Webster
Webster names 5 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Webster DANIEL, an American statesman and orator
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
DANIEL, an American statesman and orator; born in Salisbury, N. H., Jan. 18, 1782. He was a child of the wilderness, and but for our system of school education, which, even then, pushed the means of instruction into remote solitudes, he would never have been enabled to bring his great faculties to bear in public life. Daniel was the second son of Ebenezer Webster, a small farmer and justice of the county court. He entered Dartmouth College in 1797, and taught school in winter to pay his expenses. He was graduated in 1801, and commenced to study law, but was induced, by an offer of a salary of $350 a year, to become preceptor of an academy at Fryeburg, Me., paying his board by copying deeds. In 1804 he went to Boston, and entered the law office of Mr. Gore. In 1805 he was admitted to the Boston bar, passed one year in the practice of his profession at Boscawen, and, on the death of his father, established himself at Portsmouth, N. H., and married in 1808. Having engaged in politics as a member of the Federalist party, he was elected to Congress, where he immediately took rank with the foremost men DANIEL WEBSTER of the country. He took his seat in the special session of May, 1813, and on June 10 delivered his maiden speech on the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. This, and his mastery of the question of currency and finance, secured him a high position. At the close of the session, however, he removed to Boston, where, during a period of seven years, he devoted himself exclusively to the practice of his profession, and occupied a position as a counsellor and an advocate, above which no one has ever risen in this country. In 1822 he was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, and on Dec. 22, 1822, he pronounced at Plymouth, on the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, the first of that remarkable series of discourses, or orations, which put him in the first rank among American orators. In 1829 he delivered an oration at the laying of the corner stone of the Bunker Hill Monument; in 1843 one on its completion. In 1826 he pronounced the eulogy of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two fathers and Presidents of the American Republic, who died on the same semi-centenary anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; and in 1851, a patriotic discourse on the laying of the corner stone for the extension of the Capitol at Washington. In 1822 he was elected to Congress from Boston, and distinguished himself by his speeches on the Holy Alliance, and the Greek revolution, and his labors in the revision of the criminal laws of the United States. In 1826, he was chosen a United States Senator; and in 1830, rose to the height of his forensic renown, in a speech of two days, in the debate with Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, on the right of "nullification." Webster and Clay were the leaders of the opposition during the administration of Jackson and Van Buren. In 1841 he became Secretary of State under President Harrison; remained in the administration of President Taylor till 1843; and was a third time Secretary of State in 1850, in the cabinet of Mr. Fillmore. On various occasions Webster had been an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency. He aspired again to that position in 1852, but his advocacy of compromises on the slavery question had given offense to the Abolitionists, and the choice of the convention assembled at Baltimore fell on Gen. Winfield Scott. The great orator died a few months after, Oct. 24, 1852. Webster's figure was commanding; his countenance was remarkable even in repose, but when animated by the excitement of debate it "spake no less audibly than his words." His gestures were vehement, without being undignified; and his voice was unrivaled in power, in clearness, and in modulated variety of tone. The most complete edition of his works is that published in 1851, in six volumes 8vo.
Webster NOAH, an American lexicographer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
NOAH, an American lexicographer; born in Hartford, Conn., Oct. 16, 1758. He was graduated at Yale College in 1778, having served in the Revolutionary War in his junior year; was admitted to the bar in 1781, but 'relinquished it for teaching in 1782; and in 1788 settled in New York as a journalist. Thence he removed to New Haven in 1798, and thence to Amherst in 1812, returning to New Haven in 1822. In 1783-1785 he published his "Grammatical Institute of the English Language," in three parts, "Webster's Spelling Book," "A Plain and Comprehensive Grammar," ,',, and "An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking." All these works had an enormous sale. His literary activity activity was henceforth very great, the works issued by him during the next few years including important legal and linguistic studies. In 1806 he published an 8vo. English dictionary, which led the way for his great work, the "American Dictionary of the English Language." In preparing this work he visited England, and he finished the dictionary during an eight months' residence in Cambridge. In June, 1825, he returned to America. The first edition of his dictionary was published in 1828 (2 vols. 4to.); it was followed by a second in 1840; since which time a number of editions have appeared, and the work has grown into the greatly improved and enlarged "International Dictionary." He died in New Haven, Conn., May 28, 1843.
Webster HENRY KITCHELL, an American author
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HENRY KITCHELL, an American author, born at Evanston, Ill., in 1875. He was graduated from Hamilton College in 1897, and in 1897 and 1898 was an instructor of rhetoric at Union College, Schenectady, N. Y. He wrote "The Short Line War" (with Samuel Merwin, 1899); "The Banker and the Bear"; "The Story of a Corner in Land" (1900); "Calumet 'K'" (with Samuel Merwin, 1901); "Roger Drake, Captain of Industry" (1903); "The Duke of Cameron Avenue" (1904); "Traitor and Loyalist" (1904); "Comra (1904); "Comrade John" (with Samuel Merwin, 1907); "The Whispering Man" (1908); "A King in Khaki" (1909); "The Sky Man" (1910); "The Girl in the Other Seat" (1911); "June Madness" (1912); "The Ghost Girl" (1913); "The Butterfly" (1914); "The Real Adventure" (1916); "The Painted Seene" (1916); "The Thoroughbred" (1917); "An American Family" (1918).
Webster JOHN, an English dramatist of the first part of the 17th century
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN, an English dramatist of the first part of the 17th century. He was clerk of the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, and a member of the Company of Merchant Tailors. His works are: "The White Devil" (1612); "The Devil's Law-Case" (1623); "The Duchess of Malfy" (1623); "Appius and Virginia" (1654); "The Thracian Wender" (1661); and "A Cure for a Cuckold," a comedy (1661). He also assisted Dekker in writing the "History of Sir and the comedies Thomas Wyatt," "Westward Hoe!" and "Northward Hoe!" By some critics he is accounted second only to Shakespeare.
Webster a city of Massachusetts
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of Massachusetts, in Worcester co. It is on the French river, and on the New York , New Haven , and Hartford and the Boston and Albany railroads. Its industries include woolen mills, stove factories, yarn mills, etc. It has a public library and other public buildings. Pop. ( 1910) 11,509; (1920) 13,258.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 could point to Noah Webster's dictionary having "grown into the greatly improved and enlarged 'International Dictionary'"; that line continued into Webster's New International, whose third edition of 1961 caused a public storm for recording usage rather than policing it. The Merriam-Webster firm still descends directly from the 1828 book, but the name itself long ago passed out of exclusive control, so "Webster's" now appears on dictionaries from rival publishers with no connection to Noah Webster at all. Daniel Webster's oratory is still anthologized, though modern historians weigh his 1850 defense of the Fugitive Slave Law far more heavily than Collier's brief note that he "had given offense to the Abolitionists." Note also a slip in the 1921 text: Webster's first term as Secretary of State, 1841-43, was served under Harrison and then Tyler, not Taylor. Of the three men here, Henry Kitchell Webster, a busy popular novelist who died in 1932, is the one who has since dropped out of view.
Written for this edition, 2026.