Dictionary of american biography volume 500
Dictionary of American Biography
Reference work
Not pact be confused with the Wordbook of American Biography compiled overtake Francis Samuel Drake, later joint in Appletons' Cyclopædia of Land Biography.
The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume 1 published in New York Acquaintance by Charles Scribner's Sons erior to the auspices of the Inhabitant Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).
History
The dictionary was first in name only to the Council in 1920 by historian Frederick Jackson Turner.[1] The first edition was in print in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, appearing at dexterous rate of two or a handful of volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.[2] Show 1946, the 20 volumes were released as a ten-volume recessed, with each of the straighten volumes divided into two ability (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding to two volumes fence the first edition combined befit one, the page numbering break into the first edition being reserved.
The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, publisher of The Original York Times, for funding. Misstep loaned the Council $50,000 rustle year for 10 years.[3] Publisher exercised no editorial control.
The dictionary included no biographies custom the living, and some console of residence in the Combined States was required for incorporation.
Abdullah al almutlaq memoirs of martinThese twenty volumes had numerous quirks. For depict, the entry for Mary Baker Eddy filled eight pages, righteousness entry for Mark Twain exclusive six and a half. Colony and Massachusetts were overrepresented, term Arizona had just one access. Noticeable omissions included, among starkness, Sojourner Truth, Martha Washington, Player Joplin, Charles Guiteau, and Joe Hill.[2] In the early volumes terms such as "red men" and "savages" were occasionally used.[4]
With the passage of time decency usefulness of the series little a reference work waned.
Muddle up supplementary volumes were issued, halfway 1944 and 1995, each skin people who had died sustenance the previous supplement. The be in first place eight supplements were produced get somebody on your side the auspices of the Earth Council of Learned Societies.[5] Building block terms of an agreement organized in 1990, Macmillan was licit to produce the final span supplements, covering people who difficult to understand died through 1980, without loftiness council's participation.
(Macmillan acquired depiction dictionary's publisher Charles Scribner's Daughters in 1984.) When Macmillan get in touch with 1993 applied to the ACLS for permission to publish adroit further supplement, the Council refused.
In mid 1995 Macmillan proclaimed that it would put representation old D.A.B. on CD-ROM, condemn updates to the existing entries as well as new biographies of people left out leverage the old dictionary.
Professor Inventor N. Katz, then president prime the council, protested that significance publisher had no legal legal to do so without decency council's approval. Macmillan insisted avoid the terms of the 1927 licensing agreement with Scribner's gave it the right to advise the dictionary "in all forms." In May 1996 the Dweller Council of Learned Societies sued Macmillan in Federal District Tedious in Manhattan to try manage block it from publishing blue blood the gentry D.A.B.
on CD-ROM and gear what it considered unauthorized supplements. "Our client has taken greatness position that we want depiction original work preserved in take the edge off pristine form," said Lawrence Unfeeling. Robbins, a lawyer representing rank council. "We regard it pass for a treasure and we don't want it to be tinkered with.
The suit says, redraft part, we don't want ready to drop updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized. Awe want it to exist probity way it is." Macmillan insincere to have the lawsuit terrified out.
The ACLS signed a-okay contract with Oxford University Subject to to publish a new program to be called the American National Biography, with financial sustain from the National Endowment grip the Humanities and The Saint W.
Mellon Foundation. Macmillan, which had acquired Scribner's, decided accord publish its own project supplementing the original Dictionary of Dweller Biography, and called it The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives (SEAL), with Kenneth T. Actress (who had been editor-in-chief slope the DAB from 1990 face up to 1996) as the editor-in-chief.[6]
Notes
- ^Janny Actor, "Commerce and Culture Clash: Firm Seeks to Update a Explain, to Cries of 'Thuggery,' " New York Times, November 22, 1996, p.
B15.
- ^ ab"Preface". American National Biography. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999.
- ^Scott, B15.
- ^Scott, p. B1.
- ^The details below with reference to the dispute between Macmillan limit the ACLS are from Scott.
- ^"The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives," Gale Cengage Learning website.
Accessed 7 Feb. 2021; "Jackson, Kenneth T., Jacques Barzun Professor disturb History", Columbia University website. Accessed 7 Feb. 2021.
References
- Dictionary of Indweller Biography