Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.4 | The History Cooperative

Noah Webster: The Life and Time of an American Patriot. By Harlow Giles Unger. (New York: Wiley, 1998. xiv, 386 pp. $30.00, isbn 0-471-18455-1.)

Noah Webster led a truly extraordinary life. Born October 16, 1758, in West Hartford, Connecticut, raised within a Calvinist farm family and educated at Yale University, he took part in a comic-opera expedition as a volunteer militiaman during the American Revolution. Following that experience, he served several terms as a schoolmaster, gained a legal education, and created his first spelling book. From that time on, he expanded the speller into three texts (a speller, a grammar, and a reader), oversaw their constant revisions, developed his legal practice, and struggled to enact copyright laws in the various states. He subsequently contributed significantly to the creation of the Constitution, founded and edited the American Magazine, ardently supported the Federalist party, edited the American Minerva, undertook extensive epidemiological studies, became a zealous advocate of the Alien and Sedition Acts, promoted the Hartford Convention, supported the founding of Amherst College, created the magnificent An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), published an American version of the Bible, and vehemently opposed the Jacksonian movement. Webster died May 28, 1843, in New Haven, Connecticut. . . .

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