IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
Noah Webster: Military and Intelligence\Soldier\Revolutionary War
Noah Webster: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Teacher
Noah Webster: Education and Scholarship\Founder\College
Noah Webster: Literature\Editor\Lexicographer
Noah Webster: Literature\Writer\Textbook writer
Noah Webster: Politics and Government\State Legislator\Massachusetts
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of William A. Ellis
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.67.31
Exhibition Label
Born West Hartford, Connecticut
Noah Webster is justly considered a polymath for his contributions to a staggering range of fields, including educational reform, antislavery advocacy, epidemiology, journalism, and copyright law. Yet he is primarily remembered as the lexicographer of the American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), whose legacy lives on in today’s Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Webster’s American Dictionary surpassed Samuel Johnson’s groundbreaking Dictionary of the English Language (1755) by documenting words, idioms, and pronunciations that were unique to the United States. He standardized the simplified spellings that still differentiate American English from British English, dropping the “u” from “colour,” for example.
Webster considered the founding of the United States an opportunity for reinvention. “Now is the time and this the country in which we may expect success in attempting changes to language, science, and government,” he wrote in 1789. “Let us then seize the present moment and establish a national language as well as a national government.”
Nacido en West Hartford, Connecticut
Noah Webster tiene merecida fama de erudite por sus aportaciones a una asombrosa variedad de disciplinas, entre ellas la reforma docente, el antiesclavismo, la epidemiología, el periodismo y la ley de derechos de autor. Sin embargo, se le recuerda sobre todo como el lexicógrafo del American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), cuyo legado perdura hoy en los diccionarios MerriamWebster. El diccionario americano de Webster sobrepasó al paradigmático diccionario de la lengua inglesa (1755) de Samuel Johnson al recoger palabras, modismos y pronunciaciones específicas de EE.UU. Webster estandarizó la ortografía simplificada que aún distingue al inglés americano del británico, por ejemplo, omitiendo la “u” de “colour”.
Webster vio en la fundación de Estados Unidos una oportunidad para la reinvención. En 1789 escribió: “Ahora es el momento y este es el país en que podemos aspirar a cambiar con éxito el lenguaje, la ciencia y el gobierno. Aprovechemos la hora presente y establezcamos un lenguaje nacional así como un gobierno nacional”.
Provenance
William A. Ellis, Bloomfield, New Jersey[ d. 1966]; gift 1967 of his estate to NPG.
