somebody in the middle of doing their dishes and going, wait, which one was the quarto? What is a quarto?

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. So in our episode on Nicks Versus Headen, we mentioned that there was an intense rivalry between Noah Webster and Joseph Emerson Wooster and their dictionaries, which came to be known as the Dictionary Wars. I don't remember if I described it exactly as a rivalry in that episode. If I did, I kind of wish that wasn't the word that I had chosen, because now having researched it more, I don't think that's the best descriptor. I said. There might be a future episode on it, though, And here it is. This grew into a two parter, and it's kind of tangled because Wooster and Webster, they each had their own lives. The Dictionary Wars went on long after Webster's death, whether Wooster wanted them to or not. So in this what I decided to do, rather than trying to lay out this whole thing strictly in chronological order, We're going to have part one today's episode more about these two men's biographies, and then Part two is more detail about these dictionary wars. And as a note upfront, a whole lot of the writing about the dictionary wars differentiates among all these different editions of the dictionaries in question, mainly by talking about the formats they were printed in, using terms like octavo and quarto, So if you're not familiar with that terminology, it comes from how books were printed. So in a folio there would be one piece of paper folded in half that would create four total pages of a book, and then in a quarto the paper was folded twice made eight pages, and then in octavo threefolds made sixteen pages, and then it just goes on from there. And in terms of the height of the finished books, the folios are the tallest. Each successive size is smaller than the last one, so like the folios are big, hefty books, and a quarto would be like much smaller. This is a totally reasonable way to talk about these books. They were advertised that way at the time. To some extent, these words are still around. I think they come up most often talking about things like Shakespeare's first folio and things like that. But this is just not how books are printed anymore. In the context of an audio podcast, that seems a little unwieldy, especially since we know a lot of people listen to podcasts while they're doing something else. So I'm sort of imagining somebody in the middle of doing their dishes and going, wait, which one was the quarto? What is a quarto?

Again?

Again?

So, if you're really familiar with all this or it's connected to your field in this in some way, and you're listening and you're like, why aren't they just calling this the quarto, that's why. So because he was the older of the two men and he started publishing first, we're going to start with Noah Webster Junior. He has also gotten significantly more attention from historians and biographers than Wooster has, so his part of today's episode is going to be longer than Worcester's. Webster was born on October sixteenth, seventeen fifty eight, in the West Division of Hartford, Connecticut that's now just West Hartford. His parents were Noah Webster Senior and Mercy Steele Webster, and he was one of their five children. When Webster started studying at Yale College, it only had about one hundred and fifty students and two professors. He took a brief break from studying there to fight in the Revolutionary War, and then he graduated in seventeen seventy eight. He wanted to study law, but his family really couldn't afford to send him to law school, so he became a teacher and studied law on his own. He was admitted to the bar in seventeen eighty one, but turned out he couldn't really make enough money as a lawyer, so he turned his attention to something that he thought was sorely needed, and that was schoolbooks for children that were written in the United States by an American rather than being imported from Britain. This was during a time when there was a lot of debate in the United States about language and literature. Some people, including Thomas Jefferson, thought that as an independent nation, the United States should be freed from the linguistic and literary expectations of British English and should have a language and a literary canon of its own. A lot of other prominent figures thought the same, although this was not at all universal. There were also people who thought North American slang and pronunciations were vulgar and were not only ruining the English language, but were also reinforcing stereotypes of Americans as coarse and ignorant, and the battle continues today. It never ever ended. For Webster and for others, this wasn't just about creating a national identity for the United States. It was also connected to the idea that a democracy could only flourish if its citizens were educated, and that education required high quality textbooks that did not, for example, include a bunch of stuff about loyalty to the crown, which was common in a lot of the imported textbooks, and Webster's words quote, I have too much pride not to wish to see America assume a national character. I have too much pride to stand indebted to Great Britain for books to teach our children the alphabet. Webster's first foray into all this was the American Spelling Book, that was in seventeen eighty three, the same year that the Revolutionary War ended. He was inspired by a new Guide to the English Tongue in five Parts by English cleric Thomas Dilworth, which was widely used in the United States, even though it was clearly written for British children and had some odd pronunciation rules. Webster used this book as his starting point adapting it for American use, and at some point afterward someone writing under the name Dilworth's Ghosts accused him of plagiarizing it. In seventeen eighty four, Webster published A Grammar and then A Reader in seventeen eighty five. Together with the Speller, they formed a Grammatical Institute of the English Language, comprising an easy, concise, and systematic method of education designed for the use of English schools in America. I didn't read out the commas, but they're kind of sprinkled through there, just a casual comma, do.

So, if you're really familiar with all this or it's connected to your field in this in some way, and you're listening and you're like, why aren't they just calling this the quarto, that's why. So because he was the older of the two men and he started publishing first, we're going to start with Noah Webster Junior. He has also gotten significantly more attention from historians and biographers than Wooster has, so his part of today's episode is going to be longer than Worcester's. Webster was born on October sixteenth, seventeen fifty eight, in the West Division of Hartford, Connecticut that's now just West Hartford. His parents were Noah Webster Senior and Mercy Steele Webster, and he was one of their five children. When Webster started studying at Yale College, it only had about one hundred and fifty students and two professors. He took a brief break from studying there to fight in the Revolutionary War, and then he graduated in seventeen seventy eight. He wanted to study law, but his family really couldn't afford to send him to law school, so he became a teacher and studied law on his own. He was admitted to the bar in seventeen eighty one, but turned out he couldn't really make enough money as a lawyer, so he turned his attention to something that he thought was sorely needed, and that was schoolbooks for children that were written in the United States by an American rather than being imported from Britain. This was during a time when there was a lot of debate in the United States about language and literature. Some people, including Thomas Jefferson, thought that as an independent nation, the United States should be freed from the linguistic and literary expectations of British English and should have a language and a literary canon of its own. A lot of other prominent figures thought the same, although this was not at all universal. There were also people who thought North American slang and pronunciations were vulgar and were not only ruining the English language, but were also reinforcing stereotypes of Americans as coarse and ignorant, and the battle continues today. It never ever ended. For Webster and for others, this wasn't just about creating a national identity for the United States. It was also connected to the idea that a democracy could only flourish if its citizens were educated, and that education required high quality textbooks that did not, for example, include a bunch of stuff about loyalty to the crown, which was common in a lot of the imported textbooks, and Webster's words quote, I have too much pride not to wish to see America assume a national character. I have too much pride to stand indebted to Great Britain for books to teach our children the alphabet. Webster's first foray into all this was the American Spelling Book, that was in seventeen eighty three, the same year that the Revolutionary War ended. He was inspired by a new Guide to the English Tongue in five Parts by English cleric Thomas Dilworth, which was widely used in the United States, even though it was clearly written for British children and had some odd pronunciation rules. Webster used this book as his starting point adapting it for American use, and at some point afterward someone writing under the name Dilworth's Ghosts accused him of plagiarizing it. In seventeen eighty four, Webster published A Grammar and then A Reader in seventeen eighty five. Together with the Speller, they formed a Grammatical Institute of the English Language, comprising an easy, concise, and systematic method of education designed for the use of English schools in America. I didn't read out the commas, but they're kind of sprinkled through there, just a casual comma, do.

We need another? Yes?

We need another? Yes?

Some of them seem extraneous. This became an immensely popular work and was widely used until about nineteen hundred, selling roughly seventy million copies. In addition to writing books that he hoped would prepare children to be an active part of a healthy democracy, Webster was writing about democracy itself. His seventeen eighty five Sketches of American Policy advocated for, among other things, a constitution that would end slavery and institute a universal education program. Webster was very politically active and was a big part of trying to establish a culture in the early United States, and he was well connected to people like George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin, so he is sometimes described as a forgotten founder. As soon as his first Speller was published, Webster also started advocating for copyright laws. This was absolutely about protecting his own interests. Who wasn't really motivated by having wider questions about copyright law and what should be protected. At this point, the basis of the US government was the Articles of Confederation, which did not allow for the federal government to pass a national copyright law. The Continental Congress had recommended that the states each passed their own law, so Webster traveled state to state and wrote to legislators and states that he could not personally visit. After the US Constitution was ratified, taking effect in seventeen eighty nine, Webster also lobbied for a federal copyright law, the first of which was passed in seventeen ninety. So, in addition to being described as a forgotten founder, Webster is sometimes also called the father of American copyright law, as he was working on that. In seventeen eighty seven, Webster founded American magazine in New York City, and then in seventeen eighty nine, when he was thirty one and she was twenty three, he got married to Rebecca Greenleaf. At first, she turned down his proposal, but he wrote her a letter and sent it along with a lock of his hair, saying quote, without you, the world is all alike to me, and with you, any part will be agreeable as a pledge of my sincerity, except a lack of hair, and keep it no longer than I deserve to be remembered. You must go, and I must be separated from all that is dear to me, but you will be attended by guardian angels and the best wishes of your sincere and respectful admirer. They eventually had six daughters and one son together, along with another son who died while he was still a baby. So I think that letter is pretty sweet and romantic. Definitely intended to be so. But Webster did not have a professional reputation as a sweetheart. He was described as extremely opinionated, combative, hard to get along with, and rude. He also had some controversial opinions. We'll be getting to some of them, and that those opinions combined with his demeanor to earn him a lot of detractors. He was also fond of publishing anonymous pieces that either praised his own work or attacked his critics. A little later in his life, he also had an intense religious experience and became a devout Calvinist and a born again Christian. And then after that a lot of people found his work to be excessively moralizing than his opinions to be increasingly conservative. Beyond that, he also experienced depression and anxiety for a lot of his life, and he referenced that often in his journals.

Some of them seem extraneous. This became an immensely popular work and was widely used until about nineteen hundred, selling roughly seventy million copies. In addition to writing books that he hoped would prepare children to be an active part of a healthy democracy, Webster was writing about democracy itself. His seventeen eighty five Sketches of American Policy advocated for, among other things, a constitution that would end slavery and institute a universal education program. Webster was very politically active and was a big part of trying to establish a culture in the early United States, and he was well connected to people like George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin, so he is sometimes described as a forgotten founder. As soon as his first Speller was published, Webster also started advocating for copyright laws. This was absolutely about protecting his own interests. Who wasn't really motivated by having wider questions about copyright law and what should be protected. At this point, the basis of the US government was the Articles of Confederation, which did not allow for the federal government to pass a national copyright law. The Continental Congress had recommended that the states each passed their own law, so Webster traveled state to state and wrote to legislators and states that he could not personally visit. After the US Constitution was ratified, taking effect in seventeen eighty nine, Webster also lobbied for a federal copyright law, the first of which was passed in seventeen ninety. So, in addition to being described as a forgotten founder, Webster is sometimes also called the father of American copyright law, as he was working on that. In seventeen eighty seven, Webster founded American magazine in New York City, and then in seventeen eighty nine, when he was thirty one and she was twenty three, he got married to Rebecca Greenleaf. At first, she turned down his proposal, but he wrote her a letter and sent it along with a lock of his hair, saying quote, without you, the world is all alike to me, and with you, any part will be agreeable as a pledge of my sincerity, except a lack of hair, and keep it no longer than I deserve to be remembered. You must go, and I must be separated from all that is dear to me, but you will be attended by guardian angels and the best wishes of your sincere and respectful admirer. They eventually had six daughters and one son together, along with another son who died while he was still a baby. So I think that letter is pretty sweet and romantic. Definitely intended to be so. But Webster did not have a professional reputation as a sweetheart. He was described as extremely opinionated, combative, hard to get along with, and rude. He also had some controversial opinions. We'll be getting to some of them, and that those opinions combined with his demeanor to earn him a lot of detractors. He was also fond of publishing anonymous pieces that either praised his own work or attacked his critics. A little later in his life, he also had an intense religious experience and became a devout Calvinist and a born again Christian. And then after that a lot of people found his work to be excessively moralizing than his opinions to be increasingly conservative. Beyond that, he also experienced depression and anxiety for a lot of his life, and he referenced that often in his journals.

The same year he married Rebecca Greenleaf, Webster wrote Dissertations on the English Language with Notes historical and critical, to which is added by way of appendix, an essay on a Reformed mode of Spelling, with doctor Franklin's arguments on that subject. Similar to earlier, a lot of uh, just kind of commas floating through there. It was dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, and in it he argued for American English to be separated from the English of Britain. This included calling for reforms to how English was spelled. This set in part quote, now is the time and this is the country and which we may expect success in attempting changes to language, science, and government. Delay in the plan here proposed may be fatal. Under a tranquil general government, the minds of men may again sink into indolence, A national acquiescence in error will follow, and posterity be doomed to struggle with difficulties which time and accident will perpetually multiply. Let us then seize the present moment and establish a national language as well as a national government. Along with other changes, Webster argued that all superfluous or silent letters should be omitted, so that, for example, the word bread meaning the food would be spelled just b r ed get rid of that extra A, and the word give would have no silent e on the end. Letters that had indefinite sounds should also be replaced, so grief would become gr e, f daughter would become dawt er, and chorus would become ko r us like a whole phonetic situation.

The same year he married Rebecca Greenleaf, Webster wrote Dissertations on the English Language with Notes historical and critical, to which is added by way of appendix, an essay on a Reformed mode of Spelling, with doctor Franklin's arguments on that subject. Similar to earlier, a lot of uh, just kind of commas floating through there. It was dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, and in it he argued for American English to be separated from the English of Britain. This included calling for reforms to how English was spelled. This set in part quote, now is the time and this is the country and which we may expect success in attempting changes to language, science, and government. Delay in the plan here proposed may be fatal. Under a tranquil general government, the minds of men may again sink into indolence, A national acquiescence in error will follow, and posterity be doomed to struggle with difficulties which time and accident will perpetually multiply. Let us then seize the present moment and establish a national language as well as a national government. Along with other changes, Webster argued that all superfluous or silent letters should be omitted, so that, for example, the word bread meaning the food would be spelled just b r ed get rid of that extra A, and the word give would have no silent e on the end. Letters that had indefinite sounds should also be replaced, so grief would become gr e, f daughter would become dawt er, and chorus would become ko r us like a whole phonetic situation.

Yeah. In seventeen ninety, Webster published a collection of Essays and fugitive Writings by Noah Webster. This was written using his proposed spelling reforms, so in that title Fugitive does not have an E on the end. This book was quote designed to aid the principles of the revolution, to suppress political discord, and to diffuse a spirit of inquiry favorable to morals, science, and truth.

Yeah. In seventeen ninety, Webster published a collection of Essays and fugitive Writings by Noah Webster. This was written using his proposed spelling reforms, so in that title Fugitive does not have an E on the end. This book was quote designed to aid the principles of the revolution, to suppress political discord, and to diffuse a spirit of inquiry favorable to morals, science, and truth.

The preface begins quote The following collection consists of essays and fugitive pieces written at various times and on different occasions, as will appear by their dates and subjects. So Fugitive repeats that spelling that Tracy just mentioned. Pieces is pee ces written, doesn't have its initial W, as is spelled with a Z instead of an S, will has only one L, and a peer is spelled appe er. Although I would make the case there's an extra P there by his rules.

The preface begins quote The following collection consists of essays and fugitive pieces written at various times and on different occasions, as will appear by their dates and subjects. So Fugitive repeats that spelling that Tracy just mentioned. Pieces is pee ces written, doesn't have its initial W, as is spelled with a Z instead of an S, will has only one L, and a peer is spelled appe er. Although I would make the case there's an extra P there by his rules.

Now I'm like, did I accidentally No, I copied and that, so I'm pretty sure, pretty sure that second P was really there. The whole thing is like that, there's a lot about English spelling that really does not make sense, and this document did mostly spell words according to how they sound. But it will probably come as no surprise that a whole lot of people really made fun of this book and Webster lost a lot of money on it.

Now I'm like, did I accidentally No, I copied and that, so I'm pretty sure, pretty sure that second P was really there. The whole thing is like that, there's a lot about English spelling that really does not make sense, and this document did mostly spell words according to how they sound. But it will probably come as no surprise that a whole lot of people really made fun of this book and Webster lost a lot of money on it.

So we're going to talk about some of his less laughable but still controversial work. After a sponsor break.

So we're going to talk about some of his less laughable but still controversial work. After a sponsor break.

In seventeen ninety three, Noah Webster founded two federalist newspapers, the American Minerva and The Herald. He sold them both in eighteen oh three. Before that, seventeen ninety five, he published a call for physicians to send him all of their thoughts on yellow fever. That's a disease that had caused a horrific epidemic in Philadelphia two years before and had also caused major outbreaks in other cities as well. Perhaps because he had already established a name for himself as a cantankerous man with weird opinions about spelling, he got a lot of criticism from the medical establishment for basically being a dilettante who was sticking his nose into stuff that he could not possibly understand. He did not give up, though, and in seventeen ninety six published a collection of papers on the subject of Billious Fevers, which was essentially a compendium of everything that known or believed about yellow fever at the time. This was followed by these seventeen ninety nine, A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential diseases with the principal phenomena of the physical world which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts. Stated in two volumes totaling roughly seven hundred pages, all of those spelled the way we would anticipate. Yes, However, it does say that it's a brief work. When it's seven hundred pages spread across two volume.

In seventeen ninety three, Noah Webster founded two federalist newspapers, the American Minerva and The Herald. He sold them both in eighteen oh three. Before that, seventeen ninety five, he published a call for physicians to send him all of their thoughts on yellow fever. That's a disease that had caused a horrific epidemic in Philadelphia two years before and had also caused major outbreaks in other cities as well. Perhaps because he had already established a name for himself as a cantankerous man with weird opinions about spelling, he got a lot of criticism from the medical establishment for basically being a dilettante who was sticking his nose into stuff that he could not possibly understand. He did not give up, though, and in seventeen ninety six published a collection of papers on the subject of Billious Fevers, which was essentially a compendium of everything that known or believed about yellow fever at the time. This was followed by these seventeen ninety nine, A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential diseases with the principal phenomena of the physical world which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts. Stated in two volumes totaling roughly seven hundred pages, all of those spelled the way we would anticipate. Yes, However, it does say that it's a brief work. When it's seven hundred pages spread across two volume.

Lies were told. This became a standard medical text, basically a chronological resource detailing as many epidemics and disease outbreaks as Webster could find information on.

Lies were told. This became a standard medical text, basically a chronological resource detailing as many epidemics and disease outbreaks as Webster could find information on.

I mean, both of these had genuine value. We're talking about a time when there is no Google. Everyone does not have access to a medical library nearby. It was like everything that was known in one place that people could have on hand. Of Webster's efforts were particularly lucrative, though except the speller. The Speller did pretty well. He had a pretty big family, and that meant that their living expenses were high, So the Websters moved from place to places. They just tried to make ends meet. For a time, they lived in Amherst, where Webster helped found Amherst Academy and Amherst College in seventeen ninety eight, they moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where they got a good deal on a house because it had previously belonged to Benedict Arnold. In eighteen hundred, Noah Webster Junior announced his plan to write a dictionary, specifically an American dictionary. He wanted it to follow the spelling reforms he advocated and include words that had been added to the English language in the United States. Its quotations and examples would come from American sources, not British ones. Naturally, he got a lot of criticism for this, for all of the reasons that we have already discussed. Yeah, there were certainly people who thought, yes, we need an American dictionary, but a lot of people who thought that Noah Webster should not be the person to do it. A lot of people today write about Webster is having been a huge part of creating a national identity for the United States. Through this and other dictionaries and his other writing and other activities, he repeatedly wrote about how creating a common national language would, in his opinion, form the foundation of a national unity, and his selections of American works for quotations and examples in these dictionaries like that was reinforcing the idea that the United States had its own literary canon, and that canon had value. The US did not need to just rely on works from Britain. But there's another way to look at this as well. In a twenty fourteen essay in William and Mary Quarterly, doctor Tim Cassidy frames this as more about Webster uniting people in their hatred of him quote. Webster did indeed play a role in forging American national sentiment, but not because his ideas were popular, representative, or accepted. Rather, by holding or seeming to hold very unpopular positions about American language, Webster unintentionally catalyzed a large media phenomenon in which other writers hastened to counter his ideas with their own. Yeah, there were a lot, a lot of other schoolbooks and dictionaries and things like that during this era. He was not at all the only one. So Webster published his compendious Dictionary of the English Language in eighteen oh six. This was not the first English dictionary written or published in the United States, and it also was not the first dictionary to include words that had been coined in North America. But this eighteen oh six dictionary is often described as the first fairly comprehensive dictionary of American English. It contained more than forty thousand words. Webster did include some spelling changes, but these changes really were not as radical as his essays and fugitive writings had shown. This that he'd earlier called for. A few words do stand out, though, such as women spelled wimmn. He insisted this was the quote primitive and correct orthography. He also claimed to have added five thousand new words of American origin, although this included things like proper names and adjective forms of words that had only been defined as nouns in British dictionaries. Many of the new words he included had roots in Algonquian languages, including skunk, moose, moccasin, and squash. There were words that came from European languages as well, including chowder, which likely came from French via the maritime provinces of Canada in New England, cookie which came from Dutch, and cafeteria, which came from Spanish via Mexico. Although this is recognized as a noteworthy book, it was met with a lot of criticism. It was not reviewed particularly well. Eventually, Lyman Cobb, a young school teacher from New York, became one of Webster's most vocal critics, not just about this dictionary, but about his other work as well. Cobb started publishing his own competing spellers and dictionaries and other resources, in part because he thought Webster's were so bad. Cobb's first Speller came out in eighteen twenty one, when he was only twenty one, and a revised version followed four years later. He also started publishing criticisms of Webster in newspapers in eighteen twenty seven, and in eighteen thirty one he collected all these many many pieces into a critical review of the Orthography of Doctor Webster series of books. Among other things, Cob pointed out that there were a lot of discrepancies and inconsistencies among Webster's various books, like different spellers or editions of the Dictionary contained different spellings for the same words, or a word might be spelled one way in its own entry in the dictionary, but then spelled differently when it was used in definitions of other words. Webster spent a lot of time publishing rebuttals of Cobb's criticisms, as this was happening. Webster was also working on another bigger dictionary. He finished it in January of eighteen twenty five, after defining zimome or zinone as quote, one of the constituents of gluten. On finishing this dictionary, he wrote, quote, when I had come to the last word, I was seized with a trembling, which made it somewhat difficult to hold my pen steady for writing. This cause seems to have been the thought that I might not then live to finish the work, or the thought that I was so near the end of my labors. But I summoned strength to finish the last word, and then, walking about the room a few minutes, I recovered.

I mean, both of these had genuine value. We're talking about a time when there is no Google. Everyone does not have access to a medical library nearby. It was like everything that was known in one place that people could have on hand. Of Webster's efforts were particularly lucrative, though except the speller. The Speller did pretty well. He had a pretty big family, and that meant that their living expenses were high, So the Websters moved from place to places. They just tried to make ends meet. For a time, they lived in Amherst, where Webster helped found Amherst Academy and Amherst College in seventeen ninety eight, they moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where they got a good deal on a house because it had previously belonged to Benedict Arnold. In eighteen hundred, Noah Webster Junior announced his plan to write a dictionary, specifically an American dictionary. He wanted it to follow the spelling reforms he advocated and include words that had been added to the English language in the United States. Its quotations and examples would come from American sources, not British ones. Naturally, he got a lot of criticism for this, for all of the reasons that we have already discussed. Yeah, there were certainly people who thought, yes, we need an American dictionary, but a lot of people who thought that Noah Webster should not be the person to do it. A lot of people today write about Webster is having been a huge part of creating a national identity for the United States. Through this and other dictionaries and his other writing and other activities, he repeatedly wrote about how creating a common national language would, in his opinion, form the foundation of a national unity, and his selections of American works for quotations and examples in these dictionaries like that was reinforcing the idea that the United States had its own literary canon, and that canon had value. The US did not need to just rely on works from Britain. But there's another way to look at this as well. In a twenty fourteen essay in William and Mary Quarterly, doctor Tim Cassidy frames this as more about Webster uniting people in their hatred of him quote. Webster did indeed play a role in forging American national sentiment, but not because his ideas were popular, representative, or accepted. Rather, by holding or seeming to hold very unpopular positions about American language, Webster unintentionally catalyzed a large media phenomenon in which other writers hastened to counter his ideas with their own. Yeah, there were a lot, a lot of other schoolbooks and dictionaries and things like that during this era. He was not at all the only one. So Webster published his compendious Dictionary of the English Language in eighteen oh six. This was not the first English dictionary written or published in the United States, and it also was not the first dictionary to include words that had been coined in North America. But this eighteen oh six dictionary is often described as the first fairly comprehensive dictionary of American English. It contained more than forty thousand words. Webster did include some spelling changes, but these changes really were not as radical as his essays and fugitive writings had shown. This that he'd earlier called for. A few words do stand out, though, such as women spelled wimmn. He insisted this was the quote primitive and correct orthography. He also claimed to have added five thousand new words of American origin, although this included things like proper names and adjective forms of words that had only been defined as nouns in British dictionaries. Many of the new words he included had roots in Algonquian languages, including skunk, moose, moccasin, and squash. There were words that came from European languages as well, including chowder, which likely came from French via the maritime provinces of Canada in New England, cookie which came from Dutch, and cafeteria, which came from Spanish via Mexico. Although this is recognized as a noteworthy book, it was met with a lot of criticism. It was not reviewed particularly well. Eventually, Lyman Cobb, a young school teacher from New York, became one of Webster's most vocal critics, not just about this dictionary, but about his other work as well. Cobb started publishing his own competing spellers and dictionaries and other resources, in part because he thought Webster's were so bad. Cobb's first Speller came out in eighteen twenty one, when he was only twenty one, and a revised version followed four years later. He also started publishing criticisms of Webster in newspapers in eighteen twenty seven, and in eighteen thirty one he collected all these many many pieces into a critical review of the Orthography of Doctor Webster series of books. Among other things, Cob pointed out that there were a lot of discrepancies and inconsistencies among Webster's various books, like different spellers or editions of the Dictionary contained different spellings for the same words, or a word might be spelled one way in its own entry in the dictionary, but then spelled differently when it was used in definitions of other words. Webster spent a lot of time publishing rebuttals of Cobb's criticisms, as this was happening. Webster was also working on another bigger dictionary. He finished it in January of eighteen twenty five, after defining zimome or zinone as quote, one of the constituents of gluten. On finishing this dictionary, he wrote, quote, when I had come to the last word, I was seized with a trembling, which made it somewhat difficult to hold my pen steady for writing. This cause seems to have been the thought that I might not then live to finish the work, or the thought that I was so near the end of my labors. But I summoned strength to finish the last word, and then, walking about the room a few minutes, I recovered.

It took three years to get this new dictionary into print, and the process was laborious. At first. Webster couldn't find a publisher, and eventually his son in law, Professor Chauncey Goodrich of Yale College, connected him to Sherman Converse. Converse and Goodrich wanted to address some of the same inconsistencies and errors that had already been pointed out with Webster's work, so James Gates Percival was hired as editor. Perceval was very conscientious and detail oriented, but Webster disagreed with a lot of his proposed edits, describing them as pedantry. Eventually, Webster got so fed up that he fired Perceval, with part of the dictionary still unedited. This dictionary, titled American Dictionary of the English Language, came out in eighteen twenty eight and contained more than sixty five thousand words. It also contained etymologies as well as usage examples that came from the writing of people like George Washington and Washington Irving, as well as the Christian Bible. Rather than using lots of British literature, a lot of sources say, Webster learned twenty six languages to research the etymologies in this dictionary. This included brushing up on languages that he already knew, like Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, and German, as well as getting some familiarity with other languages from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. But he wasn't exactly using all this study to accurately research the origin of each word. He was trying to prove that the biblical story of the Tower of Babel was true and that all of humanity had originally spoken the same language in the words of Scribner's Dictionary of American History, third edition quote. This etymology won almost no acceptance at the time and remains universally discredited. After publishing this dictionary, Webster renewed his call for a broader, stronger federal copyright law. Under the seventeen ninety Copyright Act that he had advocated for, copyright protection lasted for fourteen years, which he did not think was very long. It also expired if the author died before the end of that time. Webster was seventy, so he had reason to be concerned that if he died, his family might lose control over his work, and then might also lose any income they could have earned from it after his death. There were also some loopholes that didn't protect American authors from pirated versions of their work that were published in Britain. As this dictionary was being prepared for printing, Goodrich and Converse looked for someone to create an abridged version, something that would be smaller, less expensive, and even more mainstream. Webster didn't really have the time or energy to do this himself, and he had started working on another project. This was a version of the Bible with reformed spelling and with anything that Webster thought was dirty taken out. So Convers just hired someone else to do it, and that person was Joseph Emerson Wooster.

It took three years to get this new dictionary into print, and the process was laborious. At first. Webster couldn't find a publisher, and eventually his son in law, Professor Chauncey Goodrich of Yale College, connected him to Sherman Converse. Converse and Goodrich wanted to address some of the same inconsistencies and errors that had already been pointed out with Webster's work, so James Gates Percival was hired as editor. Perceval was very conscientious and detail oriented, but Webster disagreed with a lot of his proposed edits, describing them as pedantry. Eventually, Webster got so fed up that he fired Perceval, with part of the dictionary still unedited. This dictionary, titled American Dictionary of the English Language, came out in eighteen twenty eight and contained more than sixty five thousand words. It also contained etymologies as well as usage examples that came from the writing of people like George Washington and Washington Irving, as well as the Christian Bible. Rather than using lots of British literature, a lot of sources say, Webster learned twenty six languages to research the etymologies in this dictionary. This included brushing up on languages that he already knew, like Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, and German, as well as getting some familiarity with other languages from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. But he wasn't exactly using all this study to accurately research the origin of each word. He was trying to prove that the biblical story of the Tower of Babel was true and that all of humanity had originally spoken the same language in the words of Scribner's Dictionary of American History, third edition quote. This etymology won almost no acceptance at the time and remains universally discredited. After publishing this dictionary, Webster renewed his call for a broader, stronger federal copyright law. Under the seventeen ninety Copyright Act that he had advocated for, copyright protection lasted for fourteen years, which he did not think was very long. It also expired if the author died before the end of that time. Webster was seventy, so he had reason to be concerned that if he died, his family might lose control over his work, and then might also lose any income they could have earned from it after his death. There were also some loopholes that didn't protect American authors from pirated versions of their work that were published in Britain. As this dictionary was being prepared for printing, Goodrich and Converse looked for someone to create an abridged version, something that would be smaller, less expensive, and even more mainstream. Webster didn't really have the time or energy to do this himself, and he had started working on another project. This was a version of the Bible with reformed spelling and with anything that Webster thought was dirty taken out. So Convers just hired someone else to do it, and that person was Joseph Emerson Wooster.

Wooster already had an excellent reputation as a lexicographer and a researcher. He had previously abridged Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, which was first published in seventeen fifty five and was still one of the most widely used and respected English dictionaries. Based on his reputation and his experience, Wooster seemed like the right person for the job, but he was also pretty reluctant to take it on because he was already working on a dictionary of his own. Eventually, Wooster took the job, and his abridged version of Webster's Dictionary came out in eighteen twenty nine.

Wooster already had an excellent reputation as a lexicographer and a researcher. He had previously abridged Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, which was first published in seventeen fifty five and was still one of the most widely used and respected English dictionaries. Based on his reputation and his experience, Wooster seemed like the right person for the job, but he was also pretty reluctant to take it on because he was already working on a dictionary of his own. Eventually, Wooster took the job, and his abridged version of Webster's Dictionary came out in eighteen twenty nine.

Webster himself was outraged. Con and Goodrich had basically cut him out of all the planning and decision making about this abridgement, probably on purpose because they knew he would disagree with a lot of their decisions. Webster was so upset that he decided to sell the rights to the abridged version Goodrich, who was married to Webster's daughter, Julia, talked him into selling the rights to him, arguing that the book should at least stay in the family.

Webster himself was outraged. Con and Goodrich had basically cut him out of all the planning and decision making about this abridgement, probably on purpose because they knew he would disagree with a lot of their decisions. Webster was so upset that he decided to sell the rights to the abridged version Goodrich, who was married to Webster's daughter, Julia, talked him into selling the rights to him, arguing that the book should at least stay in the family.

Worcester later published that dictionary he'd been working on, the one that had made him reluctant to work on Webster's abridgment, and eventually Webster accused him of plagiarism in that dictionary. We will be talking more about that next episode. After this dispute with Worcester, Webster seems to have become increasingly angry and unwell, more like an ongoing series of illnesses and discomforts, not really any particular major illness. He kept trying to promote his books, attack the work of his competitors, and arguing against the influence of British dictionaries and literature on American English.

Worcester later published that dictionary he'd been working on, the one that had made him reluctant to work on Webster's abridgment, and eventually Webster accused him of plagiarism in that dictionary. We will be talking more about that next episode. After this dispute with Worcester, Webster seems to have become increasingly angry and unwell, more like an ongoing series of illnesses and discomforts, not really any particular major illness. He kept trying to promote his books, attack the work of his competitors, and arguing against the influence of British dictionaries and literature on American English.

Webster's family also became increasingly divided for reasons connected to his work. Late in his life, he assigned the copyright for his Speller to his son William, to the horror of his daughters and sons in law. William had tried his hand at a bunch of different business ventures that never worked out, and he was continually being bailed out by his father. The Speller was the most profitable book that Webster ever published, so the family was worried that William was going to squander away income that they were all relying on. Divisions also arose around how Goodrich had handled the abridgment and the plagiarism dispute with Worcester. Some of the family kind of felt like he had taken advantage of Webster in his old age. In eighteen forty one, Webster published another version of his dictionary. The Son was an American Dictionary of the English Language, corrected and enlarged. He died in new Haven, Connecticut two years later on May twenty eighth, eighteen forty three, reportedly holding a copy of his Speller on his deathbed. He was buried in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut. Today, Webster's dictionary is under the name Merriam Webster. We're going to talk a lot more about George and Charles Merriam in Part two. They opened a printing and bookselling business in Springfield, Massachusetts in eighteen thirty one, later buying unfinished copies of one of Webster's dictionaries and eventually the rights to his work.

Webster's family also became increasingly divided for reasons connected to his work. Late in his life, he assigned the copyright for his Speller to his son William, to the horror of his daughters and sons in law. William had tried his hand at a bunch of different business ventures that never worked out, and he was continually being bailed out by his father. The Speller was the most profitable book that Webster ever published, so the family was worried that William was going to squander away income that they were all relying on. Divisions also arose around how Goodrich had handled the abridgment and the plagiarism dispute with Worcester. Some of the family kind of felt like he had taken advantage of Webster in his old age. In eighteen forty one, Webster published another version of his dictionary. The Son was an American Dictionary of the English Language, corrected and enlarged. He died in new Haven, Connecticut two years later on May twenty eighth, eighteen forty three, reportedly holding a copy of his Speller on his deathbed. He was buried in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut. Today, Webster's dictionary is under the name Merriam Webster. We're going to talk a lot more about George and Charles Merriam in Part two. They opened a printing and bookselling business in Springfield, Massachusetts in eighteen thirty one, later buying unfinished copies of one of Webster's dictionaries and eventually the rights to his work.

G and C. Merriam Company became a subsidiary of Encyclopedia Britannica in nineteen sixty four, and that subsidiary was renamed Merriam Webster Incorporated in nineteen eighty two. After we come back from a sponsor break, we will talk about Joseph Emerson Worcester. Joseph Emerson Worcester was one of fifteen children born to Jesse and Sarah Parker Worcester. He was born in Bedford, New Hampshire, on August twenty fourth, seventeen eighty four. The Worcesters were a farming family, and for a lot of his young life Joseph worked on the farm. He didn't have access to a lot of, like really good education, so he did a lot of study on his own. Joseph was twenty one when he entered preparatory school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and he went on to Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut four years later. He graduated from Yale in eighteen eleven, the year he turned twenty seven. In spite of the limits on their access to education, nearly all of the Worcester siblings became teachers.

G and C. Merriam Company became a subsidiary of Encyclopedia Britannica in nineteen sixty four, and that subsidiary was renamed Merriam Webster Incorporated in nineteen eighty two. After we come back from a sponsor break, we will talk about Joseph Emerson Worcester. Joseph Emerson Worcester was one of fifteen children born to Jesse and Sarah Parker Worcester. He was born in Bedford, New Hampshire, on August twenty fourth, seventeen eighty four. The Worcesters were a farming family, and for a lot of his young life Joseph worked on the farm. He didn't have access to a lot of, like really good education, so he did a lot of study on his own. Joseph was twenty one when he entered preparatory school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and he went on to Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut four years later. He graduated from Yale in eighteen eleven, the year he turned twenty seven. In spite of the limits on their access to education, nearly all of the Worcester siblings became teachers.

For Joseph. This started in Salem, Massachusetts, possibly because he had some family there. One of his students was Nathaniel Hawthorne, and he became Hawthorne's tutor after he had to leave school to recover from an injury.

For Joseph. This started in Salem, Massachusetts, possibly because he had some family there. One of his students was Nathaniel Hawthorne, and he became Hawthorne's tutor after he had to leave school to recover from an injury.

Wooster was described as shy and methodical, and as patient and kind with his students, but he also had very high standards and he really loved doing research. Thomas Wentworth Higginson described him as quote want to sit silent, literally by the hour, a slumbering volcano of facts and statistics while others talked.

Wooster was described as shy and methodical, and as patient and kind with his students, but he also had very high standards and he really loved doing research. Thomas Wentworth Higginson described him as quote want to sit silent, literally by the hour, a slumbering volcano of facts and statistics while others talked.

In addition to his work as a teacher, Wooster also started writing books to use in schools. His A Geographical Dictionary or Universal Gazetteer Ancient and Modern was published in eighteen seventeen, followed by A Gazetteer of the United States in eighteen eighteen. His Elements of Geography came out in eighteen nineteen, and then Sketches of the Earth and Its Inhabitants in eighteen twenty three. That same year he became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Then three years later, so eighteen twenty six, he published Elements of History, Ancient and modern accompanied by an historical atlas, and then outlines of scripture geography with an atlas. During these years, Wooster also moved a couple of times from Salem to Andover and then to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Having written six books on a range of subjects over the course of a decade, including issuing revised editions that we did not mention here, Wooster turned his attention to lexicography, or the compilation of dictionaries and the principles and practices involved with that compilation. As we mentioned earlier, he published an abridgment of Samuel Johnson's seventeen fifty five Dictionary Needed that in eighteen twenty eight, and then a year later he was hired to create an abridged version of Webster's eighteen twenty eight American Dictionary of the English Language. That abridgment came out in eighteen twenty nine. Wooster put out his own comprehensive, pronouncing an Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language in eighteen thirty. This contained roughly the same number of words as Webster's unabridged eighteen twenty eight dictionary, but as a book it was shorter. It did not contain etymologies, and his definitions tended to be a lot more concise. That meant his dictionary was also less expensive than Webster's. He also included what came to be known as the compromise vowel, a sound in words like fast and dance that was between the way a is pronounced in cat or hat in the way it's pronounced in father. After publishing this dictionary, Worcester went to Europe for several months and collected resource materials on philology and lexicography. He got back to the US in eighteen thirty one and started working as editor for the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge. This was an annual almanac that Worcester edited until eighteen forty two. In eighteen thirty four, Webster accused Wooster of plagiarism, claiming that Wooster had used material from his abridgment of Webster's dictionary in his own work. This was the start of the dictionary wars that we're going to talk about in part two, But we'll go ahead and note that Webster directed various people to comb through Wooster's work looking for evidence against him, but they found nothing. In eighteen thirty five, Worcester published his Elementary Dictionary of the English Language that was shorter and simpler than his comprehensive Pronouncing an Explanatory Dictionary, and it was meant to be used in common schools. Like Worster's previous dictionary. This was well reviewed and it sold well, and he was able to move into a large set of rented rooms in Cambridge, where one of his neighbors was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I don't know if I ever want to do a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow episode, but he sure has come up a lot l He is like connective glue of American history, I think. On November twenty eighth, eighteen forty one, Worster Marian Amy Elizabeth McKean. He was fifty seven and she was forty. He bought land and a house next to the one where he had rented rooms. Amy's father was a professor at Harvard, and she worked with Joseph on his future writings. In eighteen forty six, Joseph Worcester published his Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language. At this point, Norah Webster was dead, he had died three years previously, and Wooster's preface to this dictionary included a note that none of its spellings or definitions had come from Webster. He also, in that material cited Webster as one of his sources for pronunciations, alongside British sources like Webster is cited in the text of the dictionary, and he praised Webster as a quote distinguished American lexicographer. As this dictionary was going to print, Wooster was having trouble with this site. Sometimes this is described as resulting from cataracts. He had a series of surgeries after which he was blind in his right eye and had partial sight in his left. During his surgeries and recovery, he was really not paying attention to what was going on in the news, so some years passed before he learned that a huge controversy had unfolded in the press, including a scathing review of his work, apparently written at the behest of Webster's publishers. Worcester also discovered that a publisher in London had put out an edition of his own Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language that said on its title page that it was compiled from work by Noah Webster.

In addition to his work as a teacher, Wooster also started writing books to use in schools. His A Geographical Dictionary or Universal Gazetteer Ancient and Modern was published in eighteen seventeen, followed by A Gazetteer of the United States in eighteen eighteen. His Elements of Geography came out in eighteen nineteen, and then Sketches of the Earth and Its Inhabitants in eighteen twenty three. That same year he became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Then three years later, so eighteen twenty six, he published Elements of History, Ancient and modern accompanied by an historical atlas, and then outlines of scripture geography with an atlas. During these years, Wooster also moved a couple of times from Salem to Andover and then to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Having written six books on a range of subjects over the course of a decade, including issuing revised editions that we did not mention here, Wooster turned his attention to lexicography, or the compilation of dictionaries and the principles and practices involved with that compilation. As we mentioned earlier, he published an abridgment of Samuel Johnson's seventeen fifty five Dictionary Needed that in eighteen twenty eight, and then a year later he was hired to create an abridged version of Webster's eighteen twenty eight American Dictionary of the English Language. That abridgment came out in eighteen twenty nine. Wooster put out his own comprehensive, pronouncing an Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language in eighteen thirty. This contained roughly the same number of words as Webster's unabridged eighteen twenty eight dictionary, but as a book it was shorter. It did not contain etymologies, and his definitions tended to be a lot more concise. That meant his dictionary was also less expensive than Webster's. He also included what came to be known as the compromise vowel, a sound in words like fast and dance that was between the way a is pronounced in cat or hat in the way it's pronounced in father. After publishing this dictionary, Worcester went to Europe for several months and collected resource materials on philology and lexicography. He got back to the US in eighteen thirty one and started working as editor for the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge. This was an annual almanac that Worcester edited until eighteen forty two. In eighteen thirty four, Webster accused Wooster of plagiarism, claiming that Wooster had used material from his abridgment of Webster's dictionary in his own work. This was the start of the dictionary wars that we're going to talk about in part two, But we'll go ahead and note that Webster directed various people to comb through Wooster's work looking for evidence against him, but they found nothing. In eighteen thirty five, Worcester published his Elementary Dictionary of the English Language that was shorter and simpler than his comprehensive Pronouncing an Explanatory Dictionary, and it was meant to be used in common schools. Like Worster's previous dictionary. This was well reviewed and it sold well, and he was able to move into a large set of rented rooms in Cambridge, where one of his neighbors was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I don't know if I ever want to do a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow episode, but he sure has come up a lot l He is like connective glue of American history, I think. On November twenty eighth, eighteen forty one, Worster Marian Amy Elizabeth McKean. He was fifty seven and she was forty. He bought land and a house next to the one where he had rented rooms. Amy's father was a professor at Harvard, and she worked with Joseph on his future writings. In eighteen forty six, Joseph Worcester published his Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language. At this point, Norah Webster was dead, he had died three years previously, and Wooster's preface to this dictionary included a note that none of its spellings or definitions had come from Webster. He also, in that material cited Webster as one of his sources for pronunciations, alongside British sources like Webster is cited in the text of the dictionary, and he praised Webster as a quote distinguished American lexicographer. As this dictionary was going to print, Wooster was having trouble with this site. Sometimes this is described as resulting from cataracts. He had a series of surgeries after which he was blind in his right eye and had partial sight in his left. During his surgeries and recovery, he was really not paying attention to what was going on in the news, so some years passed before he learned that a huge controversy had unfolded in the press, including a scathing review of his work, apparently written at the behest of Webster's publishers. Worcester also discovered that a publisher in London had put out an edition of his own Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language that said on its title page that it was compiled from work by Noah Webster.

It was not. This was Worcester's own dictionary. This fueled additional speculation that Wooster's work was suspect in some way, even though he had never personally had any contact with this London publisher and just had nothing to do with this publisher's franklin inexplicable actions. This is also something we're going to be talking about a lot more on Wednesday. But Worcester found all of this just enormously upsetting. In eighteen fifty five, Worcester published a pronouncing, explanatory and synonymous Dictionary of the English Language. As its name suggests, this one included synonyms, and it also included etymologies. Then in eighteen sixty he published a four volume Dictionary of the English Language. Joseph Emerson Worcester died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October twenty seventh, eighteen sixty five. At that point he had been working on annotations for a future version of that four volume dictionary. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, which is also in Cambridge. Today, Noah Webster's name is almost synonymous with the word dictionary. While people may not have heard of Joseph Emerson Worcester at all, but during his lifetime. Worcester's dictionaries were really well respected. Sometimes he's described as wanting to preserve British pronunciations and usage, but that's only somewhat true. He did use British sources in his work, but he used American ones as well, and he defaulted to British standards when there just wasn't really a clear consensus. While Webster had been calling for spelling reform and a replacement of British sources with American ones and including words coined in the US that had not become widely used, Wooster had been carefully creating well researched dictionaries that focused on clarity and accuracy and quote the prevailing and best usage of this country. Consequently, there were a lot of institutions that preferred Worcester's dictionaries, including Harvard and the University of Virginia, and he had a lot of support. Amongst the very outspoken writers and speakers, one was Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said at one point, quote mister Wooster's dictionary, on which, as is well known, the literary men of this metropolis are, by special statute allowed to be sworn in place of the Bible. I think that's a joke, but I still like it. Author and minister Edward Everett Hale also remarked that the only two books that would be needed to establish a new civilization would be Shakespeare and Wooster's eighteen sixty Dictionary. So it makes.

It was not. This was Worcester's own dictionary. This fueled additional speculation that Wooster's work was suspect in some way, even though he had never personally had any contact with this London publisher and just had nothing to do with this publisher's franklin inexplicable actions. This is also something we're going to be talking about a lot more on Wednesday. But Worcester found all of this just enormously upsetting. In eighteen fifty five, Worcester published a pronouncing, explanatory and synonymous Dictionary of the English Language. As its name suggests, this one included synonyms, and it also included etymologies. Then in eighteen sixty he published a four volume Dictionary of the English Language. Joseph Emerson Worcester died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October twenty seventh, eighteen sixty five. At that point he had been working on annotations for a future version of that four volume dictionary. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, which is also in Cambridge. Today, Noah Webster's name is almost synonymous with the word dictionary. While people may not have heard of Joseph Emerson Worcester at all, but during his lifetime. Worcester's dictionaries were really well respected. Sometimes he's described as wanting to preserve British pronunciations and usage, but that's only somewhat true. He did use British sources in his work, but he used American ones as well, and he defaulted to British standards when there just wasn't really a clear consensus. While Webster had been calling for spelling reform and a replacement of British sources with American ones and including words coined in the US that had not become widely used, Wooster had been carefully creating well researched dictionaries that focused on clarity and accuracy and quote the prevailing and best usage of this country. Consequently, there were a lot of institutions that preferred Worcester's dictionaries, including Harvard and the University of Virginia, and he had a lot of support. Amongst the very outspoken writers and speakers, one was Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said at one point, quote mister Wooster's dictionary, on which, as is well known, the literary men of this metropolis are, by special statute allowed to be sworn in place of the Bible. I think that's a joke, but I still like it. Author and minister Edward Everett Hale also remarked that the only two books that would be needed to establish a new civilization would be Shakespeare and Wooster's eighteen sixty Dictionary. So it makes.

Sense that Webster and later Charles and George Merriam had seen Wooster and his work as a threat, and that was a big part of the Dictionary wars. And we're going to talk all about that next time.

Sense that Webster and later Charles and George Merriam had seen Wooster and his work as a threat, and that was a big part of the Dictionary wars. And we're going to talk all about that next time.

Yeah. I know it's a little weird to kind of have two parts of two different biographies and then a selection of their work, But it also would have been weird to like try to interweave it together, and that way, I feel like would have been confusing.

Yeah. I know it's a little weird to kind of have two parts of two different biographies and then a selection of their work, But it also would have been weird to like try to interweave it together, and that way, I feel like would have been confusing.

Yeah, I think it makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I think it makes perfect sense.

Thank you. I have some listener mail. It is from Caitlin. The title of this email is John Nix and his Four Sons, and Caitlyn wrote, Hi, Tracy and Holly. One detail of Wednesday's Nicks versus head in episode caught in my brain immediately John Nix's four sons and their shared middle initial of W. I had to know if they shared the same name. I started digging into genealogical records and found John Junior in a notable New Yorker's eighteen ninety six to eighteen ninety nine, listed with the middle name William. John Senior died in eighteen ninety five, very helpful to avoid generational confusion there. John was the only Nixon that edition, though onward went the quest. An article in Brooklyn Life from the seventeenth anniversary of the company notes quote a rather singular fact relating to the fore men who constitute the firm is that the middle initial of each is W, which I find hilarious worth commenting on, but not worth saying what it initializes. Using John Senior's death year, I found an obituary that mentioned his birth year, which was enough information to find someone on ancestry who had traced that branch of the family tree. So John William, George Washington, Frank Wesley, and Robert Williamson. There seemed to be several other siblings, including a brother, Harry w between George and Frank in age. Harry disappears between the eighteen seventy and eighteen eighty censuses, and there's a burial record for someone of that name and birth year for eighteen seventy three. So not only is each w a different name, but not a single Willard in the bunch, unless maybe Harry an answer to a question that has zero impact to the story being told, but which was satisfying to hunt down anyway, Caitlyn. Okay, thank you Caitlyn so much. This is literally the exact kind of rabbit hole I will go down and have been known to go down in the course of researching this show. But it was not a rabbit hole I had time for this time. It was it was an episode that was like, get it going, got get a move on, stop wasting time. So thank you so much Caitlin for doing that and allowing me the pleasure of following following along with that, with that journey, I think I think they've written to us before. I'm pretty sure Caitlyn's name is jumping out to me as familiar. So thank you so much, Caitlin. Thank you for this email, Thank you for doing all of that digging. Maybe at some point I will find some other weird question that I actually do have time to jump down a rabbit hole about. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast or a history podcast atiheartradio dot com or on social media ad Missed in History That's for You'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app and wherever else you'd like to take your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Thank you. I have some listener mail. It is from Caitlin. The title of this email is John Nix and his Four Sons, and Caitlyn wrote, Hi, Tracy and Holly. One detail of Wednesday's Nicks versus head in episode caught in my brain immediately John Nix's four sons and their shared middle initial of W. I had to know if they shared the same name. I started digging into genealogical records and found John Junior in a notable New Yorker's eighteen ninety six to eighteen ninety nine, listed with the middle name William. John Senior died in eighteen ninety five, very helpful to avoid generational confusion there. John was the only Nixon that edition, though onward went the quest. An article in Brooklyn Life from the seventeenth anniversary of the company notes quote a rather singular fact relating to the fore men who constitute the firm is that the middle initial of each is W, which I find hilarious worth commenting on, but not worth saying what it initializes. Using John Senior's death year, I found an obituary that mentioned his birth year, which was enough information to find someone on ancestry who had traced that branch of the family tree. So John William, George Washington, Frank Wesley, and Robert Williamson. There seemed to be several other siblings, including a brother, Harry w between George and Frank in age. Harry disappears between the eighteen seventy and eighteen eighty censuses, and there's a burial record for someone of that name and birth year for eighteen seventy three. So not only is each w a different name, but not a single Willard in the bunch, unless maybe Harry an answer to a question that has zero impact to the story being told, but which was satisfying to hunt down anyway, Caitlyn. Okay, thank you Caitlyn so much. This is literally the exact kind of rabbit hole I will go down and have been known to go down in the course of researching this show. But it was not a rabbit hole I had time for this time. It was it was an episode that was like, get it going, got get a move on, stop wasting time. So thank you so much Caitlin for doing that and allowing me the pleasure of following following along with that, with that journey, I think I think they've written to us before. I'm pretty sure Caitlyn's name is jumping out to me as familiar. So thank you so much, Caitlin. Thank you for this email, Thank you for doing all of that digging. Maybe at some point I will find some other weird question that I actually do have time to jump down a rabbit hole about. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast or a history podcast atiheartradio dot com or on social media ad Missed in History That's for You'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app and wherever else you'd like to take your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.