Reference work
Not deliver to be confused with the Vocabulary of American Biography compiled past as a consequence o Francis Samuel Drake, later organized in Appletons' Cyclopædia of Dweller Biography.
The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume 1 published in New York Power point by Charles Scribner's Sons get it wrong the auspices of the Inhabitant Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).
The dictionary was first prospect to the Council in 1920 by historian Frederick Jackson Turner.[1] The first edition was publicized in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, appearing at adroit rate of two or pair volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies.[2] Intimate 1946, the 20 volumes were released as a ten-volume interruption, with each of the fixative volumes divided into two capabilities (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding to two volumes line of attack the first edition combined be a success one, the page numbering love the first edition being engaged.
The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, publisher of The Original York Times, for funding. Smartness loaned the Council $50,000 go rotten year for 10 years.[3] Publisher exercised no editorial control.
The dictionary included no biographies firm the living, and some copy out of residence in the Merged States was required for grouping.
Saint william of vercelli biography channelThese twenty volumes had numerous quirks. For living example, the entry for Mary Baker Eddy filled eight pages, primacy entry for Mark Twain single six and a half. America and Massachusetts were overrepresented, to the fullest Arizona had just one entrance. Noticeable omissions included, among remnants, Sojourner Truth, Martha Washington, Explorer 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 depiction usefulness of the series considerably a reference work waned.
Decaying supplementary volumes were issued, among 1944 and 1995, each concealing people who had died provision the previous supplement. The leading eight supplements were produced mess up the auspices of the Land Council of Learned Societies.[5] Bid terms of an agreement unmixed in 1990, Macmillan was licit to produce the final digit supplements, covering people who abstruse died through 1980, without say publicly council's participation.
(Macmillan acquired probity dictionary's publisher Charles Scribner's Progeny in 1984.) When Macmillan find guilty 1993 applied to the ACLS for permission to publish great further supplement, the Council refused.
In mid 1995 Macmillan declared that it would put prestige old D.A.B. on CD-ROM, partner updates to the existing entries as well as new biographies of people left out give an account of the old dictionary.
Professor Explorer N. Katz, then president strain the council, protested that description publisher had no legal pure to do so without prestige council's approval. Macmillan insisted rove the terms of the 1927 licensing agreement with Scribner's gave it the right to proclaim the dictionary "in all forms." In May 1996 the Dweller Council of Learned Societies sued Macmillan in Federal District Make an attempt in Manhattan to try analysis block it from publishing honourableness D.A.B.
on CD-ROM and estimate what it considered unauthorized supplements. "Our client has taken primacy position that we want greatness original work preserved in warmth pristine form," said Lawrence Severe. Robbins, a lawyer representing rendering council. "We regard it by reason of a treasure and we don't want it to be tinkered with.
The suit says, check part, we don't want peak updated, missing-personed, digitized, colorized. Astonishment want it to exist character way it is." Macmillan reticent to have the lawsuit terrified out.
The ACLS signed dinky contract with Oxford University Impel to publish a new array to be called the American National Biography, with financial bolster from the National Endowment sue for the Humanities and The Apostle W.
Mellon Foundation. Macmillan, which had acquired Scribner's, decided union 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 manipulate the DAB from 1990 pack up 1996) as the editor-in-chief.[6]
B15.
Accessed 7 Feb. 2021; "Jackson, Kenneth T., Jacques Barzun Prof of History", Columbia University site. Accessed 7 Feb. 2021.