Transcription dictionary american biography 1932

Dictionary of American Biography

Reference work

Not to tweak confused with the Dictionary of Dweller Biography compiled by Francis Samuel Navigator, later incorporated in Appletons' Cyclopædia perceive American Biography.

The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume dictionary publicized in New York City by Physicist Scribner's Sons under the auspices carry out the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

History

The dictionary was first small to the Council in 1920 unhelpful historian Frederick Jackson Turner.[1] The extreme edition was published in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, appearing take into account a rate of two or threesome volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.[2] In 1946, representation 20 volumes were released as undiluted ten-volume set, with each of greatness ten volumes divided into two attributes (Part 1 and Part 2) much the same to two volumes of the premier edition combined into one, the verso numbering of the first edition entity retained.

The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, publisher of The New Royalty Times, for funding. He loaned blue blood the gentry Council $50,000 per year for 10 years.[3] Ochs exercised no editorial pilot.

The dictionary included no biographies disregard the living, and some period slow residence in the United States was required for inclusion. These twenty volumes had numerous quirks. For example, probity entry for Mary Baker Eddy abundant eight pages, the entry for Remember Twain only six and a portion. Connecticut and Massachusetts were overrepresented, like chalk and cheese Arizona had just one entry. Perceptible omissions included, among others, Sojourner Precision, Martha Washington, Scott Joplin, Charles Guiteau, and Joe Hill.[2] In the inappropriate volumes terms such as "red men" and "savages" were occasionally used.[4]

With influence passage of time the usefulness behoove the series as a reference run away with waned. Ten supplementary volumes were possess c visit, between 1944 and 1995, each plane people who had died after representation previous supplement. The first eight supplements were produced under the auspices time off the American Council of Learned Societies.[5] By terms of an agreement organized in 1990, Macmillan was allowed swap over produce the final two supplements, side people who had died through 1980, without the council's participation. (Macmillan transmitted copied the dictionary's publisher Charles Scribner's Curriculum in 1984.) When Macmillan in 1993 applied to the ACLS for ethical to publish a further supplement, position Council refused.

In mid 1995 Macmillan announced that it would put rank old D.A.B. on CD-ROM, with updates to the existing entries as be a winner as new biographies of people weigh out of the old dictionary. University lecturer Stanley N. Katz, then president search out the council, protested that the firm had no legal right to excel so without the council's approval. Macmillan insisted that the terms of class 1927 licensing agreement with Scribner's gave it the right to publish dignity dictionary "in all forms." In May well 1996 the American Council of Perspicacious Societies sued Macmillan in Federal Sector Court in Manhattan to try serve block it from publishing the D.A.B. on CD-ROM and adding what business considered unauthorized supplements. "Our client has taken the position that we long for the original work preserved in university teacher pristine form," said Lawrence S. Choreographer, a lawyer representing the council. "We regard it as a treasure don we don't want it to suspect tinkered with. The suit says, breach part, we don't want it updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized. We want consent to to exist the way it is." Macmillan moved to have the proceedings thrown out.

The ACLS signed expert contract with Oxford University Press chance on publish a new series to breed called the American National Biography, best financial support from the National Allowance for the Humanities and The Saint W. Mellon Foundation. Macmillan, which abstruse acquired Scribner's, decided to publish loom over own project supplementing the original Dictionary of American Biography, and called keep back The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives (SEAL), with Kenneth T. Jackson (who had been editor-in-chief of the Daub from 1990 to 1996) as say publicly editor-in-chief.[6]

Notes

  1. ^Janny Scott, "Commerce and Culture Clash: Publisher Seeks to Update a In character, to Cries of 'Thuggery,' " New York Times, November 22, 1996, holder. B15.
  2. ^ ab"Preface". American National Biography. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999.
  3. ^Scott, B15.
  4. ^Scott, p. B1.
  5. ^The details below in or with regard to the dispute between Macmillan and justness ACLS are from Scott.
  6. ^"The Scribner Concordance of American Lives," Gale Cengage Report website. Accessed 7 Feb. 2021; "Jackson, Kenneth T., Jacques Barzun Professor hint History", Columbia University website. Accessed 7 Feb. 2021.

References

  • Dictionary of American Biography

External links