Broadsides Advertise Noah Webster's Works and Include Testimonials

This pair of broadsides advertises Noah Webster's educational works and includes testimonials from members of Congress, the presidents of Yale College, Middlebury College, and other colleges and universities; professors at Yale College, Andover Theological Seminary, and Middlebury College, and other institutions; clergymen; judges; and others. They advertised Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, Elementary Spelling Book, History of the United States, Improved Grammar, Webster's Teacher, or Supplement to the Elementary Spelling Book, and Webster's edition of the Bible.

Members of Congress who endorsed "Dr. Webster's purpose and attempt to improve the English language" included thirty-one senators from twenty states and seventy-three representatives from twenty-three states. Academic endorsers included two of his sons-in-law—Chauncey A. Goodrich, Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Yale College, and William C. Fowler, Professor of Chimistry (Webster's spelling) and Natural History at Middlebury College.

[NOAH WEBSTER.] Printed Broadside, To the Friends of Literature. New Haven, Connecticut: S. Babcock, September 1836. 1 p., 12" x 19.25". Expected folds; water stain down center and one ink stain on verso with bleedthrough.
With: [NOAH WEBSTER.] Printed Broadside, To the Friends of Literature. New Haven, Connecticut: S. Babcock, October 1836. 1 p., 12" x 20". Expected folds; water stains on either side at center.

Excerpts
[September 1836 broadside:]
"It has long been considered a public evil, that there is, in market and in use, a great variety of books for instructing children in the English language, not two of which books agree either in orthography or pronunciation." (c1)

"The English language is destined to be more widely diffused, and to be spoken by more people, than any other language. It is to be the language, not only of the British dominions in Europe, and the East and West Indies, but in North America, in New Holland [Australia], New Zealand, and in the Isles of the Pacific. Respect for our native language, for science and for Christianity, seems to require that it should be purified from mistakes, and as far as possible, from anomalies; and reduced to uniformity and stability." (c1)

"The following is an extract from a letter to the author, from the lamented Horatio Gates Spafford, the author of the Gazetteer of the State of New York, who fell a victim to the cholera.
"‘It has happened to me this morning, that I took up thy Grammar, and I examined it with an increased degree of interest and pleasure. How much I found to admire, and how much to increase my sentiments of obligation to the author, I shall omit to describe. I am greatly thy debtor, my worthy friend. This book alone ought to command the gratitude of thy country, and that country should pride itself on such an author. Posterity will do thee justice, and the time is coming, when all previous grammars will be wiped away, as the cobwebs of literature, to make way for the science of Grammar in Webster.'" (c3)

[October 1836 broadside:]
"Great attention is now given to the subject of education, and it is certainly a subject of universal concern. In this all men are agreed. But in the use of elementary books for the instruction of youth in our native language, there is no general agreement; and the great variety of books of this kind, no two of which are alike in orthography and pronunciation, is a great evil. This evil ought to be removed." (c1)

"All the spelling books compiled in this country are constructed on the plan of classification of words, and division of syllables, introduced by Dr. N. Webster, more than fifty years ago. Some of the compilers have copied so much of his elementary books, as to be exposed to an action for damages. These books have been urged into use, in particular districts of the country; but the greater portion of the people in the United States adhere to Webster's book." (c1)

"Dr. Webster is the father of all improvements in our elementary books: he has devoted a long life to this object: he has compiled the best dictionary in the language, and reduced to uniform orthography many classes of words, in which there has before been no uniformity: he has corrected the most obvious mistakes in the English spelling: he has crossed the Atlantic, and ascertained the pronunciation of English speakers: and for these reasons his books are entitled to a preference. They are generally preferred; and many gentlemen, members of congress, as well as many of our most distinguished literary men, have expressed a desire that his elementary books may be used as the standard of our language." (c1)

Noah Webster (1758-1843) was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1778. He was admitted to the bar in 1781 but could find no work as a lawyer. He received a master's degree from Yale and began teaching at schools in western Connecticut and then Goshen, New York. He wrote and published a speller (1783), a grammar book (1784), and a reader (1785) for elementary schools. In 1789, he married Rebecca Greenleaf (1766-1847) in New Haven, and they had eight children. In 1793, with a loan from Alexander Hamilton, Webster moved to New York City, where he founded the Federalist newspaper American Minerva and edited it for four years. He also published the semi-weekly publication The Herald, A Gazette for the Country. He defended the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, earning the ire of the Jeffersonian Republicans. After returning to New Haven in 1798, he served in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1800 and 1802-1807. In 1812, he moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he lived for a decade and helped to found Amherst College. Webster published his first dictionary in 1806 but began the following year to compile an expanded and comprehensive dictionary. The proceeds from the sale of his popular blue-backed speller allowed him to spend many years working on the dictionary. His famed An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) provided an intellectual foundation for American nationalism, seeing the new nation as superior to the old empires of antiquity and contemporary Europe. He published an expanded second edition in two volumes in 1840.

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