We may well have had other dictionaries at hand, but none were synonymous with the word dictionary the way Webster was.  Newtown Historical Society will look it up in Webster’s in the form of a program presented by Christopher Dobbs, the executive director of West Hartford’s Noah Webster House, on Monday, May 14, at 7:30 pm, in the community room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street.

Certainly, there were earlier dictionaries: Bailey’s was in common use in both Britain and America, Samuel Johnson’s great work had been published by the mid-18th Century, and the Royal Standard Dictionary had been reprinted many times in America, continuing well after the Revolution. But these were all British products; what was needed to establish a new American identity was a new language: an American version of English.

Some attempts had been made, an American coincidently named Samuel Johnson had published two small school dictionaries by 1800, and there were other efforts as well. No one, however, had the idea of total revision that was Noah Webster’s great contribution. Flush with the success of his spelling, grammar and history textbooks, Webster began to devote his time to the great project, and by 1806 he had compiled the first truly American dictionary, a small volume using American spelling, meanings, and words such as Yankee.

But the small volume was only a precursor, and in 1828 came the large, two-volume work that would forever link his name to the dictionary. Published in 2,500 copies, the work surprisingly did not sell well at first, and was still available some 15 years later when a supplement was added a year or two before the edition finally sold out and a revision was begun.

But Webster was not just about the dictionary: his famed “blue back speller” continued to be a bestseller for a century. Concerned about literary piracy, he fought hard for the first American copyright law passed in 1790. He was a staunch and active member of the Federalist Party, and a strong abolitionist. With a lifelong interest in education at all levels, he became a co-founder of Amherst College. Oddly enough, he never protected the name Webster’s Dictionary, and several versions still legally use the name. 

Christopher Dobbs will examine all these aspects of Webster’s long career in addition to talking about the great dictionary. As executive director of The Webster House, Mr Dobbs welcomes more than 20,000 visitors to the museum each year, many of them in school groups (which certainly would have pleased Mr Webster). Mr Dobbs has extensive experience in museum administration, and has published in that field as well as on Webster. 

Newtown Historical Society programs are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served following the presentation.

For further information, call the society at 426-5937.