Noah Webster Defined Essay Research Paper NOAH

Noah Webster Defined Essay, Research Paper

NOAH WEBSTER DEFINED

Noah Webster.an 18th century American patriot, copyright pioneer and author of a dictionary that sustains his name centuries later. Born in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1758, Webster is known both for fighting in the American Revolution and for his position as being a strong advocate for the Constitutional Convention. His admiration of valiant creative people and their regard for the preservation of their civil ideals was surpassed by the feeling of lament at how hesitant they could be when it came to the protection of their own interests. Intensely believing in the development of the United States. cultural independence, he realized the necessity of a fundamental element of a unique American language with its own style, pronunciation and idiom (White 5). In 1806, Webster published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the first true American dictionary and Webster.s first small lexicographical work. Subsequently, he went to work on his classic masterpiece, An American Dictionary of the English Language. He learned a total of 26 languages.including Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit.in order to research the foundation of his own country’s native tongue. Published in 1828, this book embodied a new pattern of lexicography. Its 70,000 entries surpassed Samuel Johnson’s 1755 British masterpiece not only in scope but also in authority (King 73).

Noah Webster.s Calvinist family was typical of the colonial times; born in .modest circumstances, Noah longed for elite social status. (Bush 1508). His 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 while their sisters, Mercy and Jerusha, worked with their mother to keep house and feed and clothe the family. Noah loved to learn so his parents let him attend Yale, which was Connecticut’s only college, and he graduated in the class of 1778. Although he was initially unable to study law because his parents could not financially support him in that endeavor, he taught school to earn money and later fulfilled his dream (Shalhope 1761).

Through his teaching experiences, Noah discovered he did not like American schools. All ages of children were crammed into one-room schoolhouses with no desks, an insufficient amount of books and inexperienced teachers. Because the books they used came from England and Webster believed Americans should learn from American books, he wrote his own textbook in 1783. Most people called it the “Blue-backed Speller” because of its blue cover, but its actual title was A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. Later, it was reissued under the title The American Spelling Book and in this form went through edition after edition (Baugh 360). The most popular American book of its time, Ben Franklin used taught his granddaughter to read by using Webster.s book. His success with the blue-backed spelling book earned him both a steady income and the means to dedicate his life to the first American dictionary. This is the premier American textbook, of which more than seventy-five million copies have been sold and which still has its devotees (White 5).

In 1789, Noah Webster married Rebecca Greenleaf, who bore their eight children. The family lived in New Haven, then moved to Massachussets, where Noah helped to start Amherst College. When he was 43, Webster began writing the first American dictionary because Americans in various parts of the country spelled, pronounced and used words differently and he thought that all Americans should speak uniformly. Furthermore, he also thought that Americans should not speak and spell just like the English (King 72).

Webster spent much of his late 20s and early 30s crossing the American wilderness to petition on the steps of 13 capitals for copyright protection.

Through this, he learned the art of expressing the codes of justice that underline democracy. His 1785 pamphlet, Sketches Of American Policy, also exemplified Webster.s dedication as a member of the Federalist Party. This pamphlet recommended the proposed United States Constitution be adopted and became such an inspiration for the U.S. Constitution that in 1787 it replaced the Articles of Confederation. In 1830 Webster convinced Congress to enact a new federal bill that gave authors the right to copyright their works for 28 years, allowing their wives and children able to renew it for an additional 14 years. The law remained in effect until 1909, with the latest Copyright Act revised in 1976 and enacted in 1978, guaranteeing copyright- holders life protection plus 50 years. Recently.to conform to international standards. the term was extended to life plus 70 years (White 5).

A self-proclaimed .insatiable collector of information. and a lover of words, Webster did many other things in his life than define, spell and research so many words that his name became synonymous with the American dictionary (Bush 1508). He lobbied for copyright laws, wrote textbooks, Americanized the English language and edited magazines. Briefly, Webster settled in New York City in 1793, where he founded New York’s first daily newspaper, The Minerva, which later became The Commercial Advertiser. During the time he spent in New York, Webster also began a semiweekly called The Herald, later known as The Spectator. Both the dail