Dictionary of American Biographyby Dumas Malone

Dictionary of American Biography by Dumas MaloneReview by: A. M. SchlesingerThe American Historical Review, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Jul., 1937), pp. 769-773Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1839497 .

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Dictionary of American Biography 769

Bogatyr factory workers (p. I59), and the revolt of the Riazan workers (p. I64) introduce a definite rebuttal of the accepted cliche.

There is a lack of editorial notes such as, for instance, are used in No. Io of the Hoover War Library Publications. An American reader not thoroughly versed in recent Russian history is likely to be confused by the numerous names of persons and places left without adequate editorial elucidation. There are a few mistakes in translation and editing. Nalokov was not the Russian ambassador to Great Britain, only the charge d'affaires (P. 59). "Chief Clerk" (p. 45) is hardly a happy translation of the title of one of the members of the cabinet of the Dono-Caucasian Federation. Cap- tain Cromie was killed not in the consular building but in the embassy (P. 147). "Flying squadrons" (p. 208) is confusing, conveying the impres- sion of air forces participating in food collections. These are, however, minor errors. The translation and editing of the materials has on the whole been done carefully and accurately.

It is to be hoped that James Bunyan will continue his useful work in the field of publishing English translations of documents bearing on recent Russian history and that the present volume will soon be followed by others covering later phases of civil war and communism in Russia.

Philadelphia. D. FEDOTOFF WHITE.

AMERICAN HISTORY

Dictionary of American Biography. Edited by DUMAS MALONE. Volumes XIX-XX, Troye-Zunser. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. I936. Pp. x, 659; XXvi, 662. $I2.50 each; $250 for the complete set.) WiTH the publication of the last two installments of the Dictionary of

American Biography a great editorial undertaking comes to triumphant con- clusion. The new volumes contain I360 memoirs, bringing the grand total to I3,627. (The editors' count is I3,633.) The surnames that score the highest number of sketches in the present volumes are Williams, 57; White and Whyte, 38; Wilson and Willson, 36; Wood and Woods, 35; Ward, 32; Walker, 3I; and Wright, 30. With the complete roster of American im- mortals now before us it is possible to state authoritatively that the ranks of national fame have been recruited most numerously from the Smiths, the Browns, the Johnsons, the Joneses, and the Williamses, in the order given. The significance of this finding, however, is diminished by the fact that the Dictionary places only one member of this group, President Johnson, in the select list of seventy-six Americans who are allotted an article of five thousand words or more.

These concluding volumes maintain the high standards characteristic of the work as a whole. Among the articles of exceptional merit are W. E. Smith's "Martin Van Buren", R. D. W. Connor's "Zebulon Baird Vance"



770 Reviews of Books

Max Lerner's "Thorstein Bunde Veblen", B. R. Trimble's "Morrison Remick Waite", H. D. Jordan's "Robert John Walker", J. E. Fitzpatrick's "George Washington", A. C. Cole's "Daniel Webster", Charles Moore's "Stanford White", H. E. Starr's "George Whitefield", J. P. Boyd's "James Wilson", Charles Seymour's "Woodrow Wilson", J. 0. Wettereau's "Oliver Wolcott", and Bernard De Voto's "Brigham Young". The usual question arises as to persons of distinction whose biographies the editorial staff failed to include. Among such absentees in these last volumes are Giovanni Turini (I84I- I899), sculptor; J. E. Turner (I822-I889), founder of inebriate asylums; William Van Anden (I815-I892), inventor of railroad appliances; P. J. J. Valentini (I828-I899), pioneer American archaeologist; T. R. Varick (I825- i887), surgical scientist; T. J. Walsh (d. I865), labor leader; Henry Wat- kins (I825-I894), actor and playwright; J. W. Watts (I830-I895), steel en- graver; Darius Wells (I800-I875), inventor of wood type; W. H. West (I853-I902), minstrel performer; Norman Wiard (I826-I896), mechanical inventor; J. F. Willard ("Josiah Flynt") (I869-I9o7), sociological writer; Septimnus Winner (I827-I902), song writer; Annie T. Wittenmyer (I827- I900), temperance worker and first president of the W. C. T. U.; Eliza Logan (Wood) (I830-I872), actress; Isaac Wood (I793-I868), ophthalmic sur- geon; M. A. Woolf (I837-I899), magazine illustrator; H. C. Wright (1797- i870), reformer; and G. W. N. Yost (I83I-I895), inventor and manufac- turer of typewriters.

Before taking final leave of the Dictionary in these pages an appraisal of the set as a whole is appropriate. The twenty stout maroon volumes, em- bodying the work of 2243 different authors, form a monument of which any nation might be proud. Compared with the Dictionary of Nationad Biography, the American compilation has been rather more catholic in its coverage and, when due allowance is made for its smaller size, has enlisted the efforts of six or seven times as many contributors. Its literary excellence is quite as high, and its percentage of errata is apparently much smaller.

The greatest value of the work lies less in its presentation of major characters than in its portrayal of minor ones. This can be said despite the fact that the Dictionary's compact sketches of such figures as J. Willard Gibbs, Thomas Jefferson, and Woodrow Wilson are probably the best biographical treatments of these men anywhere in print. For the lives of the great, however, information can easily be found in other places; but for the countless lesser men and women whom the editorial diligence has rescued from unmerited oblivion the Dictionary is the only recourse. Into the prep- aration of these minor memoirs has been distilled research of the most exact- ing and painstaking kind. Their authors, unfortunately too numerous to mention, have earned the gratitude of the entire scholarly world. Notwith- standing the comprehensiveness of the Dictionary, the successive volumes have encountered criticism because of exclusions; other omissions, as yet



Dictoinary of American Bioyraphy 77 1

unnoted, will undoubtedly come to light as the work is increasingly con- sulted. It would be a wise provision to issue an additional volume after five years in order to take care of the names that have been inadvertently left out. It is a curious fact that, though the murderous exploit of John Wilkes Booth is amply recorded, there is no biographical mention of the assassins of Presidents Garfield and McKinley.

Though the worst depression in history fell on the nation shortly after the first volumes of the Dictionary came from the press, little trace of that fact appears in the work. To be sure, the earlier memoirs of financial and business leaders tend to be written with a reticence and a tenderness that are absent from the later ones. It is also true that the later contributors, unlike the earlier ones, betray an occasional irritation with the accepted canons of traditional American capitalism, as when one author (XIX, 343) refers to "what ridiculous pass the blind acceptance of laissez-faire led its worship- pers". Generally speaking, however, the sketches are presented with a notable degree of judicial detachment. The contributors have neither in- dulged the weakness for what has been called alibiography, nor have they subscribed to the modern doctrine: De mortuis nil nisi debunkum. The question of the apportionment of space among the different memoirs is a matter on which endless disagreement may be expected. If the editors have sometimes committed errors of judgment, it is clear that the decisions were not prompted by bias. In this galaxy of the great and notorious appear only 625 women, or one woman for every twenty-one men. This proportion does not seem unreasonable when it is considered that, in our contemporary age of the equality of the sexes, Who's Who in America for 1934-1935 lists but one woman for every fifteen or sixteen men. Thoughtful readers will be impressed by the extent to which the descendants of clergymen have at- tained distinction in nearly every walk of life. Therein lies an interesting reflection as to the social and intellectual cost that would have been inflicted on American civilization if Protestant Christianity had observed the practice of clerical celibacy.

Most users of the Dictionary would probably agree that two decisions affecting the general plan of the work were mistakes. One was the failure to set a definite deadline beyond which no further names would be ad- mitted. Up until January I, I935, when such a deadline was finally established, any eligible American was included whose surname happened to fall within that section of the alphabet not yet covered by published volumes. The result is that one cannot turn with confidence to the Dictionary for memoirs of persons who died between I928 and I935. Many of them are there, of ccurse, but for others, including those of John W. Burgess, Edward Channing, and Thomas A. Edison, one must seek elsewhere. Undoubtedly, too, this eagerness to be up to the minute deprived the editorial staff of the perspective necessary for a proper allotment of space and for a considered



772 Reviews of Books

appraisal of the man's career. The other decision involved the practice of signing articles with the initials rather than the names of the contributors. This obliges the reader in using the work to refer constantly to the lists at the front of the volumes where the initials are identified. Nor does it help him to remember that "A. A.", for example, are the initials of Adeline Adams, for in another volume her name may be abbreviated as "A-e. A." Likewise, "F. M." may stand for Florence Milligan in one volume, for Frank Monaghan in another, and for Fulmer Mood in a third. The simpler practice employed by the contemporaneous Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences is greatly to be preferred.

In a work containing more than eleven million words it is not surpris- ing that inaccurate statements should occasionally appear. The early tendency of contributors to claim "firsts", "onlys", and "mosts" was evidently checked by the editorial blue pencil, for the later volumes evince a marked restraint in this respect. In general, the factual errors in the Dictionary concern the political and social background, that is, matters peripheral to the life being depicted. One persistent mistake, which reappears as late as Volume XX (p. 247), is the use of the word "impeachment" as though it signified the conviction of the official on trial. The most common error of omission is the failure of contributors to note parental occupations, a point of con- siderable interest to students inquiring into the conditions determining the choice of life careers in America.

Any just appraisal of the work must take into account not only its in- trinsic value as a repository of information but also its service as a con- tinuing stimulus to American scholarship. Many significant figures are recalled to historical memory that deserve a fuller biographical treatment than the limits of the Dictionary permitted. In addition to those mentioned in earlier reviews of the work, the two concluding volumes suggest the desirability of modern full-length studies of C. L. Vallandigham, John Van Buren, Zebulon B. Vance, C. J. Van Depoele, Benjamin F. Wade, Robert J. Walker, A. Montgomery Ward, David A. Wells, Richard Grant White, Henry Wilson, John Winthrop (I7I4-I779), and C. T. Yerkes. Aside from strictly biographical studies, the Dictionary opens the way for an ex- ploration of many neglected avenues of the American past. Here are provided abundant data for a new assessment of sectional contributions to the national culture, of the role of racial elements in the population, and of the part played by women. Here too is to be found initial material for an in- vestigation of the early history of private philanthropy in America, of the development of the civil engineering profession, of the history of publishing, as well as of many of the minor religious sects. The influence of the Dic- tionary may be expected to ramify into the researches of scholars for a gen- eration to come. For this reason a supplementary volume containiing an analytical subject index is highly desirable.



Sabin's Dictionary 773

All in all, the Dictionary embodies an achievement so impressive as to render any criticism of details the merest caviling. The sponsorship of the American Council of Learned Societies, the generous subsidies of Adolph S. Ochs, the devoted efforts of the editorial staff and the contributors, and the collaboration of the publisher in providing an attractive format have been richly justified by the results. Professional scholars in all fields and the lay public as well will long continue in their debt.

Har-vard Univer sity. A. M. SCHLESINGER.

A Dictionary of Books relating to America, from its Discovery to the Present Time. By JOSEPH SABIN, continued by WILBERFORCE EAMES, and completed by R. W. G. VAIL. Twenty-nine volumes. (New York. I868-I936. Price on application to Charles E. Goodspeed, Boston.) AFTER seventy years this monumental work has had its alphabet com-

pleted, ending with "Zwey Schreiben", but as all good things are three, it has had three responsible editors.

Joseph Sabin was born in Brereton, Northampton, England, on December 9, I82I. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a bookseller of Oxford and in a short time rose to be business manager. Soon after he married, in I844, he established his own bookshop in Oxford; but in 1848 he came to the United States, purposing to farm in Texas. However, when he arrived in Philadelphia and learned how far off Texas was, he settled in the Quaker city, in the employ of the Appletons, and continued with that firm there or in New York City. In I855 he began his own business in Philadelphia as a dealer in fine editions of domestic and foreign publications.

The earliest evidence we have of his projected bibliography is derived from an advertisement published in the Historical Magazine of May, i859, while he still resided in Philadelphia. This advertisement was a "Prospectus of an American Bibliographer's Manual" to be known as "A Bibliographical Dictionary of all Books relating to America. From its discovery to the present time; also, of Books printed in the United States before A.D. i8oo, with their current or approximate value". This work was to "be arranged after the plan of Brunet and Lowndes" and to be provided with "an analytical or finding index", a specimen of which was given. At this time Sabin said that he had on hand fifteen thousand titles, which were being constantly aug- mented. Such was the embryonic plan. The completed work has now IO6,413 serial numbers, "but thousands of these serial numbers represent not one but many titles and editions. . . It is therefore probable that well over a quarter of a million different publications appear in the Dictionary as well as the location in the world's great libraries of not far from a million copies."

Sabin's business in Philadelphia suffered from the outbreak of the Civil War, and he removed to Broadway and Fourth Street in New York City. In New York he and his successors continued the business until the time of



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Dictionary of American Biographyby Dumas Malone