Dobson's Encyclopædia
Encyclopedia
Dobson's Encyclopædia was the first encyclopedia
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....

 published in the newly independent United States of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, by Thomas Dobson from 1789–1798. Most of Dobson's Encyclopædia is a copy of the contemporary 3rd edition
Encyclopædia Britannica Third Edition
The Encyclopædia Britannica Third Edition is an 18-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's earliest period as a two-man operation founded by Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, in Edinburgh, Scotland...

 of the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

(published 1788–1797), although Dobson's Encyclopædia was a somewhat longer work in which many articles were re-written for a patriotic American audience. For example, the term Britannica was dropped from the title, the dedication to King George III
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

 was omitted, and sundry facts about American history, geography and peoples were added. Its price was only one-third that of the Britannica. It had many illustrious owners such as George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

, Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr, Jr. was an important political figure in the early history of the United States of America. After serving as a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War, Burr became a successful lawyer and politician...

 and Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...

. By the time of Dobson's death in 1823, however, it was outdated; it was eventually overshadowed by the first edition of Encyclopedia Americana
Encyclopedia Americana
Encyclopedia Americana is one of the largest general encyclopedias in the English language. Following the acquisition of Grolier in 2000, the encyclopedia has been produced by Scholastic....

(1829-1833).

Subscription sales

Dobson did not approve of 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...

 sales, which had been used by his contemporary, Parson Weems
Parson Weems
Mason Locke Weems , generally known as Parson Weems, was an American book agent and author. He is best known as the source of some of the apocryphal stories about George Washington...

, to sell William Guthrie
William Guthrie
William Douglas Guthrie is a professional boxer in the cruiserweight division.-Early life:...

's New System of Modern Geography and Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...

's History of the earth and Animated Nature. The door-to-door approach also seemed impractical, given the Encyclopædia's price and the long printing time (nine years). Instead, Dobson conducted an all-out advertising blitz, unlike any before seen in North America, to secure subscriptions; his advertisements appeared in newspapers, on magazine wrappers, in spare book leaves, and in pamphlets distributed to all the major book-sellers of his day. Dobson also appealed strongly to the patriotic pride of the newly independent Americans; he used only American materials and craftspeople and his announcement of the first "American" encyclopedia was timed to agree with George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

's selection as the first President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...

 under the new Constitution. His first advertisements appeared on 31 March 1789 in three newspapers: the Pennsylvania Mercury, the Pennsylvania Packet, and the Federal Gazette.

Printing

Like the Britannica, Dobson's Encyclopædia was published in weekly numbers, which could be then bound into volumes or half-volume parts. The price of each number was "one quarter of a dollar". The first weekly number was published on 2 January 1790, followed the next week by the second number. Dobson continued his regular printings until a fire destroyed his business and stock on an early Sunday morning, 8 September 1793; the heat of the fire was sufficient to melt much of his metal print parts. Undaunted, Dobson returned to printing his Encyclopædia within a month.

Editorial difficulties

Dobson encountered some editorial difficulties as well, most notably on the essay concerning Quakers in Volume 15, which roused some indignation in Philadelphia, the home of many Quakers. Dobson merely reprinted an offensive article from the Britannica, which had been written by George Gleig
George Gleig
George Gleig was a Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.He was born at Boghall, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of a farmer. At the age of thirteen he entered King's College, University of Aberdeen, where the first prize in mathematics and physical and moral sciences fell to him...

 (soon to be Bishop of Brechin), without checking it for accuracy. A devout Anglican, Gleig allowed himself to be contemptuously biased against George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...

, the founder of the Quakers. Dobson met this challenge by meeting with the Quakers and printing a rebuttal essay in defense of George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...

's character. The Quaker's enlightened approaches to race relations and other social issues are often noted and praised throughout the Encyclopædia.

Comparison with the Britannica's 3rd edition

Most of Dobson's Encyclopædia is a copy of the 3rd edition of the Britannica. The chief exceptions can be found in the articles dealing with American geography, most notably Philadelphia and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, and American history, such as the surrender of the British in the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

.

In addition to Dobson himself, Jedidiah Morse
Jedidiah Morse
Jedidiah Morse was a notable geographer whose textbooks became a staple for students in the United States. He was the father of Samuel F. B. Morse, the man who developed Morse code.-Early life and education:...

, the father of American geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, made significant contributions; for example, he defended the status of women among the Native American peoples
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

, which had been called "slavish" by the Britannica's editors, most likely James Tytler
James Tytler
James Tytler was a Scottish apothecary and the editor of the second edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. Tytler became the first person in Britain to steer a hot air balloon ....

:
Morse also disputed the view of the Britannica that the skins and skulls of Indians are "thicker than the skins and skulls of many other nations of mankind".

It is likely that there were other contributors to Dobson's Encyclopædia, but their names are unknown.

The Supplement

In 1803, Dobson published a three-volume supplement to match and surpass the two-volume supplement published by the Britannica in 1801. The Supplement was more independent and more accurate than the main encyclopedia had been, but sales were relatively poor. One notable article is "Pneumatics", which correctly defends Count Rumford's
Benjamin Thompson
Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford , FRS was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th century revolution in thermodynamics. He also served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Loyalist forces in America during the American...

 conclusion that water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

 is a relatively poor conductor of heat
Heat
In physics and thermodynamics, heat is energy transferred from one body, region, or thermodynamic system to another due to thermal contact or thermal radiation when the systems are at different temperatures. It is often described as one of the fundamental processes of energy transfer between...

, which had been criticized by an important Britannica contributor, Dr. Thomas Thomason of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

.

Competition

Dobson's Encyclopædia encountered significant competition from his rival printer, Samuel F. Bradford of Philadelphia, who proposed in 1805 to reprint Abraham Rees
Abraham Rees
Abraham Rees was a Welsh nonconformist minister, and compiler of Rees's Cyclopaedia .- Life :He was the second son of Lewis Rees, by his wife Esther, daughter of Abraham Penry, and was born at born in Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire. Lewis Rees Abraham Rees (1743 – 9 June 1825) was a Welsh...

' New Cyclopaedia with American amendments. The 44-volume British original first began to appear in London in January 1803, but was not completed until 1820; the 47-volume American reprint was not completed until 1822. Not only did the project drive Bradford bankrupt, it also drove his successor bankrupt, the firm of Murray, Draper, Fairman and Company. Dobson was vulnerable to competition due to three factors: his encyclopedia was beginning to be outdated, it had relatively few biographies of Americans, and his engravings were of mediocre quality. Dobson and his son Judah eventually went out of business in 1822; Dobson himself died on 9 March 1823.

A more successful encyclopedia following Dobson's was the 13-volume Encyclopedia Americana
Encyclopedia Americana
Encyclopedia Americana is one of the largest general encyclopedias in the English language. Following the acquisition of Grolier in 2000, the encyclopedia has been produced by Scholastic....

, which was published 1829-1833 by Francis Lieber
Francis Lieber
Francis Lieber , known as Franz Lieber in Germany, was a German-American jurist, gymnast and political philosopher. He edited an Encyclopaedia Americana...

. The Encyclopedia Americana was based on Brockhaus
Brockhaus
Brockhaus may refer to:* Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus , German encyclopedia publisher and editor** Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, German-language encyclopedia**Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, Russian-language encyclopedia...

' Conversations-Lexikon but added significant new material. Given the relative paucity of Dobson's additions to the Britannica, it seems fair to call the Americana the first truly American encyclopedia.

See also

  • Thomas Dobson
  • List of encyclopedias
  • History of the Encyclopædia Britannica
    History of the Encyclopædia Britannica
    The Encyclopædia Britannica has been published continuously since 1768, appearing in 15 official editions. Several editions have been amended with multi-volume "supplements" or undergone drastic re-organizations . In recent years, digital versions of the Britannica have been developed, both online...


Encyclopedic reference

Well-researched with exhaustive citations to primary sources, this is the authoritative source on all matters pertaining to Dobson's Encyclopædia.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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