Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". He authored a large number of "Blue-Back Speller" books which were used to teach American children how to spell and read. He is also the author for the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.
Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Webster graduated from Yale College in 1778. He passed the bar examination after studying law under Oliver Ellsworth and others but was unable to find work as a lawyer. He found some financial success by opening a private school and writing a series of educational books, including the "Blue-Back Speller". A strong supporter of the American Revolution and the ratification of the United States Constitution, Webster later criticized American society as being in need of an intellectual foundation. He believed American nationalism had distinctive qualities that differed from European values.
In 1793, Alexander Hamilton recruited Webster to move to New York City and become an editor for a Federalist Party newspaper. He became a prolific author, publishing newspaper articles, political essays, and textbooks. He returned to Connecticut in 1798 and served in the Connecticut House of Representatives. Webster founded the Connecticut Society for the Abolition of Slavery in 1791 but later became somewhat disillusioned with the abolitionist movement.
In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. The following year, he started working on an expanded and comprehensive dictionary, finally publishing it in 1828. He was influential in popularizing certain American spellings. He played a role in advocating for copyright reform, contributing to the Copyright Act of 1831, the first major statutory revision of U.S. copyright law. While working on a second volume of his dictionary, Webster died in 1843, and the rights to the dictionary were acquired by George and Charles Merriam.
Early life and education
Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in the Noah Webster House in western Hartford, Connecticut Colony, during the Colonial Era. The area of his birth later became West Hartford, Connecticut. He was born into an established family, and the Noah Webster House continues to highlight his life and serves as the headquarters of the West Hartford Historical Society. His father, Noah Webster Sr., was a descendant of Connecticut Governor John Webster; his mother Mercy Webster was a descendant of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony. His father was primarily a farmer, though he was also a deacon of the local Congregational church, captain of the town's militia, and a founder of a local book society, a precursor to the public library. After American independence, he was appointed a justice of the peace.Webster's father never attended college, but placed a strong emphasis on education. Webster's mother spent long hours teaching her children spelling, mathematics, and music. At age six, Webster began attending a dilapidated one-room primary school built by West Hartford's Ecclesiastical Society. Years later, he described the teachers as the "dregs of humanity" and complained that the instruction was mainly in religion. Webster's experiences there motivated him to improve the educational experience of future generations.
At age fourteen, he received tutoring from his church pastor in Latin and Greek to prepare him for entering Yale College. Webster enrolled at Yale just before his 16th birthday, and during his senior year studied with Ezra Stiles, Yale's president. He was also a member of Brothers in Unity, a secret society at Yale. His four years at Yale overlapped the American Revolutionary War and, because of food shortages and the possibility of a British invasion, many classes were held in other towns. Webster served in the Connecticut Militia. His father mortgaged the farm to send Webster to Yale, but after graduating, Webster had little contact with his family.
Career
Webster lacked clear career plans after graduating from Yale in 1779, later writing that a liberal arts education "disqualifies a man for business". He taught school briefly in Glastonbury, but due to harsh working conditions and low pay, he resigned to study law. While studying law under future U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, Webster also taught full-time in Hartford—a grueling experience that ultimately proved unsustainable. He quit his legal studies for a year and lapsed into a depression; he then found another practicing attorney to tutor him, and completed his studies, and passed the bar examination in 1781.With the American Revolutionary War still ongoing, Webster was unable to find work as a lawyer. He received a master's degree from Yale by delivering an oral dissertation to the graduating class. Later that year, he opened a small private school in western Connecticut, which initially succeeded but was eventually closed, possibly due to a failed romance. Turning to literary work as a way to overcome his losses and channel his ambitions, he began writing a series of well-received articles for a prominent New England newspaper justifying and praising the American Revolution and arguing that the separation from Britain would be a permanent state of affairs. He then founded a private school catering to wealthy parents in Goshen, New York and, by 1785, he had written his speller, a grammar book and a reader for elementary schools. Proceeds from continuing sales of the popular blue-backed speller enabled Webster to spend many years working on his famous dictionary.
Webster was by nature a revolutionary, seeking American independence from the cultural thralldom to Europe. He aimed to create a utopian America, free from luxury and ostentation, and a champion of freedom. By 1781, Webster had an expansive view of the new nation. American nationalism was superior to European nationalism due to the perceived superiority of American values.
Webster dedicated his Speller and Dictionary to providing an intellectual foundation for American nationalism. From 1787 to 1789, Webster was an outspoken supporter of the new Constitution. In October 1787, he wrote a pamphlet entitled "An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia", published under the pen name "A Citizen of America". The pamphlet was influential, particularly outside New York State.
In political theory, Webster emphasized widespread property ownership, a key element of Federalism. He was also one of the few early American thinkers who applied the theories of the French theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau in America. He relied heavily on Rousseau's Social Contract while writing Sketches of American Policy, one of the earliest, widely-published arguments for a strong central government in America. He also wrote two "fan fiction" sequels to Rousseau's Emile, or On Education and included them in his Reader for schoolchildren. Webster's Reader also contains an idealized word portrait of Sophie, the girl in Rousseau's Emile, and Webster used Rousseau's theories in Emile to argue for the civic necessity of broad-based female education.
Federalist editor
Noah Webster married Rebecca Greenleaf on October 26, 1789, in New Haven, Connecticut. They had eight children:- Emily Schotten, who married William W. Ellsworth and was named by Webster as an executor of his will. Emily, their daughter, later married Rev. Abner Jackson, who became president of both Trinity College in Hartford and Hobart College in Geneva, New York.
- Frances Julianna, married Chauncey Allen Goodrich
- Harriet, who married William Chauncey Fowler
- Mary m. Horatio Southgate, son of Dr. Robert and Mary King Southgate
- William Greenleaf
- Eliza Steele m. Rev. Henry Jones
- Henry Bradford
- Louisa Greenleaf
As a Federalist spokesman, Webster defended the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, especially their policy of neutrality between Britain and France, and he especially criticized the excesses of the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror. When French ambassador Citizen Genêt set up a network of pro-Jacobin "Democratic-Republican Societies" that entered American politics and attacked President Washington, he condemned them. He later defended Jay's Treaty between the United States and Britain. As a result, he was repeatedly denounced by the Jeffersonian Republicans as "a pusillanimous, half-begotten, self-dubbed patriot", "an incurable lunatic", and "a deceitful newsmonger... Pedagogue and Quack."
For decades, he was one of the most prolific authors in the new nation, publishing textbooks, political essays, a report on infectious diseases, and newspaper articles for his Federalist party.
In 1799 Webster wrote two massive volumes on the causes of "epidemics and pestilential diseases". Medical historians have considered him as "America's first epidemiologist". He was so prolific that a modern bibliography of his works spans 655 pages. He moved back to New Haven in 1798 and was elected as a Federalist to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1800 and 1802–1807.
Webster was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1799. He moved to Amherst, Massachusetts in 1812, where he helped to found Amherst College. In 1822, his family moved back to New Haven, where Webster was awarded an honorary degree from Yale the following year. In 1827, Webster was elected to the American Philosophical Society.