American Literature

The First American Language Dictionary

As we begin to explore the 19th Century we will look at a few of the new things, like Noah Webster's Dictionary, which began to shape, and in many ways define, the "American Character" as we became a country of people different in our own way from the "Old World".

"An American Dictionary of the English Language" was published by Noah Webster in 1828 and was adopted by Congress in 1831 as the national standard.

First, lets explore who created this first American Dictionary.

Noah Webster

Noah Webster was America's greatest lexicographer, with mastery of twenty languages that included Chaldean, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Persian.

Webster was born in West Hartford, Conneticut, in 1758.

He went to Yale University and earned a degree of B.A.

He taught school for a few years as he studied to get his law degree. Though he was admitted to the Bar in 1781, he did not go into active practice u ntil 1789. He found that law was not to be his calling.

In 1782 Webster taught school in Goshen, New York. During this time he identified the need for American schools to have textbooks on the American language and experience as opposed to the British texts which they currently used.

Thus he wrote a three-volume work, the first volume of which was a speller.

This speller, known as the "Blue-backed Speller" because of its blue binding, became widely used in American schools for a long time.

Though the remaining two volumes, a grammar book and a reader, were less popular, Webster is still remembered in education today for the speller, which was officially named "The American Spelling Book".

Noah Webster's most important contribution to American culture was his publication of the first uniquely American dictionary.

He worked many years to create a dictionary in the language Americans used instead of following dictionaries made in the British tradition.

Though he was widely criticized during his work on this project, when the dictionary was published in America in 1828 it drew acclaim both in the United States and England.

It was called "An American Dictionary of the English Language" and was adopted by Congress in 1831 as the national standard.

A Short Summary of Noah Webster's Life

Noah Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in the West Division of Hartford.

His family was an average colonial family. Noah's father farmed and worked as a weaver.

His mother worked at home.

Noah and his two brothers, Charles and Abraham, helped their father with the farm work.

Noah's sisters, Mercy and Jerusha, worked with their mother to keep house and to make food and clothing for the family.

Few people went to college, but Noah loved to learn so his parents let him go to Yale, Connecticut's only college.

He left for New Haven in 1774, when he was 16. Noah's years at Yale coincided with the Revolutionary War.

Because New Haven had food shortages during this time, many of Noah's classes were held in Glastonbury.

Noah graduated in 1778. He wanted to study law, but his parents could not afford to give him more money for school.

So, in order to earn a living, Noah taught school in Glastonbury, Hartford and West Hartford. Later he studied law.

Noah did not like American schools. Sometimes 70 children of all ages were crammed into one-room schoolhouses with no desks, poor books, and untrained teachers.

Their books came from England. Noah thought that Americans should learn from American books, so in 1783, Noah wrote his own textbook: A Grammatical Institute of the English Language.

Most people called it the "Blue-backed Speller" because of its blue cover.

For 100 years, Noah's book taught children how to read, spell, and pronounce words.

It was the most popular American book of its time. Ben Franklin used Noah's book to teach his granddaughter to read.

In 1789, Noah married Rebecca Greenleaf. They had eight children. Noah carried raisins and candies in his pockets for the children to enjoy. The Websters lived in New Haven, then moved to Amherst, MA.

There, Noah helped to start Amherst College. Later the family moved back to New Haven.

When Noah was 43, he started writing the first American dictionary. He did this because Americans in different parts of the country spelled, pronounced and used words differently.

He thought that all Americans should speak the same way. He also thought that Americans should not speak and spell just like the English.

Noah used American spellings like "color" instead of the English "colour" and "music" instead " of "musick".

He also added American words that weren't in English dictionaries like "skunk" and "squash". It took him over 27 years to write his book.

When finished in 1828, at the age of 70, Noah's dictionary had 70,000 words in it.

Noah did many things in his life. He worked for copyright laws, wrote textbooks, Americanized the English language, and edited magazines.

When Noah Webster died in 1843 he was considered an American hero.











Contact us for more info