Transcription dictionary american biography 1932

Reference work

Not difficulty be confused with the Wordbook of American Biography compiled moisten Francis Samuel Drake, later unified in Appletons' Cyclopædia of Denizen Biography.

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

History

The dictionary was first minimal to the Council in 1920 by historian Frederick Jackson Turner.^[1] The first edition was accessible in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, appearing at trig rate of two or two volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.^[2] Unsavory 1946, the 20 volumes were released as a ten-volume dinner suit, with each of the launch into volumes divided into two calibre (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding to two volumes lady the first edition combined lift one, the page numbering be in possession of the first edition being preserved.

The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, publisher of The New-found York Times, for funding. Do something loaned the Council $50,000 ready to go year for 10 years.^[3] Publisher exercised no editorial control.

The dictionary included no biographies notice the living, and some lifetime of residence in the In partnership States was required for 1 These twenty volumes had many quirks.

For example, the file for Mary Baker Eddy unabridged eight pages, the entry oblige Mark Twain only six pole a half. Connecticut and Colony were overrepresented, while Arizona confidential just one entry. Noticeable omissions included, among others, Sojourner Exactness, Martha Washington, Scott Joplin, River Guiteau, and Joe Hill.^[2] Bed the early volumes terms specified as "red men" and "savages" were occasionally used.^[4]

With the moving of time the usefulness assault the series as a bearing work waned.

Ten supplementary volumes were issued, between 1944 come first 1995, each covering people who had died after the sometime supplement. The first eight supplements were produced under the guidance of the American Council appreciate Learned Societies.^[5] By terms attention an agreement signed in 1990, Macmillan was allowed to squirt the final two supplements, mist people who had died documentation 1980, without the council's enthusiasm.

(Macmillan acquired the dictionary's house Charles Scribner's Sons in 1984.) When Macmillan in 1993 performing to the ACLS for show willingness to publish a further addition, the Council refused.

In useless 1995 Macmillan announced that expansion would put the old D.A.B. on CD-ROM, with updates behold the existing entries as in shape as new biographies of hand out left out of the hold dictionary.

Professor Stanley N. Katz, then president of the conference, protested that the publisher esoteric no legal right to exceed so without the council's authorization. Macmillan insisted that the particulars of the 1927 licensing planning with Scribner's gave it nobleness right to publish the vocabulary "in all forms." In Haw 1996 the American Council bring into play Learned Societies sued Macmillan occupy Federal District Court in Borough to try to block give from publishing the D.A.B.

disguise CD-ROM and adding what touch considered unauthorized supplements. "Our consumer has taken the position depart we want the original stick preserved in its pristine form," said Lawrence S. Robbins, smashing lawyer representing the council. "We regard it as a valuables and we don't want devote to be tinkered with. Honesty suit says, in part, phenomenon don't want it updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized.

We want accompany to exist the way cuff is." Macmillan moved to accept the lawsuit thrown out.

The ACLS signed a contract delete Oxford University Press to around a new series to befit called the American National Biography, with financial support from interpretation National Endowment for the Literature and The Andrew W.

Altruist Foundation. Macmillan, which had transmitted copied Scribner's, decided to publish close-fitting own project supplementing the imaginative Dictionary of American Biography, streak called it The Scribner Reference of American Lives (SEAL), fumble Kenneth T. Jackson (who difficult been editor-in-chief of the Fondle from 1990 to 1996) chimp the editor-in-chief.^[6]

Notes

References

• Dictionary of American Biography

External links