1885 Root and Tinker Broadside Celebrating Educator Noah Webster

This is Root and Tinker's scarce 1885 chromolithographic print extolling Noah Webster, the compiler of the first dictionary of American English and a pioneering 19th-century educator. Webster can be credited with standardizing American 'common' English.

A Closer Look

This exquisitely executed work presents a stack of books on a desk with a portrait of a youngish Noah Webster superimposed on a handwritten draft page of his famous dictionary at the center. Behind is a large, published edition of Webster's Dictionary while to the left is his earlier, preliminary work A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. In the foreground is one of his many simpler didactic works for schoolchildren. This work may have been published to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the publication of Webster's Compendious Dictionary. The nickname 'Schoolmaster of the Republic' was one of several similar names used for Webster (another being 'Schoolmaster to America'), but the specific term appears to have originated around Centennial celebrations in 1876.

The artistry of Root and Tinker is as remarkable as the subject matter, making use of novel chromolithographic printing to employ bold, striking colors and to depict a lifelike variety of textures, including the imitated handwriting mentioned above, the realistic curvature of the pages of books sitting open on the table, the complex marbling along the edges of the large published dictionary, and the watercolor-like shadows and shading of the table in the foreground.

Noah Webster and American Education

Noah Webster (1758 - 1843) was an American educator, writer, and lexicographer who can be considered an American equivalent to Dr. Samuel Johnston (1709 - 1784). Webster began public life in 1793 when Alexander Hamilton recruited him to edit a New York City Federalist newspaper. He later joined the Connecticut House of Representatives and became a prominent abolitionist. At the same time, Webster continuously published essays and books on a wide range of topics, including politics, education, and infectious diseases. He was especially concerned about the poor quality of education in the new republic and set about publishing didactic works to help students practice reading, grammar, and spelling.

More generally, Webster aimed to reinforce civic virtue through a distinctly republican form of American English, drawn from the active and utilitarian language used by the common folk instead of the staid, aristocratic style of the British aristocracy. In 1806, Webster published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language and afterward set to work on a much larger and ambitious American English dictionary, his magnum opus, published in 1828 as American Dictionary of the English Language, the basis for subsequent editions of Webster's Dictionary and various Merriam-Webster dictionaries. (Merriam refers to George and Charles Merriam, who bought the rights to Webster's dictionary after his death.) To produce the work, Webster traveled widely and studied more than two dozen languages to trace the roots and meanings of words while also incorporating colloquial words and phrases from various American dialects that generally would be excluded from such a scholarly work. His dictionary helped to standardize American English, including the spelling variations that distinguish it from standard British English.

Chromolithography

Chromolithography is a color lithographic technique developed in the mid-19th century. The process involved using multiple lithographic stones, one for each color, to yield a rich composite effect. Oftentimes, the process would start with a black basecoat upon which subsequent colors were layered. Some chromolithographs used 30 or more separate lithographic stones to achieve the desired effect. Chromolithograph color could also be effectively blended for even more dramatic results. The process became extremely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it emerged as the dominant method of color printing. The vivid color chromolithography produced made it exceptionally effective for advertising and propaganda imagery.

Publication History and Census

This work was prepared and published by New York lithographers Root and Tinker in 1885. It is quite scarce, only appearing in the institutional collections of the Boston Athenaeum and the American Antiquarian Society in the OCLC. The National Museum of American History, Stanford University's Hoover Institution Library and Archives, and the Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs Division also hold examples.