Encyclopedia Americana
Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia Americana is one of the largest general encyclopedia
s in the English language
. Following the acquisition of Grolier
in 2000, the encyclopedia has been produced by Scholastic.
The encyclopedia has more than 45,000 articles, most of them more than 500 words and many running to considerable length (the "United States" article is over 300,000 words). The work's coverage of American and Canadian geography and history has been a traditional strength, but its lead here has dwindled in recent years under the pressures of electronic publishing
. Written by 6,500 contributors, the Encyclopedia Americana includes over 9,000 bibliographies, 150,000 cross-references, 1,000+ tables, 1,200 maps, and almost 4,500 black-and-white line art and color images. It also has 680 factboxes. Most articles are signed by their contributors.
Long available as a 30-volume print set, the Encyclopedia Americana is now marketed as an online encyclopedia requiring a subscription. In March 2008, Scholastic said that print sales remained good and that the company was still deciding on the future of print. The company did not produce an edition in 2007, a change from its previous approach of releasing a revised print edition each year.
The online version of the Encyclopedia Americana, first introduced in 1997, continues to be nominally updated and sold. This work, like the print set from which it is derived, is designed for high school and first-year college students along with public library users. It is available to libraries as one of the options in the Grolier Online reference service, which also includes the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, intended for middle and high school students, and The New Book of Knowledge, an encyclopedia for elementary school students. Grolier Online is not available to individual subscribers.
. After Dobson's Encyclopædia
(1789–1798), it was the first significant American encyclopedia.
Lieber presented the idea of an American encyclopedia, based on Brockhaus
' Conversations-Lexikon, to Carey, Lea & Carey of Philadelphia in January 1828, then the largest publishing house in the United States. Although he invoked the name of the German encyclopedia, he explained that this work would not be simply a translation but be a distinctively American reference work, omitting much of the European matter. The publishers were not at first receptive to the idea, but Lieber had made numerous contacts with American intellectuals who convinced the publishers to commit to the project. Several weeks later they replied with their agreement to the project. "However," notes , "instead of being granted a royalty on sets sold, he would be compensated by payments totaling $20,000, and from this sum he must defray editorial costs, such as fees for translators and contributors and salaries of editorial assistants. This may have been a fair enough proposition for the period, but it would leave Lieber in straitened circumstances when the work was done."
Assisted by Edward Wigglesworth, a recent graduate of Harvard University
, Lieber set to work. When its was clear they could not keep to their scheduled output of a volume every three months, Thomas Gamaliel Bradford joined the editorial team. The editors offered fifty cents per German page to translators of the Conversations-Lexicon, while contributors of new articles would receive one dollar per page. The later was the rate set by the North American Review
. Notable contributors to this edition include: Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
, who provided some twenty articles on legal topics including "Common Law", "Contract", "Corpus Delicti", "Courts of England and the United States", "Criminal Law", "Equity", "Evidence", "Jury", "Law", "Natural Law", and "Usury"; John Pickering
, who wrote "Agrarian Law", "Americanism", "Indian Languages", and part of "Accents"; and John Davidson Godman, who agreed to contribute articles on natural history, but his work was prematurely ended when he died of tuberculosis in 1830. Also worthy of note was Joseph Bonaparte
, the older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose contributions on French topics include a 25,000 word biography on the former emperor of France, which according to De Kay was the longest biographical article in the Encyclopedia Americana.
The first volume was released September 1829, at the price of $2.50, and quickly sold out. When completed in 1833, the first edition comprised 13 volumes. Despite the success of the Encyclopedia, the Panic of 1837
led the Careys to scale back their catalog and concentrate on medical works. Nevertheless, this work continued to return profits to its owners on a regular basis. Publishing houses across the United States, and even in Canada, would rent or purchase Carey stereotype plates and publish Encyclopedia editions with their own imprints at the foot of the title pages, while retaining the Carey copyright notes on the overleaf, through 1858. In 1846, a supplementary fourteenth volume was issued.
In 1848, John Sutter
used the set to verify the authenticity of the gold found in his mill
, a discovery that would start the California Gold Rush
.
A separate "Encyclopedia Americana," published by J.M. Stoddart, was printed between 1883 and 1889, as a supplement to American reprintings of the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Stoddart's work, however, is not connected to the earlier work by Lieber.
In 1902 a new version in 16 volumes that carried over some of the old material was published under the title Encyclopedia Americana, under the editorial supervision of Scientific American
magazine. The magazine's editor, Frederick Converse Beach
, was editor-in-chief, and was said to be assisted by hundreds of eminent scholars and authorities who served as consulting editors or authors. The first publisher was R.S. Peale & Co; between 1903 and 1906 further editions were issued by the Americana Corp. and the Scientific American Compiling Department, with George Edwin Rines
appointed managing editor in 1903. The relationship with Scientific American was terminated in 1911. From 1907 to 1912, the work was published as The Americana.
A major new edition appeared in 1918-20 in 30 volumes, with George Edwin Rines as editor-in-chief. An Annual or Yearbook was also published each year beginning in 1923 and continuing until 2000.
The encyclopedia was purchased by Grolier
in 1945. By the 1960s sales of the Americana and its sister publications under Grolier
— The Book of Knowledge, the Book of Popular Science, and Lands and Peoples — were strong enough to support the company's occupancy of a large building (variously named the Americana Building and the Grolier Building) in Midtown Manhattan
, at 575 Lexington Avenue. Sales during this period were accomplished primarily through mail-order and door-to-door
operations. Telemarketing
and third-party distribution through their Lexicon division added to sales volumes in the 1970s.
was purchased by the French media company Hachette
, which owned a well-known French-language encyclopedia, the Hachette Encyclopedia. Hachette was later absorbed by the French conglomerate the Lagardère Group
. Following the acquisition, Grolier moved its operations to Danbury, Connecticut
.
A CD-ROM version of the encyclopedia was published in 1995. Although the text and images were stored on separate disks, it was in keeping with standards current at the time. More importantly, the work had been digitized, allowing for release of an online version in 1997. Over the next few years the product was augmented with additional features, functions, supplementary references, Internet links, and current events journal. A redesigned interface and partly reengineered product, featuring enhanced search capabilities and a first-ever ADA
-compliant, text-only version for users with disabilities, was presented in 2002.
The acquisition of Grolier
by Scholastic for US$
400 million, took place in 2000. The new owners projected a 30% increase in operating income, although historically Grolier
had experienced earnings of 7% to 8% on income. Staff reductions as a means of controlling costs followed soon thereafter, even while an effort was made to augment the sales force. Cuts occurred every year between 2000 and 2007, leaving a much-depleted work force to carry out the duties of maintaining a large encyclopedia database. Scholastic, which specializes in works for the K-8 market, has sought to position the Encyclopedia Americana as a reference resource for schools. It remains to be seen whether that strategy, applied to a venerable upper-level (even adult-level) publication, will work in the long run.
, a set of Encyclopedia Americana sits on the shelves of psychotherapist Dr. Paul Weston's (Gabriel Byrne
) home office.
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
s in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Following the acquisition of Grolier
Grolier
Grolier was one of the largest U.S. publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Popular Science , Encyclopedia Americana , Academic American Encyclopedia , and numerous incarnations of The Electronic Encyclopedia .Grolier was an...
in 2000, the encyclopedia has been produced by Scholastic.
The encyclopedia has more than 45,000 articles, most of them more than 500 words and many running to considerable length (the "United States" article is over 300,000 words). The work's coverage of American and Canadian geography and history has been a traditional strength, but its lead here has dwindled in recent years under the pressures of electronic publishing
Electronic publishing
Electronic publishing or ePublishing includes the digital publication of e-books and electronic articles, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing where it has been argued that peer-reviewed scientific journals are in...
. Written by 6,500 contributors, the Encyclopedia Americana includes over 9,000 bibliographies, 150,000 cross-references, 1,000+ tables, 1,200 maps, and almost 4,500 black-and-white line art and color images. It also has 680 factboxes. Most articles are signed by their contributors.
Long available as a 30-volume print set, the Encyclopedia Americana is now marketed as an online encyclopedia requiring a subscription. In March 2008, Scholastic said that print sales remained good and that the company was still deciding on the future of print. The company did not produce an edition in 2007, a change from its previous approach of releasing a revised print edition each year.
The online version of the Encyclopedia Americana, first introduced in 1997, continues to be nominally updated and sold. This work, like the print set from which it is derived, is designed for high school and first-year college students along with public library users. It is available to libraries as one of the options in the Grolier Online reference service, which also includes the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, intended for middle and high school students, and The New Book of Knowledge, an encyclopedia for elementary school students. Grolier Online is not available to individual subscribers.
Early history
The Encyclopædia Americana. A popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time; including a copious collection of original articles in American biography; on the basis of the 7th ed. of the German Conversations-Lexicon was founded by German-born Francis LieberFrancis Lieber
Francis Lieber , known as Franz Lieber in Germany, was a German-American jurist, gymnast and political philosopher. He edited an Encyclopaedia Americana...
. After Dobson's Encyclopædia
Dobson's Encyclopædia
Dobson's Encyclopædia was the first encyclopedia published in the newly independent United States of America, by Thomas Dobson from 1789–1798...
(1789–1798), it was the first significant American encyclopedia.
Lieber presented the idea of an American encyclopedia, based on Brockhaus
Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus
Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus was a German encyclopedia publisher and editor, famed for publishing the Conversations-Lexikon, which is now published as the Brockhaus encyclopedia.-Biography:...
' Conversations-Lexikon, to Carey, Lea & Carey of Philadelphia in January 1828, then the largest publishing house in the United States. Although he invoked the name of the German encyclopedia, he explained that this work would not be simply a translation but be a distinctively American reference work, omitting much of the European matter. The publishers were not at first receptive to the idea, but Lieber had made numerous contacts with American intellectuals who convinced the publishers to commit to the project. Several weeks later they replied with their agreement to the project. "However," notes , "instead of being granted a royalty on sets sold, he would be compensated by payments totaling $20,000, and from this sum he must defray editorial costs, such as fees for translators and contributors and salaries of editorial assistants. This may have been a fair enough proposition for the period, but it would leave Lieber in straitened circumstances when the work was done."
Assisted by Edward Wigglesworth, a recent graduate of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Lieber set to work. When its was clear they could not keep to their scheduled output of a volume every three months, Thomas Gamaliel Bradford joined the editorial team. The editors offered fifty cents per German page to translators of the Conversations-Lexicon, while contributors of new articles would receive one dollar per page. The later was the rate set by the North American Review
North American Review
The North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to J. H. Smyth, who had purchased the magazine, being unmasked as a Japanese...
. Notable contributors to this edition include: Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
Joseph Story
Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...
, who provided some twenty articles on legal topics including "Common Law", "Contract", "Corpus Delicti", "Courts of England and the United States", "Criminal Law", "Equity", "Evidence", "Jury", "Law", "Natural Law", and "Usury"; John Pickering
John Pickering
John Pickering may refer to:* John Pickering , author of the play Horestes first published in 1567* John Pickering , colonel of a regiment in the New Model Army...
, who wrote "Agrarian Law", "Americanism", "Indian Languages", and part of "Accents"; and John Davidson Godman, who agreed to contribute articles on natural history, but his work was prematurely ended when he died of tuberculosis in 1830. Also worthy of note was Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte was the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him King of Naples and Sicily , and later King of Spain...
, the older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose contributions on French topics include a 25,000 word biography on the former emperor of France, which according to De Kay was the longest biographical article in the Encyclopedia Americana.
The first volume was released September 1829, at the price of $2.50, and quickly sold out. When completed in 1833, the first edition comprised 13 volumes. Despite the success of the Encyclopedia, the Panic of 1837
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis or market correction in the United States built on a speculative fever. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837 in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in specie ,...
led the Careys to scale back their catalog and concentrate on medical works. Nevertheless, this work continued to return profits to its owners on a regular basis. Publishing houses across the United States, and even in Canada, would rent or purchase Carey stereotype plates and publish Encyclopedia editions with their own imprints at the foot of the title pages, while retaining the Carey copyright notes on the overleaf, through 1858. In 1846, a supplementary fourteenth volume was issued.
In 1848, John Sutter
John Sutter
Johann Augus Sutter was a Swiss pioneer of California known for his association with the California Gold Rush by the discovery of gold by James W. Marshall and the mill making team at Sutter's Mill, and for establishing Sutter's Fort in the area that would eventually become Sacramento, the...
used the set to verify the authenticity of the gold found in his mill
Sutter's Mill
Sutter's Mill was a sawmill owned by 19th century pioneer John Sutter in partnership with James W. Marshall. It was located in Coloma, California, at the bank of the South Fork American River...
, a discovery that would start the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
.
A separate "Encyclopedia Americana," published by J.M. Stoddart, was printed between 1883 and 1889, as a supplement to American reprintings of the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Stoddart's work, however, is not connected to the earlier work by Lieber.
In 1902 a new version in 16 volumes that carried over some of the old material was published under the title Encyclopedia Americana, under the editorial supervision of Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
magazine. The magazine's editor, Frederick Converse Beach
Frederick Converse Beach
Frederick Converse Beach , son of Alfred Ely Beach, was editor of the magazine Scientific American and of the new Encyclopedia Americana in the early 1900s, and an inventor of a photolithographic process. -Biography:...
, was editor-in-chief, and was said to be assisted by hundreds of eminent scholars and authorities who served as consulting editors or authors. The first publisher was R.S. Peale & Co; between 1903 and 1906 further editions were issued by the Americana Corp. and the Scientific American Compiling Department, with George Edwin Rines
George Edwin Rines
George Edwin Rines was a Canadian-born editor who grew up and worked in the United States.-Biography:...
appointed managing editor in 1903. The relationship with Scientific American was terminated in 1911. From 1907 to 1912, the work was published as The Americana.
A major new edition appeared in 1918-20 in 30 volumes, with George Edwin Rines as editor-in-chief. An Annual or Yearbook was also published each year beginning in 1923 and continuing until 2000.
The encyclopedia was purchased by Grolier
Grolier
Grolier was one of the largest U.S. publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Popular Science , Encyclopedia Americana , Academic American Encyclopedia , and numerous incarnations of The Electronic Encyclopedia .Grolier was an...
in 1945. By the 1960s sales of the Americana and its sister publications under Grolier
Grolier
Grolier was one of the largest U.S. publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Popular Science , Encyclopedia Americana , Academic American Encyclopedia , and numerous incarnations of The Electronic Encyclopedia .Grolier was an...
— The Book of Knowledge, the Book of Popular Science, and Lands and Peoples — were strong enough to support the company's occupancy of a large building (variously named the Americana Building and the Grolier Building) in Midtown Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, at 575 Lexington Avenue. Sales during this period were accomplished primarily through mail-order and door-to-door
Door-to-door
Door-to-door is a sales technique in which a salesperson walks from the door of one house to the door of another trying to sell a product or service to the general public. A variant of this involves cold calling first, when another sales representative attempts to gain agreement that a salesperson...
operations. Telemarketing
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches...
and third-party distribution through their Lexicon division added to sales volumes in the 1970s.
Later developments
In 1988 GrolierGrolier
Grolier was one of the largest U.S. publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Popular Science , Encyclopedia Americana , Academic American Encyclopedia , and numerous incarnations of The Electronic Encyclopedia .Grolier was an...
was purchased by the French media company Hachette
Hachette (publishing)
Hachette Livre, , is a French publisher, the flagship imprint of Lagardère Publishing. It was founded in 1826 by Louis Hachette as a bookshop and publishing company. Hachette has its headquarters in the 15th arrondissement of Paris....
, which owned a well-known French-language encyclopedia, the Hachette Encyclopedia. Hachette was later absorbed by the French conglomerate the Lagardère Group
Lagardère Group
Lagardère is a French-based multinational conglomerate headquartered in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The group once covered a broad range of industries but is now largely focused on the media sector, in which it is one of the world’s leading companies...
. Following the acquisition, Grolier moved its operations to Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury is a city in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had population at the 2010 census of 80,893. Danbury is the fourth largest city in Fairfield County and is the seventh largest city in Connecticut....
.
A CD-ROM version of the encyclopedia was published in 1995. Although the text and images were stored on separate disks, it was in keeping with standards current at the time. More importantly, the work had been digitized, allowing for release of an online version in 1997. Over the next few years the product was augmented with additional features, functions, supplementary references, Internet links, and current events journal. A redesigned interface and partly reengineered product, featuring enhanced search capabilities and a first-ever ADA
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009....
-compliant, text-only version for users with disabilities, was presented in 2002.
The acquisition of Grolier
Grolier
Grolier was one of the largest U.S. publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Popular Science , Encyclopedia Americana , Academic American Encyclopedia , and numerous incarnations of The Electronic Encyclopedia .Grolier was an...
by Scholastic for US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
400 million, took place in 2000. The new owners projected a 30% increase in operating income, although historically Grolier
Grolier
Grolier was one of the largest U.S. publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Popular Science , Encyclopedia Americana , Academic American Encyclopedia , and numerous incarnations of The Electronic Encyclopedia .Grolier was an...
had experienced earnings of 7% to 8% on income. Staff reductions as a means of controlling costs followed soon thereafter, even while an effort was made to augment the sales force. Cuts occurred every year between 2000 and 2007, leaving a much-depleted work force to carry out the duties of maintaining a large encyclopedia database. Scholastic, which specializes in works for the K-8 market, has sought to position the Encyclopedia Americana as a reference resource for schools. It remains to be seen whether that strategy, applied to a venerable upper-level (even adult-level) publication, will work in the long run.
Editors in Chief
- Francis LieberFrancis LieberFrancis Lieber , known as Franz Lieber in Germany, was a German-American jurist, gymnast and political philosopher. He edited an Encyclopaedia Americana...
, 1829-1833. German-American legal scholar; author of "A Code for the Government of Armies" (1863), a key document in the history of the humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war. - Frederick Converse BeachFrederick Converse BeachFrederick Converse Beach , son of Alfred Ely Beach, was editor of the magazine Scientific American and of the new Encyclopedia Americana in the early 1900s, and an inventor of a photolithographic process. -Biography:...
, 1902-1917. Engineer and editor of Scientific American magazine. - George Edwin RinesGeorge Edwin RinesGeorge Edwin Rines was a Canadian-born editor who grew up and worked in the United States.-Biography:...
, 1917-1920. Author and editor. - A. H. McDannald, 1920-1948. Reporter (Baltimore News and Baltimore Evening Sun), editor, and author.
- Lavinia P. Dudley, 1948-1964. Editor (Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Americana) and manager; first woman to head a major American reference publication.
- George A. Cornish, 1965-1970. Reporter (New York Herald Tribune) and editor.
- Bernard S. Cayne, 1970-1980. Educational researcher (Educational Testing Service, Harvard Educational Review), editor (Ginn & Co., Collier's Encyclopedia, Macmillan) and business executive (Grolier Inc.).
- Alan H. Smith, 1980-1985. Editor (Grolier/Encyclopedia Americana)
- David T. Holland, 1985-1991. Editor (Harcourt Brace, Grolier/Encyclopedia Americana).
- Mark Cummings, 1991-2000. Editor (Macmillan, Oxford University Press).
- Michael Shally-Jensen, 2000-2005. Editor (Merriam-Webster/Encyclopaedia Britannica).
- K. Anne Ranson, 2005-2006. Editor (Academic American Encyclopedia, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia).
- Joseph P. Castagno, 2006–present. Editor (Grolier/Lands and Peoples, New Book of Popular Science).
In popular culture
In the HBO series In TreatmentIn Treatment
In Treatment is an American HBO drama, produced and developed by Rodrigo Garcia, about a psychologist, 50-something Dr. Paul Weston, and his weekly sessions with patients, as well as those with his own therapist at the end of the week. The program, which stars Gabriel Byrne as Paul, debuted on...
, a set of Encyclopedia Americana sits on the shelves of psychotherapist Dr. Paul Weston's (Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
) home office.
External links
- Encyclopaedia Americana 1851 transformed to wiki.
- Text and images of the Encyclopaedia Americana 1851 at the University of Michigan's Making of America site.
- Encyclopedia Americana Description from Grolier online