Noah Webster, the father of the first American English dictionary, was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, on October 16, 1758. He was one of five children born to Noah Webster Sr. and Mercy Webster. When he turned 16 years-old, he entered Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Noah originally planned on becoming a lawyer and was a practicing lawyer for a brief period after graduating Yale but discovered teaching to be more to his personal liking. It was also during his enrollment at Yale when the Revolutionary War broke out and like a good American citizen, he joined the militia to help secure America’s independence from England. Once he experienced teaching in schools, however, he decided that American schools could use improvement when it came to educational methods and the texts used.
Noah Webster is credited for having written the first American spellers that were used in eighteenth century schools. He wrote a three-volume guide to American English grammar, paving the way for what he felt was the proper pronunciation of words, instead of following the pronunciation of English words that were considered too British during the time of the American Revolution. Noah also challenged the belief that Greek and Latin had to be learned before English could be learned. Noah Webster also tackled the spelling of English words, revising them into American English. Some examples are: favorite in place of favourite, practice in place of practise, and center in place of centre.
Noah also believed in hands-on learning for grammar, math, and reading. His books became so popular for educational use that other first colonies started publishing unauthorized copies for use. Noah Webster quickly addressed this problem and became one of the first men to get a federal copyright law established in 1790. He was a strong believer in education for Americans as that would be the key to America’s survival as a free nation. Noah continued to work in education and write books until his death in 1843.
Noah Webster’s first dictionary was published in 1806 and he continued to expand on that through further revisions in the following years. In his dictionary he not only included American English words but also borrowed words from other languages, such as squash, corn, raccoon, which come to us through Native American languages. Due to his hard work, modern revisions of his dictionary are still published, as well as modern copies of his speller that are used for English language education.
The original house he was born in was a farmhouse, but since then, a second story was built onto it, and painted brown. Noah Webster’s birth house became a museum in 1966 and is open to visitors. On the first level is the dining room, living room, and kitchen, with the bedrooms being upstairs. One of the notable things about the house interior is that the doorways are much shorter in height, since people in the eighteenth century stood shorter than average. Some of Noah’s personal belongings still remain in the house as historical artifacts. The museum hosts educational programs, exhibits, and guided tours.
The Noah Webster House Museum is located on 227 South Main St. in West Hartford, Connecticut.
Image Credit: Msact, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
